A Matter Of Degree

File downloaded from sharepoint document library replaces spaces in file name with underscores

I have been noticing for some time now, in several MOSS implementations, that spaces in filenames are replaced with underscores on file download/upload from SharePoint.  I was blaming this on SharePoint SP1, since I started to notice it around the time of that release, however this discussion on MSDN indicates Internet Explorer 7 is the reason.

To see the behavior, find any document in a SharePoint document library with spaces in the filename, or upload one.  Then download the document to your desktop - you can see that the underscores are added in the "Save As" window.

If you are working quickly and not expecting this filename change to happen, you would save the document to your desktop, make edits, and then re-upload it later.  Since you didn't actively change the filename, you would expect the document to save over the original in the document library.  This is the way SharePoint has traditionally worked.  But what you end up with is two copies of the document in the document library. 

 

Disclaimer - I'm sure we can all agree that the best practice in general is to check out / check in your document rather than downloading it to your desktop.  (The underscores are not added during checkin/checkout.)  But what if someone else has the document checked out, and you can't reach them to ask them to check it back in, and you're under pressure to make edits right away?  Or what if you thought you were just taking a copy, but the edits you make on your desktop turn out to be the preferred version?    Or what if you haven't fully tested the offline sync capabilities of MOSS 2007, and you want to be absolutely sure the document is accessible when you're offline?  These and many other real-world situations could lead to this downloaded-file scenario, which could lead to multiple copies of the same or similar documents in your SharePoint environment, which is exactly what most of us are trying to avoid. 

The MSDN thread proposes a workaround, although I will argue that the adding of underscores is not necessarily a bad thing, expecially since SharePoint can cause problems when working with filenames that include spaces.  I think it's important to be aware of this download behavior and to work toward minimizing the multiple-copies effect - emphasize checkin/checkout vs. download in end-user training sessions, for example.

Twitter as Headline News

I just had an insight about why Twitter is good.

Another friend of mine just started blogging, and as I subscribed to her blog in my blog reader, I was dismayed at the prospect of adding one more stream of information to the pile that I already don't have enough time to post comments on, or even read.  I'm glad that we all have the means to publish our journals, our photos, our videos, but my ability to keep up with it all won't scale.  I can't even find the time to read the national news most days.

But I do read headlines.  And if I could get a daily digest of my friends' and colleagues' lives and insights, on a single page, 140 characters at a whack, I would read that religiously. 

It shouldn't be an aggregate of their recently-published blog or photo titles; that wouldn't be the same thing.  I don't want to read text that describes or refers to other content.  I want exactly what Twitter asks for - "what are you doing?"   

FriendFeed gets close, and I like the image thumbnails, but all the different kinds of information in one pile slows me down - e.g. I don't want to mentally filter out everyone's del.icio.us links while I'm looking for the meatier stuff.

I never thought I'd be advocating a Max-Headroom-style blipvert in the place of real content, yet here I am.  I can't keep up with unlimited information.  Sign on to Twitter and help me out?