SharePoint 2010 : Open the Create Dialog for Lists and Libraries

The first step is to open the site where you want the document library to be created. In most sites, you see a Site Actions menu option, and you can create a new document library directly from this menu. However, this option only creates a library based on the default template, and you might want to create more advanced document libraries (such as a special document library for pages, pictures, assets, or slides), or you might want to create a list instead. To do this, choose the More Options option in the menu to open the Create dialog (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Open the Site Actions menu and choose More Options.

In sites where the More Options option is missing from the menu, you must use the View All Site Content link either on the Site Actions menu or the link in the left navigation bar (see Figure 2). Selecting this option opens the All Site Content page, where you can then click the Create button to get to the Create dialog.

Figure 2. Use either option to get to the All Site Content page.

The Create dialog allows you to create lists and libraries, showing all the different kinds of lists and libraries you can create in that site (see Figure 3). Different sites may show different kinds of list and library templates.

Figure 3. The Create dialog if you don’t have Microsoft Silverlight.

This dialog can have two different appearances: one that uses Microsoft Silverlight and one that doesn’t. If your machine doesn’t have Microsoft Silverlight installed, you are directed to a Create dialog that looks like the one shown in Figure 3 (with a link to install Microsoft Silverlight in the yellow bar at the top of the page). If you have Microsoft Silverlight, you see the much more user-friendly Create dialog shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. The Create dialog with Microsoft Silverlight installed.

The Create dialog shown in Figure 3 shows the available lists and library templates under categories. For example, the templates for document libraries (including the form library, picture library, and slide library) are all under the Libraries category.

The Create dialog shown in Figure 4 has three sections. The first section, on the left, lets you filter what templates are shown for the list and libraries you can create. For example, you can choose to filter by type. For example, you can select to display only library templates, or you can filter by category, showing only templates that offer functionality related to a category such as collaboration. At the top of the left pane you can also select the source of the templates shown. By default, you have two options there, Installed Items (showing templates available on the servers you are using) and Office.com, both of which are templates published on the Microsoft website.

The second section of this dialog, in the middle, shows the templates available for creating a list or library in the site. This list may change from site to site depending on the choices you made in the first section. Figure 5 shows several library templates available by default in SharePoint.

Figure 5. The list and library Create dialog, showing only library templates.

The last section, on the right, is where you specify the options for the new document library or list.

The top of this dialog provides more options to find the template you are looking for—including filtering the templates by language and searching for a specific template by its name or description. For example, you can type the word Task in the search box to search the templates. Figure 6 shows search results of two list templates that deal with tasks: Project Tasks and Tasks.

Figure 6. Searching the list templates.