Dataview and unghosted pages

The XSLT DataView can be used for many things when you want to customize the layout of web parts in your site. The problem when using the Data view on pages are that the pages gets unghosted. Follow this instruction to maintain your pages ghosted and even get a decent test and dev page.

1. Create a web part page
2. Add the list web part to the web part page
3. Open the page in FP 2003
4. Convert the web part to a XSLT Data View
5. Do your changes (the web part is actually converted to a XSLT document, check the Code window in FP 2003)
6. Save the page
7. Open the web part page in your browser and export the web part
8. Open the page you want to display the web part on (i.e Home)
9. Import the web part to the page (check the web part properties, the XSLT is available for direct editing)
10. Delete the web part page if you don´t need it anymore

Done