Since we are creating both a List Definition and a List Instance, the defined list will be automatically created once the SPBlueprints Notification List Feature is activated. It is important to note that the OnQuickLaunch property was set to FALSE so the list will not show up in the Quick Launch menu. To access the list you will need to click the Site Actions menu, and select the View All Site Content menu item.

The pre-defined list view also makes it easy for the content manager to review the currently logged notifications as shown in the following screenshot:

The New Item form includes the fields we defined in the List Definition, and can be used to log a variety of notifications as displayed in the following screenshot:

The SP.UI.Status class supports a number of methods that allow you to add, update, append, and remove status messages as well as set a background color for the status bar. For the purpose of this particular feature, we will focus on the addStatus and setStatusPriColor functions.

Since this is part of the Client OM, it is accessible from any SharePoint page. The scripts can be added to a Content Editor Web Part, included in a custom Web Part, or as in this example added directly to the site's Master Page.

In this section we will add the SetStatus code to the Master Page for the status updates to be added to the page. It should be positioned just before the</Body> tag.

To start with, create a div container to hold the code and define the script block. The remainder of the code will be placed inside of the script block. The SetStatus script container code is shown as follows:

<div id="SetStatus">
<script type="text/ecmascript" language="ecmascript">
</script>
</div>

Next we define the main variables and add a check to determine if this is a page being loaded in a dialog window. This code is needed to prevent the status messages from being loaded in the dialog windows such as the file upload or edit item forms.

The ExecuteOrDelayUntilScriptLoaded() function will delay the execution of the script until the page and all scripts are loaded. The SetStatus variables and control code are shown as follows:

var statusId = '';
var isitDlg = window.location.href.match(/isDlg/i) != null;
if (!isitDlg) {
ExecuteOrDelayUntilScriptLoaded(LoadNotifications, "sp.js");
}

The LoadNotifications() function will use the Client Object Model to format a CAML query, and load the matching items from the Notification list. The

LoadNotifications() function code is shown as follows:

function LoadNotifications() {
var curDate = new Date();
var curDFormatted = curDate.getYear() + "-" +
(curDate.getMonth() + 1) + "-" + curDate.getDate() + "T" +
curDate.getHours() + ":" + curDate.getMinutes() + ":" +
curDate.getSeconds() + "Z";
var listTitle = "Notification";
context = SP.ClientContext.get_current();
var notifList =
context.get_web().get_lists().getByTitle(listTitle);
var camlQuery = new SP.CamlQuery();
camlQuery.set_viewXml("<View><Query><ViewFields><FieldRef
Name='Title' /><FieldRef Name='Notification' /><FieldRef
Name='NotifType' /><FieldRef Name='NotifStart' /><FieldRef
Name='NotifEnd' /><FieldRef Name='InfoLink'
/></ViewFields><Where><And><Leq><FieldRef Name='NotifStart'
/><Value IncludeTimeValue='TRUE' Type='DateTime'>" +
curDFormatted + "</Value></Leq><Geq><FieldRef Name='NotifEnd'
/><Value IncludeTimeValue='TRUE' Type='DateTime'>" +
curDFormatted +
"</Value></Geq></And></Where><OrderBy><FieldRef
Name='NotifStart' /></OrderBy></Query></View>");
this.listItems = notifList.getItems(camlQuery);
context.load(listItems);
context.executeQueryAsync(ReadListItemSucceeded,
ReadListItemFailed);
}

The ReadListItemSucceeded() function will be called if the list read call was successful. Here we will iterate through the returned items and format the status messages that will be displayed. The ReadListItemSucceeded() function code is shown as follows:

function ReadListItemSucceeded(sender, args) {
var message = '';
var items = listItems.getEnumerator();
while (items.moveNext()) {
var listItem = items.get_current();
switch (listItem.get_item('NotifType')) {
case "Emergency":
imageRef = "<img
src='/_layouts/IMAGES/error16by16.gif' align='absmiddle'
border='0' alt='Emergency'>";
break;
case "Warning":
imageRef = "<img
src='/_layouts/IMAGES/warning16by16.GIF' align='absmiddle'
border='0' alt='Warning'>";
break;
default:
imageRef = "<img
src='/_layouts/IMAGES/info16by16.gif' align='absmiddle' border='0'
alt='Information'>";
}
message = listItem.get_item('Notification') + " " +
imageRef;
SetStatus(listItem.get_item("Title") + ":", message,
listItem.get_item('NotifType'));
}
}

The SetStatus() function is called for each status message that needs to be set. It will use the SP.UI.Status methods to add a message and to set the background color of the status container. The SetStatus()function code is shown as follows:

function SetStatus(title, message, type) {
statusId = SP.UI.Status.addStatus(title, message, false);
switch (type) {
case "Emergency":
SP.UI.Status.setStatusPriColor(statusId, 'red');
break;
case "Warning":
SP.UI.Status.setStatusPriColor(statusId, 'yellow');
break;
default:
SP.UI.Status.setStatusPriColor(statusId, 'blue');
}
}

The ReadListItemFailed() function will provide an alert if the status could not be set:

function ReadListItemFailed(sender, args) {
alert('Error: ' + args.get_message());
}