The new document library experience in SharePoint Online is simple, streamlined, and easy to use. Modern document libraries combine the power of SharePoint with OneDrive usability. They provide a consistent user experience across OneDrive, OneDrive for Business (Office 365), and document library and hence provides a standard way of creating folders and uploading files. Modern document library combines the power of both OneDrive and document library. For modern document library – columns, views and content types still remain the key components which distinguish it from OneDrive
Key features of Modern Document Library :-
- UI shared with OneDrive
- Thumbnail and List Views
- Contextual Commands
- Responsive UI (works with Mobile browsers)
- Usability
- View column resizing (double click column name to expand or click and drag)
- Easy schema updates (create new list scoped columns from UI)
- Show/hide/reorder existing columns from view in UI
- Save current view as public view (Manage View permission level enforced)
- Highlight key content using new pinning feature (Every View/Folder combinations has its own pinning)(Contributor permission enforced)
- Upload entire folder
- Support for file types – Photos, Adobe files, Photoshop files ( Photo viewing experience – similar to personal camera roll)
- Group By directly from UI (drag and drop items across groups and metadata will automatically inherit the group tags)
- Up to 2 levels of Group By available
- Link type added to library – add item as link (Thumbnail view shown)
- Copy and Move files and folders options available
- Details Pane
- Preview of document(Office Online Preview) and its associated properties
- Metadata Population
- Required Metadata Alerting
- Recent Activity (If folder selected then activity across entire folder will be shown in details pane)
- Displays who item is shared with
- Update metadata on the fly – support for all column types (people picker, managed metadata )
Command Bar
- Contextual Trim command bar replaces the traditional ribbon
- Any custom ribbon customizations made will appear on the new command bar.
Details Pane
- Preview of document(Office Online Preview) and its associated properties
- Metadata Population
- Required Metadata Alerting
- Recent Activity (If folder selected then activity across entire folder will be shown in details pane)
- Displays who item is shared with
- Update metadata on the fly – support for all column types (people picker, managed metadata )
Pin Files
- Modern document library provides pinning feature which enables featuring content and empowering users to highlight important documents.
- Select file and pin to top. Every view/folder combination has a unique pinned items set
- Minimum contribute rights needed to perform pinning of files
Quick schema updates
- View column resizing (double click column name to expand or click and drag)
- Easy schema updates (create new list scoped columns from UI)
- Save current view as public view (Manage View permission level enforced)
Edit View Columns
- Show/hide/reorder existing columns from view in UI
- Select columns to be shown in view
Link Content Type
- Link type added to library – add item as link (Thumbnail view shown)
- When adding link – recently viewed documents are shown
View Features
Update view settings from UI
- Order items
- Filter
- Group By
- Rename and move columns
- Show/Hide columns
- Add columns
Modern document libraries v/s Classic Document Libraries
- Class might still be right for organizations since all features from classic are not in modern yet
- Customizations in classic mode will not move over to modern
- Currently both modern and classic UI is supported and can be controlled at different levels (Lowest level setting wins)
- Tennant Switch (admin center)
- Sit collection and web level via PowerShell (enable hidden feature)
- Library level (Advanced Settings)
- Back to Classic link (single session)
Default tenant configuration is to auto-detect and modern UX is used by default
Certain features configured on the library will also cause it to default to classic mode (example :- Metadata filtering and navigation)
Features not (yet) in modern
- Ribbon
- Seldom used ribbon buttons like Popularity Trends, Tags & Notes, RDD feed etc.
- View Features
- Item totals
- Custom styles (example :- Basic Table)
- Navigation Features
- Tree View
- Metadata navigation and filtering (auto detect and fall back to classic)
- Managed Navigation
- Per-location views
- Customized navigation links on Publishing sites
- Field Types (Auto detects and falls back to classic)
- External data columns
- Geolocation columns
- Library Features
- Content Organizer
- Minimal Download Strategy
- Customizations (Auto detects and falls back to classic)
- JSLink on field and views
- Custom Actions
Required Metadata
- Files with no checked in version are only visible to uploader
- No “penalty” on leaving required fields blank
- “Missing metadata” and “files i need to take action on” views
- Bulk tagging after upload
Will Microsoft remove classic mode?
- Aspiration is clear, timeline is not
- Classic deprecation will not happen in 2017
- User Voice and usage data will be taken into consideration for modern mode
- Goal is to include core adoption blockers and issues in modern mode before deprecating the classic mode
- When and if usage data shows classic is no longer used, MSFT might pull the plug on the same
Upcoming Features for Modern Document Library
- Modern Document Library web part
- Modern Document Sets
- Bulk download
- Bulk Tagging
- Better Large List Management
- Custom field and list views (JSLink)
- Web Part Connections