SharePoint Document Library in modern look

This post shares my first experience of SharePoint Document Library in modern look

Microsoft rolled out new modern look and feel for office 365 environment for the first release users. And its gets updated to those users before the broad release. During the roll-out, I have received that update to my trail account.

So, here I want to share my experience with everyone and in my previous post “SharePoint site contents in modern look “ I have summarized the different sections in Site Contents page. The same way in this post, we are going to see the different sections available in Document Library view page.

The new modern look provides lot of Users Friendly options like edit item, new field creation, manage column in views, etc… in a single page instead of navigating between different pages,

Modern SharePoint Document Library
Figure 1: Modern SharePoint Document Library

In a new look, Document Library view is categorized in to below sections,

Common Sections:

  • Top Bar
  • Search Box
  • Quick Launch
  • Top Navigation
  • Header

Page Specific Sections:

  • Command Bar
  • Breadcrumb Bar
  • List Contents
  • Detail Pane

 

SharePoint Library sections
Figure 2: SharePoint Library sections

The common sections are same place holders as similar to previous versions. So here I’ll only summarize the Document Library view sections.

Command Bar

Command bar is a new feature in SharePoint modern UI experience and this command bar is a replacement for Ribbon interface used in previous SharePoint Versions.

This command bar contains the links / buttons used to do different options like

  • Creating a new document or folder
  • Copying a file
  • Moving a file
  • Switch view format b/w tabular & tile
  • Etc…

The below screenshot shows the updated commands in command bar for the folder selection.

Command bar for folder selection
Figure 3: Command bar for folder selection

Commands or links with in this command bar dynamically changes based on the user selection in List Contents section.

Breadcrumb Bar

Breadcrumb bar is updated in new UI. It shows header (Library Name) in top view and in sub folder, it hides the header information and shows the breadcrumb navigation based on the folder selection.

Breadcrumb Bar for sub folder
Figure 4: Breadcrumb Bar for sub folder

List Contents

The UI for displaying the contents to the library is lot more changed. There is no use of XSLT List View web part or Data Form web part. For now, rendering the contents to the list by using the combination of knockout js and react js frameworks (This may change in future).

List Contents section with Contextual Menu
Figure 5: List Contents section with Contextual Menu

The selection of items and context menu structure is updated with new UI and it provides the better user experience.

Details Pane

List Contents and Info Pane sections are available in a single container and based on the selection of item, the right pane area expanded and shows the details pane on right to the List Contents section.

The details pane section gets visible based on the user section on hasPayLoad command item from Command Bar.

Details Pane for the selected file
Figure 6: Details Pane for the selected file

The Detail Pane shows the five type of information,

  • Preview – Preview image of the selected item
  • Properties – User can view / update the property for the selected item
  • Recent Activity – Lists the recent activities happened on the selected item
  • Sharing – Manage the permissions for the selected item
  • Information – Summary information about the file

The number of interactions happened between all sections based on any item selection. For example, Right-click on List Contents section opens a context menu for the list. The total number of selections gets dynamically changes in Command bar, etc…

I’ll cover more information in upcoming posts. Happy learning :)

Shantha Kumar
Shantha Kumar
Articles: 278