Hiding / Removing Menu and Menu items in SharePoint

Hi All,

Today we are going to discuss something on tool bar action. We all know that we get toolbar where we have New menu, action menu available when we are in AllItems.aspx.

Let us see how we can remove the toolbar specific item, means sometime we may require removing NewMenu and sometimes we may want to remove ActionMenu or even from Settings menu, then here is a way we can do this.

We can also hide specific item from New Menu, Action Menu or Settings menu. First we need to iterate through all controls on AllItems.aspx and once we find the specific menu we are looking for, then we can cast that control in to specific menu and then call visible method to set it to true and false.

First let me give you a highlight on what are these classes.

Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.NewMenu
Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.ActionsMenu
Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.SettingsMenu

So to demonstrate, go ahead and create one class which inherit from web part class and write down the following code in createchildcontrol event. Deploy it on your site and edit the AllItems page that you want to work with and add the webpart above AllItems web part (form web part).

protected override void CreateChildControls()
{
foreach (Control ctrl in this.Page.Controls)
{
CheckControl(ctrl);
}
base.CreateChildControls();
}

Now, in this code we will check each control on the page and once we find our required control, then we will cast that control and set the visible property.

private void CheckControl(Control ParentControl)
{
try
{
foreach (Control childControl in ParentControl.Controls)
{

if (childControl.ToString().ToUpper() == "Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.NewMenu".ToUpper())
{
NewMenu Menu = (NewMenu)childControl;
Menu.Visible = false;

if (Menu.GetMenuItem("NewFolder") != null)
Menu.GetMenuItem("NewFolder").Visible = false;
break;
}
CheckControl(childControl);
}
}
}

Above code will iterate all controls till it finds the New Menu and once it gets the New Menu, we cast the control in the NewMenu class object and set its property to false, means we cannot see NewMenu.

Below figure shows the result of above code.



Same way, if we run the below code

foreach (Control childControl in ParentControl.Controls)
{

if (childControl.ToString().ToUpper() == "Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.ActionsMenu".ToUpper())
{

ActionsMenu Menu = (ActionsMenu)childControl;
Menu.Visible = false;
break;
}
CheckControl(childControl);
}

Then, you can see the result as shown in the below screen



Similarly, if you write the below code,

foreach (Control childControl in ParentControl.Controls)
{

if (childControl.ToString().ToUpper() == "Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.SettingsMenu".ToUpper())
{
SettingsMenu Menu = (SettingsMenu)childControl;
Menu.Visible = false;
break;
}
CheckControl(childControl);
}

Then, you can see the result as shown in the below screen.



Ok, let us proceed. From the List Settings option, I have enabled to new folder option.



So ideally you will find New Folder option when you click in New from the tool bar. However if you write the following code, then it will hide the New Folder option.

foreach (Control childControl in ParentControl.Controls)
{

if (childControl.ToString().ToUpper() == "Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.NewMenu".ToUpper())
{
NewMenu Menu = (NewMenu)childControl;
Menu.Visible = true;

if (Menu.GetMenuItem("NewFolder") != null)
Menu.GetMenuItem("NewFolder").Visible = false;
break;
}
CheckControl(childControl);
}

Ok, same goes for the other menu items in the other menu as well. For example, let’s remove the Alert Me option from Actions menu. Question is how to do that? In above example, we used NewFolder as MenuItem and found it. But what needs to be passed as parameter in GetMenuItem method?

Let me give you a wonderful trick. Even I was not aware about this. I worked on it and find out that it’s the ID of the MenuItem. Where to find that ID, I’ll tell you how I found it. See the below figure. Once, you come in the IF condition of your menu option, set a break point and then observe the following red circle marks. This is the Menu.GetDesignTimeHTML() method that you can check in local window or immediate window. I have taken this HTML after my debug point crossed the code that makes “Alert Me” visible false, that is the reason you cannot find Alert Me text here. If you observe this HTML before the code gets execute from that point, you will be able to see that as well.



Use the ID of the menu item in code. Just remember avoid everything including _ character in the ID and take the rest of all character and pass it to the GetMenuItem method.

And now see the below code

foreach (Control childControl in ParentControl.Controls)
{

if (childControl.ToString().ToUpper() == "Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.ActionsMenu".ToUpper())
{

ActionsMenu Menu = (ActionsMenu)childControl;
Menu.Visible = true;

if (Menu.GetMenuItem("SubscribeButton") != null)
Menu.GetMenuItem("SubscribeButton").Visible = false;

break;
}
CheckControl(childControl);
}

So, from where I come to know that I have to pass “SubscribeButton” as parameter? Yes, its from the designtimHTML. Once you get all the code, then you can use it.

So after executing the above code, see the result below.” Alert me” menu item is not there in Actions menu.



So if I want to hide View RSs Feed, I will use the ID “ViewRSS” and run the code and I will get the result. (Check the red circle in the DesigntimeHTML figure).

foreach (Control childControl in ParentControl.Controls)
{

if (childControl.ToString().ToUpper() == "Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.ActionsMenu".ToUpper())
{

ActionsMenu Menu = (ActionsMenu)childControl;
Menu.Visible = true;

if (Menu.GetMenuItem("ViewRSS") != null)
Menu.GetMenuItem("ViewRSS").Visible = false;

break;
}
CheckControl(childControl);
}

Same way you can check the DesignTimeHTML for Settings menu and play with the MenuItem under Settings Menu.

Hope you’ve liked my research. Thank you in advance. :)