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, 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 vs. 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