FlexListViewer-webpart: display lists of other sites without using FrontPage

Displaying the contents of a list that resides in a different site, is not a standard out-of-the-box feature of both WSS v2 and SPS 2003. It can however be accomplished in several ways:

• Use FrontPage to add a DataViewer-webpart. Although it’s a standard SharePoint-webpart, the only way to use it on a page and configure it, is by using FrontPage. Jan Tielens explains this is his article. Biggest disadvantage of this method is that the page you edited using FrontPage gets unghosted. You can read more this effect in this MSDN-article. Todd Bleeker published a list of the biggest disadvantages of unghosted pages.
  >> A small trick to get around this problem is to use FrontPage to add the DataViewer-webpart to a temporary (test) page, export the webpart by using the Export-function of the webpart’s menu, delete the temporary page and import the exported webpart (dwp) to the page you needed to see the list.
  
• Use a third-party webpart that has similar functionality as the DataView-webpart, but doesn’t require the use of an editor as FrontPage to add it to the page. There are several manufacturers that provide this type of webpart like CorasWorks and BrightWorks, but there are also some free (usually less advanced and less easy to configure) webparts, like Carlos Sanz’s csegRollUp.
  
• Use the FlexListViewer-webpart!

FlexListViewer-webpart is able to display any type of list and can be easily configured, just by configuring the address of a view of the list.

Features:

• Easy configuration
  Displays the contents of a view on a list. Therefore the columns to be displayed, filtering and sorting can be configured on the view itself, using the standard SharePoint-screens, everyone is already accustomed with. All that needs to be configured is the URL of the view of the list.
  
  
• Fast
  Uses the SharePoint objectmodel instead of the SharePoint webservices, which makes it just as fast as a local list (part of current site) that is displayed on a page.
  
• Customizable
  The HTML that is displayed is rendered using an stylesheet (Xslt). By customizing the standard stylesheet or specifying a different stylesheet, the way the list is displayed can be completely customized.

There is however one important restriction: The list to be displayed must be part of a site that resides on the same SharePoint-installation (any virtual server or site collection, as long as it’s on the same server/farm).

FlexListViewer can be downloaded >>here<<!  (updated version: may 10th ’06 – v1.6!)

Other posts about FlexListViewer:

• FlexListViewer-webpart update: support for LookUp-fields
  
• Custom formatting for SharePoint lists using FlexListViewer-webpart
  
• FlexListViewer webpart update: better support for optional and percentage fields
  
• FlexListViewer for MOSS 2007 / WSS v3

Robert te Kaat