Need dropdown menu for item in column of new Web Part

Question

I've given a client several Office docs they will disseminate to their clients.

They created a new Webpart to group them together.

Now there's an issue. There is no dropdown or combobox item list when they hover over the links like there is with the other webpart.

I presume this is just a settings change they need to make, but my knowledge of Sharepoint is nil.

Does anyone know how to change a column so that when the user hover's over an item in that column, it displays the default SharePoint menu options. (e.g. Check Out/Check In etc.)

See image for more details.

Answer 1

The dropdown you are referring to is the Edit Control Block (or ECB). If you're working in SharePoint 2007, you cannot simply add it to an existing column. Instead, a separate column must be used for this purpose.

SharePoint 2007 comes with two such columns, one for Document Libraries and one for all other lists. You can specify these in a specific list view, they are Name (linked to document with edit menu) and Title (linked to item with edit menu) respectively. After assigning those to the list view, then just modify the web part to use that list view, and presto, you have your ECB.

If you are using SharePoint 2010, then I believe there is a setting to actually add the ECB to any column.