Friday, January 11, 2008

SharePoint V3: Content Type Cons

Ok, so I have spent the last week recreating a SharePoint business application and corresponding Records Center because there still isn't a post SP1 hotfix for the MOSS2007/ContentTypes/Office 2003 compatibility issue.

One thing I did learn in this process is that if you are trying to work around this issue, then removing content types from your libraries is not the way to go. If you disable content types from your document libraries, you will still get the IE script error. You actually have to create new document libraries and leave content types disabled. This means adding site columns directly to the libraries. It also means recreating all the views.

I guess the silver lining to going no content types is at least you are able to template your libraries again. I'm beginning to shift my opinion about content types. They still sound great in a whiteboard design session, but in my recent experiences, they are more trouble than they are worth.

Content Types Cons:
* Cause document libraries to be incompatible with Office 2003
* In a sense, invalidate (or at least limit) document library templates in a multi site collection environment because templates taken are dependant on Content Type which are tied to site collection
* Allow datasheet view users to apply meta data to metadata columns that don't exist
* Are not securable (as sites, web parts, items are)

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