Santomania : Sharepoint

A tip, a tool and a book

Addys — Thu, 24 Mar 2005 19:57:00 GMT

The Tip: If your mouse has thumb buttons, they are usually mapped (by default) to "back" and "forward" in IE. Change those to PgUp and PgDown, and give it a test drive in Visual Studio. I never noticed how much of my development time was being spent on paging... much better now!

The Tool: Resharper is without a doubt the best 99$ I ever spent on a dev add-in. I find that I don't use the advanced refactoring tools very often, but the simple things such as renaming members and converting variables to properties is very handy. My favorite features are (by far) the many small improvements to the VS.NET environment such as quick-navigation tools and improved intellisense. There are many similar add-ins - some of them freeware - but from what I have seen so far Resharper seems to have the best combination of features, usability and general polish.

The Book: Microsoft Windows Sharepoint Services, Inside Out, Jim Buyens, Microsoft Press. I'm not a big fan of the Inside Out series, but this book is awesome. It covers design, installation, administration, customization and custom development of WSS, and somehow manages to stay readable from the basic concepts through to the advanced minutia in each topic. I usually get frustrated very quickly with non-electronic documentation (bookmarks didn't originate with the internet - who knew?) but this book is one which I actually plan to read cover-to-cover. At 700+ pages it might take me a while, but I'll post a more detailed review when I'm done.

The magic URL for fixing a broken Sharepoint page

Addys — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 05:30:00 GMT

I know it exists, but every time I need it I still spend 15 minutes searching. So, once and for all, here it is: ?contents=1. Appending that to the URL of a web part page in WSS or SPS will display a list of web parts on the page with options to close or delete one or more of the webparts.

Next time you can't open your site because a webpart is breaking the page, or for any other reason (my current error is 'The page you selected contains a list that does not exist..") then remember: contents=1.

WssDal - a Sharepoint Web Services alternative

Addys — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 01:33:00 GMT

About 2 months ago I asked if anyone was interested in an alternative to the WSS webservices. A few people responded and tried my WssDal library. The general consensus seems to be that while it isn't perfect, it is useful enough to continue developing. So if anyone else wants to give it a test drive, the library (complete with full source code, some light samples, setup instructions and documentation) is available HERE.

Bug reports, feature requests, etc are most welcome. If there is any interest in collaboration I'll happily open a workspace on GDN or SourceForge for this.

As with any code downloaded from my blog: you use this at your own risk. See the full disclaimer on my blog homepage if you don't know what I mean by that.

3/7/2005 Update: In the first 5 days WssDal was downloaded over 200 times. So how about some feedback? I want to make it better, but I need your input!

Are the Sharepoint Web Services too complex? Looking for something better?

Addys — Fri, 31 Dec 2004 04:50:00 GMT

I'm looking for a few people to help beta-test an alternative to Sharepoint's web services. The solution allows a simple "object modelish" approach to working with WSS, as shown by the following sample code snippets:

// display all fields of all items of all lists
ListsClient ListClient = new ListsClient();

foreach (ListDescriptor list in ListClient.GetLists("http://WssSite"))
{
     Console.WriteLine("List {0} has {1} items",list.ListName,list.ListItems.Length.ToString());
     foreach(ListItem item in list.ListItems)
     {
           Console.WriteLine("item {0} fields:",item["Title"]);
           foreach(Field f in item.Fields)
                Console.WriteLine("{0} = {1}",f.Name,f.Value);
     }
}

// update all list items in the "Tasks" list which are due today

ListDescriptor tasks = ListClient.GetListItemsByFieldValue("http://WssSite","Tasks","DueDate",strToday);

foreach(ListItem task in tasks.ListItems)

{

task["Description"] += " <-- DUE TODAY!!";

ListClient.UpdateListItem("http://WssSite","Tasks",task);

}

It also solves some of the WSS web service pain-points, such as download/upload, checkin/checkout, etc.

~~Drop me a mail if you are interested.~~ 3/3/2005 Update: The source is now available for download, more details here

Fixing Broken Links after Restoring a Sharepoint (WSS) Site with SMigrate

Addys — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 08:12:00 GMT

Utility and source code here (http://www.addysanto.com/blog/fixsitelinks.zip)

Introduction

WSS 2.0 includes a utility called SMigrate which can be used to backup the content and structure of a site and to later recreate a site’s content and structure from the backup file. SMigrate also enables migration scenarios – by backing up a site and restoring it to a different URL, it is possible to migrate content between different sites or servers.

When restoring content to a different URL SMigrate attempts to update the necessary links to ensure that the restored site will work correctly, including the Detail and Help links of webparts. In most cases, SMigrate will accurately update all of the webparts.

When using Frontpage (or other dev tools which circumvent the WSS UI) it is possible to create custom pages and webparts which will not be correctly updated by SMigrate when a site is restored. One possible solution is to manually update the broken links through the “Webpart Properties” page of the WSS UI , but manual corrections aren’t feasible for large sites or automated/scripted deployment scenarios.

FixSiteLinks is a utility which can fix such sites. When run, it scans webparts in ASPX pages in the site (in the root and all subdirectories) and attempts to correct any URLs which point to links outside the site.

Usage

FixSiteLinks accepts the following command line parameters:

-site URL

The site parameter specifies the base URL of the WSS site to scan.

-update (Optional parameter)

The update parameter causes FixSiteLinks to update any webpart links which point outside the scope of the current site (as defined by the “site” parameter). FixSiteLinks will not make any changes to the site if the –update parameter is not present.

The FixSiteLinks utility logs the results of each run into a file named FIXSITELINKS.OUTPUT.XML. This file documents the following information:

- Site Folders

o ASPX Pages in each Folder

§ Web Parts on each Page

· The original Detail Link of the webpart

· The suggested Detail Link of the webpart

· Action taken. Possible values are :

o Updated (if changes were made)

o Skipped (if –update wasn’t specified)

o None (if existing link is valid)

The output file is always created (regardless of the –update parameter) and is overwritten with each run.

I highly recommend first running the utility without the –update parameter and using the output file verify that the suggested changes make sense. If you are satisfied with the suggested changes then re-run the utility with the –update parameter to apply the changes. In the initial version there is no option for changing the default suggestions– if you don’t like them, don’t apply the changes via the –update parameter.

Notes

- This utility must be run on the server hosting WSS

- This utility requires administrative rights.

- ONLY RUN THIS IF YOU HAVE AN UP-TO-DATE SITE BACKUP. This hasn't caused any damage to my systems (yet?) but incorrect usage could easily corrupt your site so : Use this at your own risk!

- Don’t use the –update parameter before reviewing the suggested changes.

- Source code is included, feel free to modify as needed.

- “Nice to Haves” which didn’t make the cut in the initial version:

o More intelligent algorithm for correcting links

o Fine-grained control of which pages/webparts to update

Disclaimer

I DO NOT MAKE ANY CLAIM OF WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING THE FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR ASSUME ANY LEGAL LIABILITY OR RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS, OR USEFULNESS OF THIS TOOL, NOR WILL I BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, OR DAMAGES FOR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION OR LOSS OF BUSINESS PROFITS OR DATA, RESULTING FROM USAGE OF THIS TOOL OR RELATED INFORMATION PRESENTED IN THIS POST.

Also: the entire physical universe, including the information provided herein, may one day collapse back into an infinitesimally small space. Should another universe or medieval re-enactment subsequently re-emerge, the existence of the this tool (and it’s proper functioning) in this universe cannot be guaranteed. YMMV.

Sharepoint Studies Roadmap

Addys — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 09:26:00 GMT

Gregory MacBeth recently posted an exhaustive 28-step roadmap for wannabe Sharepoint developers. IMHO some of the topics there aren't really required for Sharepoint development per-se (UML? UIP Application Block?) but the list is detailed and definitely worth checking out: http://weblogs.asp.net/gregmcb/archive/2004/10/25/247388.aspx

Accessing WSS Document Libraries

Addys — Wed, 22 Sep 2004 20:07:00 GMT

I ran across this summary table comparing the four methods of accessing WSS content... This is documented but I hadn't seen it brought together so nicely. Kudos to ~~whoever wrote it (if anyone knows where this came from, let me know so I can credit the author)~~ Mr Jeffries...

	Remote Access	Set Meta-data	Batch File Upload	File/IO	Version Control	Check-In/ Check-Out
Object Model	K	J	K	J	J	J
Web Services	J	J	K	K	K	K
WebDAV	J	K	K	J	K	K
FrontPage RPC	J	J	J	J	J	J

Painless Sharepoint 2003 deployments (even when migrating from SPS 2001) ??

Addys — Sat, 05 Jun 2004 09:03:00 GMT

After reading Bill's woes with SPIN/SPOUT and the deployment in general, I figured he isn't the only one who needs to know this:

There is an excellent deployment tool which assists both in migrations and deployments, and can take most of the pain out of the process. I highly recommend giving it a look if you need to work with a Sharepoint deployment of any size. From the website:

The K-Wise Deployer is a stand-alone environment designed for the rapid migration of documents from multiple sources into SharePoint Portal Server.

It provides:

	Migration from SharePoint 2001, file share and other sources
	Mapping and analysis of content sources
	Metadata creation, extraction and flexible mapping into Columns
	Bulk creation of Share point Portal Server Structure: Areas, Document Libraries and Folders
	Bulk and Batch check-in of documents
	Taxonomy management tool

http://www.tzunami.net/deployer.html

Note: This is probably the most shameless product plug I've ever written, but hey - I love this tool.