Get or set the content type of a list item programmatically

Keith asked my last week, how you can get the content type of a list item. It's quite easy:

First you have the get the Guid of the field "ContentType". With this Guid you can access the properties bag of an instance of a SPListItem. There the content type is stored as a string.

SPListItem item = ...
Guid fieldGuid = item.Fields.GetFieldByInternalName("ContentType").Id;
item[fieldGuid] = "Document";
item.Update();

WebPartZone Adapter

Some weeks ago, the Accessibility Kit for SharePoint (AKS) was released. Unfortunately the AKS didn't solve all our problems. If you try to build a public website with Micorsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) and pay attention to a clean structure of your HTML code (say: no table), perhaps this piece of code you help you!

When you place WebParts on your public website, then these WebParts are rendered in a HTML TABLE. This is because WebParts are placed in a WebPartZone and these are rendered with tables.

This behavior can be fixed with a ControlAdapter. Our ControlAdapter render the WebPartZone in a HTML DIV, if the user (logged-in or anonymous) is viewing the page. If the author edits the page, then the WebPartZone is rendered the "traditional" way. With this trick, we have a clean and modern HTML structure and the author have still all the (drag&drop-) functionality while editing the page.

Copy the following C# code in a file called AKS_WebPartZone_Adapter.cs and place it in the AppCode directory under your server root directory (like C:\Inetpub\wwwroot or C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\80).

<br />using System;<br />using System.Data;<br />using System.Configuration;<br />using System.Web;<br />using System.Web.Security;<br />using System.Web.UI;<br />using System.Web.UI.WebControls;<br />using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;<br />using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls;<br />using System.Text;<br />using System.IO;<br />using Microsoft.SharePoint;<br />using Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages;<br /><br />/// <summary><br />/// WebPartZone Adapter<br />///<br />/// Created by David Schneider<br />/// http://blog.sharepoint.ch<br />///<br />/// Based on AKS<br />/// </summary><br /><br />namespace AKSAdapters<br />{<br /> public class AKS_WebPartZone_Adapter : System.Web.UI.Adapters.ControlAdapter<br /> {<br /> protected override void Render(HtmlTextWriter writer)<br /> {<br /> bool inEditMode = false;<br /> System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebPartZone wpz = Control as System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebPartZone;<br /> if (wpz != null)<br /> {<br /> SPWebPartManager swpm = (SPWebPartManager)SPWebPartManager.GetCurrentWebPartManager(wpz.Page);<br /> inEditMode = !swpm.GetDisplayMode().AllowPageDesign;<br /> }<br /> if (inEditMode)<br /> {<br /> // Render the WebPartZone<br /> writer.Indent++;<br /> writer.AddAttribute(HtmlTextWriterAttribute.Id, wpz.ID);<br /> if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(wpz.CssClass))<br /> {<br /> writer.AddAttribute(HtmlTextWriterAttribute.Class, wpz.CssClass);<br /> }<br /> if (wpz.LayoutOrientation == System.Web.UI.WebControls.Orientation.Horizontal)<br /> {<br /> writer.AddAttribute(HtmlTextWriterAttribute.Class, "AspNet-WebPartZone-Horizontal");<br /> }<br /> else if (wpz.LayoutOrientation == System.Web.UI.WebControls.Orientation.Vertical)<br /> {<br /> writer.AddAttribute(HtmlTextWriterAttribute.Class, "AspNet-WebPartZone-Vertical");<br /> }<br /> writer.RenderBeginTag(HtmlTextWriterTag.Div);<br /> writer.Indent++;<br /> <br /> // Render the web parts<br /> if (wpz.WebParts.Count > 0)<br /> {<br /> WebPartCollection wpColl = new WebPartCollection(wpz.WebParts);<br /><br /> foreach (System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebPart wp in wpColl)<br /> {<br /> writer.WriteLine();<br /> writer.AddAttribute(HtmlTextWriterAttribute.Class, "AspNet-WebPart");<br /> writer.RenderBeginTag(HtmlTextWriterTag.Div);<br /><br /> wp.RenderControl(writer);<br /> writer.RenderEndTag(); // Div<br /> writer.Indent++;<br /> }<br /> }<br /> writer.RenderEndTag(); // Div<br /><br /> writer.Indent--;<br /> writer.WriteLine();<br /> }<br /> else<br /> {<br /> // If we are editing the page --> render the web part as usual.<br /> base.Render(writer);<br /> }<br /> }<br /> }<br />}<br />
Now you have to edit the compat.browser file which in the AppBrowser directory located in your server directory and add the following piece of code after the opening tag:

<browser refID="Default">
<controlAdapters>
<adapter controlType="System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebPartZone"
adapterType="AKSAdapters.AKS_WebPartZone_Adapter" />
</controlAdapters>
</browser>