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Generic Item Widget

Written by Luke Shuck | Oct 10, 2025 1:47:15 PM

Purpose

The Generic Item Widget is a flexible widget which can work with any content type (list structure) to retrieve data for a single list item that is then passed to a View to render on the site.  The following is just one example of a component found in the OOTB Digital Workplace which uses the Generic Item Widget.

 

Features

  • The GenericItem widget returns a single content item from the specified list
  • The column data returned for that item can be specified on an instance basis
  • The GenericItem widget can work with any list and is not dependent on a specific content type
  • As a flexible content data retrieval widget, many views can be associated with the widget to provide flexible rendering of the data elements on the site.  The New Detail item above is just one example of a view that can be associated with the GenericItems widget.

Note: The Generic Item Widget is often used to display News or Announcement Items on a page using the Friendly URL functionality.  For more details on setting up the Friendly URL capability see Creating and Managing Friendly URLs

Details

    • Widget Name: GenericItemWidget 
    • Available With:  Release 4.1 and Above
    • Content App Type: N/A
    • Content Type:  Author 
    • Content App Name: N/A
    • List Name:  N/A 
    • Recommended Images Sizes:  N/A 
    • Dependencies:  SharePoint

Content

N/A

Properties

isroot If false, the list which contains the data for this instance is on the current site.

If true, the list which contains the data is on the root of the Site Collection.
selectfields The data fields (columns) from the SharePoint list that the widget should retrieve for use in this instance.

For this example, the selectfields = AnnouncementTitle,Image,Start_x0020_Date,Body
list name Name of the SharePoint list that contains the data to be displayed for this instance.
callbackmethod The callbackmethod is set by the developer of the widget.  For this use, the method to specify is “ShowNewsDetail”
idortitle In this field put in either the content's title or the id number (you can find the id at the end of its URL when you edit the content in the Content App)
cache interval Sets the time (in secs) that the data should be saved in the local browser cache of the current user.

0 = do not cache the data for this widget

-1 = use the default caching strategy set in the Digital Workplace configuration

= cache for specified time (secs)

Views

View Name: Blank  View Description:  Displays content in a detail item view. The view is blank because only shows content when being used by another widget.

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