Renaming Title field in SharePoint Lists from Schema.XML

Renaming Title field in SharePoint Lists from Schema.XML

May 16th, 2006 // 5:05 pm @

One of my colleagues asked me how to replace the title field in a SharePoint list with his own field and get the standard dropdown on that field. From my experience I have found that the title and id fields are very tightly intervoven with the SharePoint lists. It is easier to just change the display name of the Title field to whatever suits your needs.


If you open the standard schema.xml for any list, you will not find any definition for the title field. But still all lists contain that field. This definition comes from the onet.xml. It is not advisable to modify the onet.xml. However it is possible to modify the base field properties by simply overriding them in your schema.xml file. Just copy the definition, paste it in the fields section of your schema.xml, change the DisplayName to what you like, and add an attribute FromBaseType=”TRUE”. This will allow you to modify the way the base types work from your schema.xml.


Update: The title field actually displayed on the all items view is a calculated field called LinkTitle. This field is tied to the dropdown menu when you hover over the Title.


Category : SharePoint

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