Minimal Download Strategy (MDS)

Target:

What is the MDS?

Details:

What is the MDS?

Stand for Minimal Download Strategy. Is a SharePoint Feature on collaboration sites .The MDS feature enables collaboration sites to load pages a lot faster than SharePoint 2010. The feature accomplishes this by running all page requests through a single page, /_layouts/15/start.aspx, which looks for visual differences between new page requests and the previously loaded page, and it refreshes only the content that is different between the two pages.

In SharePoint master pages the AjaxDelta control is directly related to how the Minimal Download Strategy (MDS) knows which parts of the layout to refresh before the page is rendered. More specifically, anything not wrapped in an AjaxDelta control will not refresh between pages of a site with the MDS feature activated.

For example, if you have some dynamic page element, such as the page title, and it is not wrapped in an AjaxDelta control, every page on a site with MDS enabled will show the same title from page to page. This is because the first page routed through start.aspx causes MDS to cache everything on the page that isn’t wrapped in an AjaxDelta; every other page will show the same title. On the other hand, if it were wrapped in an AjaxDelta control, MDS would know it needs to render any differences from the previously loaded page.

<SharePoint:AjaxDelta ID="DeltaSearch" BlockElement="true" runat="server"> <asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderSearchArea" runat="server"> <SearchWC:SearchBoxScriptWebPart UseSiteCollectionSettings="true" EmitStyleReference="false" ShowQuerySuggestions="true" ChromeType="None" UseSharedSettings="true" TryInplaceQuery="false" ServerInitialRender="true" runat="server" /> </asp:ContentPlaceHolder> </SharePoint:AjaxDelta>

Each AjaxDelta control has a unique ID and an optional attribute BlockElement. When BlockElement is true the AjaxDelta wraps the control in an HTML <div>; otherwise it uses a <span>.

Note: This feature is disabled for publishing sites.

Reference: SHAREPOINT®2013 BRANDING and USER INTERFACE DESIGN Book.