Forum Discussion
Solved
Modern Communication sites - display links issue
Hi all,
We have a modern Communications site on which we are trying to display links for the site visitors, but have run into an issue (possible bug) and wanted to see if anyone is experiencing this.
We have tried to use both the Highlighted Content web part and Library view web part in a modern page to view links (link items) from a document library. Both web parts are displaying the links as expected, but the experience for visitors is asking them to download a .url file instead of actually redirecting them to the URL as it natively does within the document library.
For instance, we have a test Communications site that uses both the Highlighted Content and Document Library Viewer (admittedly in preview still) web parts. The parts are simply meant to display the actionable links from a managed list - like in previous versions that used an actual Links List app and corresponding web part. The display works fine, but when the visitor clicks on a link item, it prompts them to download and save a .url file. They don't actually ever get shipped to the destination of the link.
The links are to areas and pages within the site, as well as to sites outside SharePoint Online entirely.
Also, to future compound the issue, if you natively view the full document library where the links are defined and stored, the links behave as expected and the user is redirected to those destinations normally when they click on them. Links are just that - links.
We simply want to display this list of links on a different page with supportive on page content and have them behave as links.
Thanks in advance for any insight.
Hi - I made a custom list to contain links, including a 'category' choice field
And then displayed it on a modern page using the "List (preview)" web part:
The links are clickable in this web part and open the target page as expected
Thanks
Nigel
I'm happy to report that it looks like Microsoft has finally fixed this issue! In a modern page, URL links will now open up in a new browser tab. I've tested this in Edge and Chrome.
Pat Beautz& MattVarney That's correct, but the very important information is, that it works only with the column "Name (linked to document with edit menu)". If you use as example "Name (linked to document)" it doesn't work.
- Well it's April 2019 (one year later) and I stumbled upon this discussion while I was researching the same issue around links in the document library web part. Surprisingly this still isn't addressed.....
In my case, I'd like to add links in the document library to Microsoft Stream videos. That way tags can be added to those videos no different than other files in the document library (i.e., word, excel, PDF). In addition, all these files can then be found using the search. Hi,
Having the same issue. The URL added to the library can be opened in a new tab from the library. However, when trying to open URL from the Document library view web part on the modern page it will download the link. But when trying to open URL from the Document library view web part on the classic page it works fine.
Believe this should be fixed, it's critical to be able to do it from the page not just from the library, otherwise, why does such web part exist? Document library view web part has a significant difference from the Highlighted content web part, it displays views, which is quite important. And having URLs in the library oppose to Quick links has its benefits, for instance, you can filter and group items in the library and use this view on a page.
Hope to see some solutions soon.
Thanks in advance.
Indeed. The functionality exists in classic view, but not in modern. A link is an object to be acted upon (i.e. open the link), not an object to download. Who does that? Is there a large customer base doing this now? The thought process in this design is perplexing. I think the good news might be that this can be corrected easily since the functionality exists (and has existed for decades).
Why arent you using QuickLinks?
Steven Collier , MattVarney , I'm facing an issue where if I put a modern page link in QuickLinks web part, it would save and show up as usual but would disappear once I refresh the page. The same would happen even if I put it as a hyperlink using Text web part. This doesn't happen with other classic view pages. See attachment. Any suggestions?
We require item level permissions on the links, so we wanted to manage them in a managed list. That does not seem possible using the modern quick links (which looks like just on-page content rather than true managed content).
Also, we will have HUNDREDS of links to manage and doing that on page is not optimal.
