This is a rather simple issue, but an issue none the less. It has been covered a few times before:
- http://mekalikot.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-to-remove-blank-comments-on-append.html – this works, but not with Outlook
- http://www.sharepointboost.com/discussioncolumn.html – a custom columm solution, I guess this works, but no need to pay for it
- http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/sharepointdevelopment/thread/8720da57-c92c-47b8-a48e-43c3e907db6e – This post gives a generic answer, but not the specifics, below you'll find the specifics!
The issue is that it creates a blank comment every time someone edits a versioned list item. The reason is that it *IS* actually adding text but it is an empty DIV tag:
<DIV></DIV>
When you set the column to be plain text, it doesn't add this empty DIV tag. Ok, so just change to plain text and everyone is happy right? Not quite. When users connect to the list via the Outlook option, you get a very nasty set of HTML saved to the column (even in Plain text mode):
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="MS Exchange Server version 08.01.0240.003">
<TITLE></TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<!– Converted from text/plain format –>
</BODY>
</HTML>
Here's what you do in the event receiver to get rid of all this mess and have it work wether it is Plain Text or Rich Text:
class ContosoEventReceiverAppendChanges : SPItemEventReceiver
{
public override void ItemUpdating(SPItemEventProperties properties)
{
base.ItemUpdating(properties);
Hashtable ht = new Hashtable();
foreach (DictionaryEntry o in properties.AfterProperties)
{
if (o.Value.ToString() == "<DIV></DIV>" || o.Value.ToString().Contains("<BODY> <!– Converted from text/plain format –> </BODY>"))
{
ht.Add(o.Key, o.Key);|
}
}
foreach (string key in ht.Keys)
{
properties.AfterProperties[key] = "";
}}}
Powershell to deploy it:
$web = get-spweb http://sharepoint.contoso.com
$list = $web.lists["TaskTest"]
$def = $list.EventReceivers.add()
$def.Assembly = "Contoso.Common, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=Neutral, PublicKeyToken=a61cba8dcde3eaaa";
$def.Class = "Contoso.Common.ConotosEventReceiverAppendChanges";
$def.Name = "ItemUpdated Event";
$def.Type = [Microsoft.SharePoint.SPEventReceiverTy
pe]::ItemUpdating;
$def.SequenceNumber = 1000;
$def.Synchronization = [Microsoft.SharePoint.SPEventReceiverSynchronization]::Synchronous;
$def.Update();
$web.dispose()
Enjoy,
Chris
Follow me on twitter: @givenscj
Check out the previous blog post:
https://blogs.architectingconnectedsystems.com/blogs/cjg/archive/2012/05/30/Project-Server-2010-_2D00_-Moving-Project-Sites-and-deleting-the-old-PWA-causes-issues.aspx