Chris's unofficial Office Live developer blog : Web Services

Advanced List Publishing

cbeiter — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 22:23:32 GMT

In the previous release of Office Live, we had a deeply hidden and difficult to use feature known as Data Sharing. This feature was designed to allow you to take the data from one of the lists in your password-secured 'business applications' and publish it out to your public-facing web site as a dynamic list or table of items. So when you update an item in the private list it was automatically updated on your public web site. Data Sharing also provided the inverse... forms on your public web site that collect data into a business application list.

Despite the efforts of our intern (hi Chester!), the feature was a dud. When publishing a list (aka Display Data), there were only 3 options for how to layout the data, and the approval process was onerous at best. The form builder (aka Collect Data) also had some major hurdles, such as numerous unsupported column types and lack of ability to directly set what columns you were collecting data into. Despite its shortcomings, we did get a good amount of customer and developer feedback that they liked the concept, just not the implementation.

In our recent release, we set out to address the major usability problems, add more UI flexibility and also address some of the major underlying technical limitations. We especially wanted to give developers more power so they could unlock scenarios that they know best. We set a goal that a 'normal' small business user could set this up... you don't have to be a developer.

I won't give you a full blow-by-blow account of all the changes we implemented, let's just say that instead of having to take a bunch of shortcuts to squeeze this feature into our Nov 06 release, we were able to get a full development milestone to build it the way we thought was best. OK, OK, we did take a few shortcuts, and big chunks of what we hoped to do were cut (you gotta dream big!), but by and large the end result is a much more flexible, powerful and usable solution.

Advanced Mode

Hopefully you have seen my blog post about the new Web Site Designer 'advanced mode'. If you haven't, go check it out to learn how to configure that for your Office Live Small Business web site. This post will focus on the advanced mode capabilities and other developer-centric features for the List Publisher specifically, so that will be an important piece of homework for you to start with.

List Publisher Module

To recap, the List Publisher is a module that you can drop onto a web page using the Office Live page designer tool. To add a module, just click on the zone where you want to add it on the page, select the Modules dropdown, and select the List Publisher module. The property sheet for the module will pop up to guide you through the rest of the process. Modules can be moved around into any zone on a page, resized, copy & pasted and packaged up into a solution file.

The List Publisher property sheet gives you the ability to select lists from any of the business applications or Business Contact Manager in the password-protected area of your Office Live subscription. Once you pick an app and a list from that app, the controls on the property sheet are populated and enabled.

NOTE: You may not have the Business Applications provisioned on your Office Live Small Business account. If you don't, you will be notified. They're free, so check 'em out. If you already have them added to your account, you might not see a list you want to publish. From the Business Applications, you can add a variety of interesting apps to perform common tasks for small businesses such as Contact Management, Project Management, Team Workspaces and more. Just click + Add Application in the left nav once you go to the Business Apps and you will see a gallery. Don't see the one you want to use? You can also create a custom app or add a custom list to one of the Business Apps you already have to suit your needs.

Defining your data details

On the data details tab, you can define the exact data you want to publish by selecting the 'Create custom information view' radio button. That allows you to select the columns you want, reorder them, and rename the labels for each column.

Instead of picking and choosing from the full set of columns, you may decide to base your data details on a SharePoint view by selecting 'Use columns from an existing view' and then selecting the view you want from the dropdown. These "views" are kind of like mini-reports that are part of the Business App that are generally used to format the list data in a way that is more useful. For example, you might have a task list with an "overdue" view, "assigned to me" view, etc.

Selecting one of these views on the module property sheet is kind of like a big shortcut for you, plus it has some added power. We automatically select only those columns that are present on the view for inclusion on the published list. You cannot add or remove columns from the data details unless you switch back to the custom information view mode.

Why would you want to limit yourself by using an existing view? Because SharePoint views also give you the ability to add a sort order and create filters on the list. Using the task list example again, you may want to only publish the active tasks, and the SharePoint view makes that possible by filtering only those tasks where status = active. You need to go to the Business Application itself to create or modify a SharePoint view, but depending on what you are trying to do, it may well be worth the effort.

Creating a layout template

Once you have selected the data, now you need to decide how it should appear. The layout tab gives you 3 options: a dropdown to select one of 3 predefined layouts, an option to link to a XSLT file and finally, a text area where you can edit/paste XSLT code directly.

The layout dropdown is pretty self-explanatory... grid, repeating form or repeating form centered are standard layouts for basic publishing. But this blog post is about 'advanced' publishing, so let's talk about the other controls instead.

So far we have ignored the 'View XML source' button that hovers above the 2 tabs on the right of the property sheet. By clicking it, you get an XML document that describes the schema you have configured on the data details tab. As you make more changes, that XML will be updated. Once you have the data details ironed out and are viewing the XML, you can write your own XSLT code to generate HTML/Script output exactly like you want it. Here's where things get very interesting.

The Grid Layout example

The Edit XSLT control contains a default XSLT that you may use as a sample. By writing a couple simple loops, it first iterates over the fields in the schema, and writes out the DisplayName attribute of each Field node. This lets you write the column headers out in the grid example.

You can then write a second loop to create a new row in the HTML grid/table for each Row node of the XML, grabbing each of the attributes of the Row and outputting them as the value for one of the columns of the grid. The attributes on the Row nodes correspond to the order of the Field nodes in the Schema subsection of the XML.

Now you have a simple HTML grid of all the items in your list.

Instead of just outputting the values as raw text into a grid-like table, you can manipulate the values in any way you see fit such as passing them to a javascript function, building them into part of a URL or querystring, applying different fonts & styles conditionally based on a test of the value, and so on. In the grid example, we look at the position of the Row node using the XSLT mod function. This allows us to change the style class name for each row, and build alternating colors into our grid.

In XSLT, you can pretty much output any HTML you would normally create for a web page, including styles and javascript. So, the sky and your imagination are really the limit.

To Link or Not to Link

The main difference between linking to an XSLT file vs. editing it directly on the module is that linking will give you the ability to share an XSLT across multiple modules, and manage the code all in one place for easy maintenance. The text area is a better option while you are still developing and debugging the XSLT you are working on.

Syndicating your list with RSS 2.0 and Simple List Extensions

You've probably noticed by now the recognizable orange RSS icon at the bottom of the page. This checkbox is selected by default, and by doing so, publishes your list also as an RSS 2.0 feed at a separate URL. We also adhere to the Simple List Extensions proposal, which provides both an enhanced experience in Internet Explorer 7.0 and formats the data from your list in a way that is more usable by developers who are consuming your list feed on a 3rd party server/service/application. I'll dig more into the syndication features in a future blog post.

You can read more about advanced list publisher features in our dev guide.

Live ID goodies for Office Live developers

cbeiter — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 03:47:00 GMT

Our friends over in the Windows Live ID team have been hard at work lately and have snuck a couple innovations out there without me even noticing it. I know there are some Office Live folks who watch my blog for important developments and this definitely ranks up there. So without further ado... (and because I'm trying to post this quick before I get out of the office for today)...

The Windows Live ID Client SDK v1.0 "final" has been posted up on to the Microsoft download center. Last spring I blogged about the Alpha version of the SDK, and since then the Live ID team has posted a refresh of the Alpha and now the final. Hmm. Maybe I missed the beta. Or maybe the Alpha refresh was good enough to be a beta. It doesn't really matter. What does matter is that there are expected to be some significant changes in this final version of the tookit, so if you have already written an app using the Alpha SDK, please check this out and consider refactoring your app. If you were scared off by the Alpha tag, well, the wait is over. The other interesting bit that Sarah mentioned on the Live ID forum is that they are also planning a merge module so you can distribute the necessary pieces of the SDK with your application more easily. Good stuff!

The other Live ID development that escaped my attention until today (and is probably old news to you, my estute readers) is that they also released a Web Authentication SDK in August! I've just started to digest the information around this, so I'm not sure I can give you a good read on what the implications are for Office Live solution developers. It looks like it will allow you to use Live ID as your authentication system for your non-Microsoft web site or web service. They have created a variety of different toolkits & samples that will work on many different languages (ASP.NET, Perl, Java, Ruby, etc) and is supposed to be platform agnostic. Does this mean your web service will have single-sign in capabilities when your customers also go to Office Live? Well, their blog post doesn't go that far and doesn't make those promises, so I'm not entirely sure just yet. At a minimum, this looks like a step in that direction. Let's just say for now, it's very exciting.

Flash charts for Office Live business applications

cbeiter — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 20:48:00 GMT

Charting is one area that we've wanted to see improve in Office Live. Fortunately, since enough of our platform is opened up, developers can take it upon themselves to do some charting work if they need it for their customers.

Darren Johnstone has a blog that covers the work he is doing with Office Live. He's one of our early partners in the UK. He recently posted several code samples for how to extract data from an Office Live Business App or Workspace and turn it into an SWF flash chart. This is a nice innovation on the Office Live platform. Check it out! He even packaged everything up as a download so you can try it out for yourself on your own Office Live site. This is NOT to be missed!

Office Live Business Contact Manager + Zillow.com mashup sample

cbeiter — Wed, 16 May 2007 23:00:00 GMT

A pretty cool mashup courtesy of our devs Katy and Albert (who you may be familiar with from his screencast videos). There is a complete writeup coming soon on the Office Live team blog, but since the sample is already posted, I wanted to get the word out to my blog subscribers also. UPDATE: Here's a link to the formal write up on the team blog.

Short version, the tool passes the addresses of contacts from your Office Live Business Contact Manager to Zillow.com's API Network and displays property estimates (aka Zestimates), charts, maps, comparables, etc. for the contact you select.

It's a very simple scenario, but the underlying concept of having a Contact Management store in the cloud accessible from any computer with an internet connection and that can integrate easily with other services for value added scenarios, that's pretty cool. OK, I am a geek.

Thanks David and Mark at Zillow for your help.

Connecting a smart-client to Office Live using Live ID

cbeiter — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 19:29:00 GMT

Heads up, there is a new code sample that shows you how to use the Windows Live ID Client SDK and the Office Live Discovery Web service to authenticate and talk to Office Live's business applications & workspaces. This can really open up a lot of interesting scenarios for you and your customers.

Create your own smart client app that works directly with Office Live apps such as business contact manager. Now your customers can use your app to manage the contacts, or they can log into Office Live remotely to get the same data.
Use the Discovery Web to determine what Office Live subscriptions a Live ID is associated with and help your customers manage data across multiple subscriptions.

Those are just a couple examples, but the possibilities are pretty endless. To download the code sample, go to the download center and get the Client Application Connection sample. To read more about the Client Application Connection code sample, watch the Office Live Blog and check out the next update of the Microsoft Office Live Developer Guide (due early April 2007).

You may also be interested in the blog post that announces the Live ID Client SDK, and you can get help with questions about the SDK on the Live ID dev forum.

New Web Services for Office Live?

cbeiter — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 01:39:00 GMT

We've heard before that there are some gaps in the web services that are offered as part of Office Live. For the most part, we allow you to use many of the web services from Windows SharePoint Services v3 on which our business applications & workspaces are built. However, we had to block some of these, and some may be more difficult to use than you would like. We've also recently introduced our first major Office Live-specific web service to help you work with our authentication system, Windows Live ID.

We are evaluating if there are any major gaps that we can patch up to make the story more complete. Here are some questions which might get help get your thoughts started:

What's missing? What new web services do you need?
What web services are blocked that you want unblocked?
What web services are too difficult to use?
Even if you don't know the web service specifically, tell us if there are scenarios where you think web services might help.

Just reply here with your comments, or use the form on my blog to contact me directly if you prefer to remain confidential.

We appreciate your help! Thanks,

Chris