Contact List in SharePoint 2010 Programmatically Using VS 2010

Introduction

Today, in this article let's play around with one of the interesting and most useful concepts in SharePoint 2010.

Question: What is a contact list?

In simple terms "A SharePoint contacts list can help a team maintain contact information for people they may need to reach. This could include other clients, or vendors, etc. The contacts list, as shown below, contains a single view called All Contacts, which by default displays the last name, first name, company, business phone, home phone, and email address of each contact".

I think we are now good to go and implement this wonderful concept.

Step 1: Create a custom list and modify the view

Step 2: Open SharePoint 2010 Central Administration and navigate to a specific site.

Step 3: Open up Visual Studio 2010 and create an "Empty SharePoint project":

Step 4: Select "Deploy as a farm solution" and click on the "Finish" button. Now an empty project will be created.

Output2.1.jpg

Step 5: Add a new visual webpart for that project.

Step 6: The complete code of visualwebpart1usercontrol.ascx looks like this:

<%@ Assembly Name="$SharePoint.Project.AssemblyFullName$" %>

<%@ Assembly Name="Microsoft.Web.CommandUI, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>

<%@ Register TagPrefix="SharePoint" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls"

Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>

<%@ Register TagPrefix="Utilities" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>

<%@ Register TagPrefix="asp" Namespace="System.Web.UI" Assembly="System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" %>

<%@ Import Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint" %>

<%@ Register TagPrefix="WebPartPages" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages"

Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>

<%@ Control Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="ContactWebPartUserControl.ascx.cs"

Inherits="SharePointContact.ContactWebPart.ContactWebPartUserControl" %>

<tr>

<asp:label id="Label1" runat="server" text="Contact List Creation - SharePoint 2010 via Visual Studio"

font-bold="true" forecolor="Maroon" font-size="Large"></asp:label>

</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>

<asp:label id="Label2" runat="server" text="Please Enter Contact List Name:"></asp:label>

</td>

<td>

<asp:textbox id="TextBox1" runat="server"></asp:textbox>

</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>

<asp:label id="Label3" runat="server" text="Please Enter Description:"></asp:label>

</td>

<td>

<asp:textbox id="TextBox2" runat="server"></asp:textbox>

</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<asp:button id="Button1" runat="server" text="Create" forecolor="Orange" font-bold="true"

backcolor="Black" onclick="Button1_Click" width="116px" />

</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<asp:label id="Label4" runat="server" font-bold="true"></asp:label>

</td>

</tr>

</table>

</div>

Step 7: The complete code of visualwebpart1usercontrol.ascx.cs looks like this:

using System;

using System.Web.UI;

using System.Web.UI.WebControls;

using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;

using Microsoft.SharePoint;

namespace SharePointContact.ContactWebPart

{

publicpartial classContactWebPartUserControl :UserControl

{

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

TextBox1.Focus();

}

protected void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(TextBox1.Text) ||string.IsNullOrEmpty(TextBox2.Text))

{

Label4.Text ="Please Enter Name and Description to Create";

Label4.ForeColor = System.Drawing.Color.Red;

}

else

{

SPSite site = SPContext.Current.Site;

SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb()as SPWeb;

web.AllowUnsafeUpdates =true;

Guid id = web.Lists.Add(TextBox1.Text, TextBox2.Text, SPListTemplateType.Contacts);

SPList listdoc = web.Lists[id];

listdoc.OnQuickLaunch =true;

listdoc.Update();

web.AllowUnsafeUpdates =false; web.Dispose();

web.Dispose();

Label4.ForeColor = System.Drawing.Color.Green;

Label4.Text = TextBox1.Text + " Contact List is created successfully";

TextBox1.Text =string.Empty;

TextBox2.Text =string.Empty;

}

Step 8: Deploy the solution file and add the created webpart to a SharePoint site.