SharePoint (and Project Server) Shenanigans

As part of the new features of SharePoint 2016 On-Premise there are some bold promises that have been causing issues with my customers for a long time that are supposedly fixed.

I intend to create some post that tries out these known limitations and see the results.

For this, I have created a standard Team Site out of the box and not turned on any features that are not turned on by default (yet…).

Here is a quick summary of what I shall be looking at for the next set of posts:

1. Document Library Accessibility (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Mt346121(v=Office.16).aspx#doclib)
2. Durable Links
3. File names – expanded support for Special Characters (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Mt346121(v=Office.16).aspx#file)
4. Image and Video Previews within a document library (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Mt346121(v=Office.16).aspx#preview)
5. Large file support (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Mt346121(v=Office.16).aspx#largefile)
6. Open Document Format (ODF) support (https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Set-Open-Document-Format-ODF-as-the-default-file-template-for-a-library-bf30a61d-1601-486e-8fa2-924bc5ea303e)

That’s quite a lot for a single post, so this may end up being a multi part situation, but you have probably already gathered, I tend to write these blogs as I try things out.  So without further ado…

1. Document Library Accessibility

For this test I am using the standard Shared Documents, document library that is created with the team site by default.

Accessibility it always a hot topic for me as I used to work a lot in the education and charity / not for profit sectors when I was back in the UK.  Accessibility mattered especially when working with the blind.

Keyboard shortcuts are provided for the following document tasks according to the documentation provided by Microsoft.  Let’s give them a go:

• Alt + N – New – This worked with no issues and in a standard document library, I got the Upload Document dialog.  This is dependent on the behavior of the default content type on the library.  (Site Pages creates a new Wiki Page for example)
• Standard Document Library Example:

• Site Pages Example:

• Alt + E – Edit – In IE11, I could not get this to work as it kept invoking the edit menu in the browser.  Tried CTRL + E, CTRL + Alt + E with a document selected and not selected but to no avail.
• Alt + U – Upload – Same functionality as Alt + N in the Shared Document library.  Under the Site Pages library, it activated the upload dialogue.  So it is slightly different.
• Alt + M – Manage
• Alt + S – Share  – Either having a document selected or not, this always highlighted and set focus on the Search Box for me
• Alt + Y – Synchronization – Opened the One Drive for Business web dialog to start the sync
• Sync Example:

This is the Technical Preview, so maybe it will change with the full release or perhaps I am not doing something right.  These tests were carried out with Accessibility mode turned on and off.  The results were the same in both cases.

So I have had this post going on an off for a couple of days now, so it will definitely be multi part.  Let’s get this one out there and we will work on Durable Links next time around.

Till the next time…