Change browser levels in Sharepoint.

Question

I have a very peculiar problem. I had written some custom columns for SharePoint.

Recently, I found these custom columns break when I group the list items in SharePoint.

Now the problem is peculiar because, these custom columns work perfectly in FireFox browsers, they break only in IE!

After googling around for browser compatiblity issues in SharePoint, I found that SharePoint classifies the supported browsers into browser levels.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263526.aspx

According to that article, IE is a Level 1 browser, while Firefox is a level 2 browser.

How does SharePoint detect the browser levels? Using the user agent headers?

Is there any way I can change this browser level only for a that particular page? I need to demote this particular page request to Level 2, so that IE is served up pages which are meant for FireFox.

Can this problem be solved using javascript? If so, I can write a content editor webpart which will load that script at page load...

If this problem can be solved using a SharePoint object model, I can write a hidden webpart which will force the page to be served up in firefox compatiblity mode.

Answer 1

SharePoint doesn't detect the browser to display lists. The Level 1, Level 2, etc.. browser groupings mean what browsers the rendered output from SharePoint is designed for. Internet Explorer (provided it's at least 6.0) will work find to render the content.

More likely there is a problem in your custom columns that is causing the break. Are you able to update your question with the XML you are using to define them?

(As an aside, I've also seen this happen with a plain out-of-the-box list which I updated using Excel. Using the grouping functionality caused JavaScript errors. Not happy.)