Microsoft Tech Blogs : MOSS

Programmatically loop thru Publishing site collection or rather WARMP UP Script for FBA site

ketaanhs — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 20:26:00 GMT

I wanted to write a WARMP UP SCRIPT For FBA enabled Publishing site for Sharepoint 2007/ MOSS.

REQUIREMENT:

We have a web-application set up with FBA and we have some of the sites accessible anonymously and other for only authenticated users.

We would like to programmatically loop thru the entire site-collection, I am somehow not able to loop thru the site collection for the authenticated sites and I get access denied.

I am sure I am missing some simple step on creating a generic principal with Forms based authentication but not sure where and how I make sure that I can loop thru the site collection.

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Text;

using Microsoft.SharePoint;

using Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing;

using System.Net;

using System.Web.Security;

namespace ConsoleApplication2

{

class Program

{

static void Main(string[] args)

{

//args[0]: This is the Site Collection url, e.g.: http://pub-staging.ABCD.com

//args[1]: This is web service URL for Authentication, e.g: http://pub-staging.ABCD.com/_vti_bin/Authentication.asmx

//args[2]: This is the username

//args[3]: This is the password

//string strSiteURL = "http://pub-staging.ABCD.com";

string strSiteURL = args[0];

System.Net.CookieContainer cookie;

bool blnStatus = FBAAuthenticate(out cookie,args[1],args[2],args[3]);

using (SPSite site = new SPSite(strSiteURL))

{

foreach (SPWeb web in site.AllWebs)

{

Console.WriteLine("***********************************************************");

Console.WriteLine(web.Url.ToString());

Console.WriteLine("***********************************************************");

//FormsAuthenticationTicket fbaTkt = new FormsAuthenticationTicket("fsegment10", true, 10);

if (PublishingWeb.IsPublishingWeb(web))

{

PublishingWeb publishingWeb = PublishingWeb.GetPublishingWeb(web);

PublishingPageCollection pageColl = publishingWeb.GetPublishingPages();

//Call the web service Authentication

foreach (SPListItem listItem in publishingWeb.PagesList.Items)

{

if (PublishingPage.IsPublishingPage(listItem))

{

PublishingPage page = PublishingPage.GetPublishingPage(listItem);

try

{

System.Net.HttpWebRequest req = (System.Net.HttpWebRequest)System.Net.HttpWebRequest.Create(page.Uri.ToString());

req.CookieContainer = cookie;

HttpWebResponse res = (HttpWebResponse)req.GetResponse();

using (System.IO.Stream str = res.GetResponseStream())

{

using (System.IO.StreamReader strReader = new System.IO.StreamReader(str))

{

Console.WriteLine(strReader.ReadToEnd());

strReader.Dispose();

}

catch (Exception ex)

{

}

/// <summary>

/// Sharepoint forms based authentication (FBA) web method call.

/// </summary>

/// <param name="cookieContainer">CookieContainer</param>

/// <param name="strSiteId">String</param>

/// <returns>Boolean</returns>

private static bool FBAAuthenticate(out System.Net.CookieContainer cookieContainer, string webServiceURL, string userName, string pwd)

{

bool blnStatus;

FBAPORTAL.Authentication auth = new FBAPORTAL.Authentication();

//auth.Url = "http://pub-staging.ABCD.com/_vti_bin/Authentication.asmx";

auth.Url = webServiceURL;

auth.CookieContainer = new System.Net.CookieContainer();

auth.AllowAutoRedirect = true;

//FBAPORTAL.LoginResult loginResult = auth.Login("fbaadminstaging", "fba1234");

FBAPORTAL.LoginResult loginResult = auth.Login(userName,pwd );

if (loginResult.ErrorCode == FBAPORTAL.LoginErrorCode.NoError)

{

blnStatus = true;

cookieContainer = auth.CookieContainer;

}

else

{

blnStatus = false;

cookieContainer = null;

}

return blnStatus;

}

MOSS / Sharepoint 2007 Custom Error Page and Access denied Page

ketaanhs — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 23:10:00 GMT

In case if you are interested in creating your own custom error page and custom access denied page instead of the out of the box MOSS / Sharepoint error page (generally the requirements in Publishing internet site). You can use the following HTTPModule (this is just a sample, you can change it to suit your requirements):

Note to have following Web.config Entries:

Following entries in the <appsettings> section in the web.config file:

Following entry is for a custom error page to be displayed for anonymous users, the key should be in the format: “CustomAnonCustErrPG-SiteCollectionURL” as shown below:

Following entry is for a custom error page to be displayed for authenticated users, the key should be in the format: “CustomAuthCustErrPG-SiteCollectionURL” as shown below:

Following entry is for a custom error page to be displayed for access denied errors, the key should be in the format: “CustomCustAcsDndPG -SiteCollectionURL” as shown below:

Create an entry on all the WFEs web-application specific web.config in the HTTPModules section, as follows just below the <HTTPModule> tag This should be the first entry in the HTTPModules section:

NOTE: Add your own Public key for PublicKeyToken per your snk used, replace the PUBLICKEYGUID with your own snk value

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

// This is a HTTPModule used for redirecting the user to Home or Home Anon site depending on whether

// s/he is authenticated or anonymous.

// The module checks if the url is accessdenied.aspx and redirects the user to proper url.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

using System;

using System.Web;

using Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.ExceptionHandling;

using System.Configuration;

using Microsoft.SharePoint;

namespace XYZ.Sharepoint.HTTPModule.CustomErrorPages

{

public class CustomErrors : IHttpModule

{

#region -- Private fields --

private static AppSettingsReader m_Reader = new AppSettingsReader();

private static string m_SiteCollAnonCustomErrPG = "CustomAnonCustErrPG";

private static string m_SiteCollAuthCustomErrPG = "CustomAuthCustErrPG";

private static string m_SiteCollCustAcsDndPG = "CustomCustAcsDndPG";

#endregion

public void Init(HttpApplication context)

{

//Attaching event handlers for access denied and error respectively

//context.BeginRequest += new EventHandler(context_AcessDenied);

context.EndRequest += new EventHandler(context_AcessDenied);

context.Error += new EventHandler(context_Error);

}

void context_AcessDenied(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

try

{

HttpApplication httpApp = sender as HttpApplication;

HttpContext context = httpApp.Context;

string httpUrl = context.Request.Url.ToString();

string strCustomAcssDndURL = string.Empty;

string strSiteURL = string.Empty;

if (httpUrl.ToLower().Contains("/_layouts/accessdenied.aspx"))

{

SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(delegate()

{

using (SPSite site = new SPSite(httpUrl))

{

strSiteURL = site.Url;

}

});

HttpContext.Current.Server.ClearError();

HttpContext.Current.Response.Clear();

strCustomAcssDndURL = getAppSettingsValue(m_SiteCollCustAcsDndPG + "-" + strSiteURL);

HttpContext.Current.Response.Redirect(strCustomAcssDndURL, false);

}

catch (Exception ex)

{

//Do your exception handling

}

void context_Error(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

try

{

string strURL = string.Empty;

string strSiteURL = SPContext.Current.Site.Url;

Exception[] unhandledExceptions = HttpContext.Current.AllErrors;

//logging all the exceptions thru the Exception policy file

foreach (Exception ex in unhandledExceptions)

{

//Do your exception handling

}

HttpContext.Current.Server.ClearError();

HttpContext.Current.Response.Clear();

if (HttpContext.Current.User.Identity.IsAuthenticated)

{

strURL = getAppSettingsValue(m_SiteCollAuthCustomErrPG + "-" + strSiteURL);

HttpContext.Current.Response.Redirect(strURL, false);

}

else

{

strURL = getAppSettingsValue(m_SiteCollAnonCustomErrPG + "-" + strSiteURL);

HttpContext.Current.Response.Redirect(strURL, false);

}

catch (Exception ex)

{

//Do your exception handling

}

public void Dispose()

{

}

//Method used to read Appsettings value from web.config for the webapplication

private static string getAppSettingsValue(string sKey)

{

string sValue = null;

try

{

sValue = m_Reader.GetValue(sKey, typeof(string)) as string;

}

catch (Exception ex)

{

//Do your exception handling

}

return sValue;

}

Disable Event handlers during Content Deployment (Sharepoint 2007/MOSS)

ketaanhs — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 18:50:00 GMT

When we are doing a content deployment in a publishing site and there are lot of event handlers attached to list/libraries then be aware that by default content deployment tells PRIME not to fire events during import. You can change this setting, but beware that you’ll see a performance hit (and a small additional one for the actual event handler code you run).

So how do you do it?

EnableEventReceivers

Possible Values: 0 = No, 1 = Yes, Default Value: No.

This property allows you to control whether event receivers are allowed to fire during the import or not. The default is that event receivers are disabled during import. This configures the SPImportSettings.SuppressAfterEvents setting for the remote import job.

To modify this option please use the following STSADM command:

STSADM -o editcontentdeploymentpath -pathname <pathname> -enableeventreceivers yes | no

Note: In case if you get an error while running the STSADM command that looks like: Failed to update the content deployment path with name................................... Just make sure that you are running the command with proper privileges (one hack just run this command with the same app-pool account as the Central admin, but yes if you run it with a proper privileged account that should not be a problem).

Another important thing that I have observed is we restart the OWSTIMER service then we need to run the STSAM -o editContentDeploymentPath command to enable or disable the eventhandlers again.

Javascript RichHTMLField control sharepoint Page Layouts

ketaanhs — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 07:29:00 GMT

We are working on a Publishing portal (MOSS / Sharepoint 2007) and we had a requirement to allow the authors to enter Rich HTML content and that can contain javascript to popup some images that appear as small images in the content or just as a link. Now out of the box the RichHTMLField control rips off all javascript that you enter, but we wanted to allow the users to enter "onclick popup the page" kind of javascript in the content so that in DISPLAY mode the Jscript function could execute.

So we came up with a simple approach to add a client side handler (i.e. Java script that will find and replace the required tags) to replace a specific TAG on our page with the actual javascript tag (as our tags were constant). Following Java Script that we have added to the Master Page in the Head tag just before the </Head> tag (Thank you Rajendra Rawat for creating this Javascript) should help understand how to overcome the limitation:

// Add an entry to the _spBodyOnLoadFunctionNames array
// so that our function will run on the pageLoad event.

_spBodyOnLoadFunctionNames.push("EnableLinks");

//onload=EnableLinks;

function IsInDesignMode()
{
   if(document.getElementById("MSOLayout_InDesignMode").value == '1') return true;
   if(document.getElementById("MSOTlPn_SelectedWpId").value != "") return true;
   return false;
}

</script>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ensure body tag in master page looks like:
<BODY scroll="yes" onload="javascript:if (typeof(_spBodyOnLoadWrapper) != 'undefined') _spBodyOnLoadWrapper();">

otherwise
_spBodyOnLoadFunctionNames will come as ‘Undefined’ and code won’t execute.

And Following is the sample HTML (that you might add to the RICHHTMLFIELD):

<a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/controlpanel/blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=Posts§ionid=5160&postid=9471322#" id="ThisStringToReplace_onclick=javascript:alert('hi');" >click here</a>

<tr>

</tr>

</table>

</div>

</td>

</td>

</tr>

</table>

By the way if you want to check on the client side whether the PAGE is in EDIT mode or DISPLAY Mode you can use the following:

Running our MOSS sites in IE-7 compat with IE-8

ketaanhs — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:34:00 GMT

We had worked on some MOSS portal sites and wanted to make sure the rendering is fine in IE-8 also without making any changes to the CSS, so the best thing we did was we added the following tag to our Master Page just below the HEAD html tag and then it rendered all our pages in IE-7 mode even while browsing from IE-8:

<!—End of Use IE7 mode in IE8 browser -->

Following article cam in handy: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956197

Presence indicator problem with Custom Master Page scrolling

ketaanhs — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 05:56:00 GMT

Problem:

I have got a unique problem that when you hover over any contact, the actual presence icon appears several pixels below the actual icon.

This only happens when the page is scrolled down and works perfectly when the page is not in scrolled position.

Also, it works fine when I apply the default master page to the site.

Solution 1:
The problem is identified sometimes back with the init.js function IMNGetOOUILocation() that returns a fixed location (coordinate) 0, and probably this is causing issue in your custom master page scenario also.

Add this function in the master page, to check if that resolves the issue you are having:

****************************************************************************************************************************************

function IMNGetOOUILocation(obj)

{

var objRet=new Object;

var objSpan=obj;

var objOOUI=obj;

var oouiX=0, oouiY=0, objDX=0;

// Changed Fixed scroll up coordination problem due to master page

var scrollTopY = (document.documentElement &&

document.documentElement.scrollTop) ? document.documentElement.scrollTop :

(document.body.scrollTop ? document.body.scrollTop : 0);

var fRtl=document.dir=="rtl";

while (objSpan && objSpan.tagName !="SPAN" && objSpan.tagName

!="TABLE")

{

objSpan=objSpan.parentNode;

}

if (objSpan)

{

var collNodes=objSpan.tagName=="TABLE" ?

objSpan.rows(0).cells(0).childNodes

objSpan.childNodes;

var i;

for (i=0; i < collNodes.length;++i)

{

(collNodes.item(i).tagName=="IMG" && collNodes.item(i).id)

{

objOOUI=collNodes.item(i);

break;

}

if (collNodes.item(i).tagName=="A"

collNodes.item(i).childNodes.length > 0 &&

collNodes.item(i).childNodes.item(0).tagName=="IMG" &&

collNodes.item(i).childNodes.item(0).id)

{

objOOUI=collNodes.item(i).childNodes.item(0);

break;

}

obj=objOOUI;

while (obj)

{

if (fRtl)

{

if (obj.scrollWidth

>=obj.clientWidth+obj.scrollLeft)

objDX=obj.scrollWidth - obj.clientWidth - obj.scrollLeft;

else

objDX=obj.clientWidth+obj.scrollLeft - obj.scrollWidth;

oouiX+=obj.offsetLeft+objDX;

}

else

oouiX+=obj.offsetLeft -

obj.scrollLeft;

// Changed Fixed scroll up coordination problem due to master page

//oouiY+=obj.offsetTop - obj.scrollTop;

oouiY+=obj.offsetTop;

obj=obj.offsetParent;

}

try

{

obj=window.frameElement;

while (obj)

{

if (fRtl)

{

if (obj.scrollWidth

>=obj.clientWidth+obj.scrollLeft)

objDX=obj.scrollWidth - obj.clientWidth - obj.scrollLeft;

else

objDX=obj.clientWidth+obj.scrollLeft - obj.scrollWidth;

oouiX+=obj.offsetLeft+objDX;

}

else

oouiX+=obj.offsetLeft - obj.scrollLeft;

// Changed Fixed scroll up coordination problem due to master page

// oouiY+=obj.offsetTop -

obj.scrollTop;

oouiY+=obj.offsetTop;

obj=obj.offsetParent;

}

} catch(e)

{

};

objRet.objSpan=objSpan;

objRet.objOOUI=objOOUI;

objRet.oouiX=oouiX;

//!!! This is the code change:

// Changed Fixed scroll up coordination problem due to

master page

//objRet.oouiY=oouiY

objRet.oouiY=oouiY - scrollTopY;

if (fRtl)

objRet.oouiX+=objOOUI.offsetWidth;

return objRet;

}

****************************************************************************************************************************************

Solution 2: (Suggested by Madhur Ahuja):

Also, there is another workaround , Add the following CSS:

body

{

position:static;

}

form

{

position:relative;

}

CONTENT DEPLOYMENT, CONTENT EDITOR WEB PART, NOT VISIBLE (MOSS 2007)

ketaanhs — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 06:48:00 GMT

I was working with Ben {Risher} today and we did a content deployment of our AUTHORING site to the target site i.e. PUBLISHING SITE. Our Authoring site had pages (web part pages) that were using Content Editor web parts (CEWP) with some static HTML contents.

Now these content editor web parts were not visible on the pages of our Target publishing site even after the content deployment and also our end users were given RESTRICTED READ permission and they were getting ACCESS DENIED errors on these pages (with content editor web parts), we tried to debug the issue and when we got rid of the CEWPs the users were able to browse to the site and were not getting ACCESS DENIED errors anymore, so what was so different about the CEWP, well it was nothing but AUDIENCE TARGET property of the web part in the Authoring site was set to AUDIENCES from an SSP that was now removed from the FARM and hence after content deployment the same AUDIENCE IDs were carried to PUBLISHING environment and somehow CEWP was not working out for RESTRICTED READ permission level.

So the bottom line is if you do Content Deployment and you have AUDIENCE TARGETED CEWPs then the webparts are not rendered on the PUBLISHING SITE, check the AUDIENCE TARGET property and the audiences (GUID) inside it. Check if these AUDIENCES exists in the SSP for that farm.

I dont think this is the problem with CEWP alone this could happen with any other web part also,

CUSTOM Navigation Provider for MOSS

ketaanhs — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 23:49:00 GMT

Has there been a customer requirement for you where you wanted to create the left or Top navigation based on a custom recordset or from a List (stored in Sharepoint so that easy to update) in a WCM using Sharepoint 2007 / MOSS. Did you have a requirement to Expand and Collapse the menu (server side, not AJAX style) using the custom provider? Are you using .Net framework 3.5? If all this is your requirement then you should look at the great work Jonathan Dibble has put here: http://sharepoint.wanderingleaf.net/professional/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=13

It was pleasure working with Jonathan on this project, where the Left Navigation Provider was really annoying and Jonathan with his magic solved this issue and not only solved it but also improvised it with LINQ.

Great Job Jonathan

Following is Jonathan Dibble's post:

1/17/2009

Custom Navigation Provider using SharePoint List

Recently, i was asked to write a navigation provider that used a SharePoint List as the data source. Since SharePoint is built upon ASP.Net, adding a new navigation provider was a fairly straightforward task.

As always, let’s dive right into the code and work the details out from there.

Step 1: Create the Data Source

Let’s define a List called NavLinks. The structure is simple:

Figure 1

Url, Title and Description need no explanation. SortOrder determines the order in which to display sibling nodes. Parent is a lookup back to this list. This allows users to easily manipulate the tree. After the list is built, go ahead and populate it.

Figure 2

First, we’ve defined a root node. This becomes the menu starting point. Beyond that, we have a list of nodes with a parent/child relationship. Notice the Urls, they are relative to the current web application. All local Urls should be entered as relative Urls. We’ll talk about this more when we dive into the code.

I added a Group By to the view to make the navigation a bit easier to follow.

Figure 3

Verification

Upon completion of this step, you should have a list called NavList (http://yourSharePointSite/<PathToWeb>/Lists/NavList)

Step 2: Create the Basic Provider

There are literally dozens of articles out there describing how to do this, so I am just going to glance over it briefly.

Open Visual Studio 2008 (my provider uses LINQ so you need at least VS 2008 with all the latest goodies) and create a new Class Library Project.
Add references to System.Web, System.Configuration and Microsoft.SharePoint if not already present.
Create a new class using System.Web.SiteMapProvider as the base class. Don’t bother with any code just yet, just create the skeleton class.
Sign the Assembly.
Build and Deploy to GAC.

What we’re doing here is just creating something that compiles so we can get the public key and finish configuring SharePoint. A tip I like to do is use Post-Build commands to help us out.

Figure 4

What this does is uninstall the existing assembly (/u), installs the new assembly (/i) and restarts the SharePoint application pool (iisapp.) You will have to change the 3rd statement to match your app pool. Run IISAPP with no command lines to get a list of running application pools. Once you build your DLL, everything should be registered and the build output should show the public key name . Really, the only slightly irky thing is you have to build twice to get the public key. GacUtil only shows the key when you are uninstalling, not when you are installing. No biggie.

Figure 5

Verification

At the end of step 2, you should have a DLL that compiles and registered in the GAC. You should have the type name (your class name) and the assembly name (the name of the DLL) and you should also have the public key from the assembly (output from the build.)

Step 3: Register the Provider with SharePoint

This one is actually pretty quick and easy.

Open the web.config for your SharePoint site.
Search for the siteMap node.
Add your entry.

   1:      <siteMap defaultProvider="CurrentNavSiteMapProvider" enabled="true">

   2:        <providers>

3:

   4:          <!--

   5:            CacheTimeout = How long to keep in cache

   6:            HideCousins = Display Cousins?

   7:            HideNephews = Display Nephews?

   8:            NavListUrl = The Site Collection relative navigation list.

   9:          -->

  10:          <add

  11:            name="SPListNavigationProvider"

  12:            type="JGD.Web.SPListNavigationProvider, SPListNavigationProvider, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=060e356544c1c245"

  13:            CacheTimeout="1"

  14:            HideCousins="True"

  15:            HideNephews="True"

  16:            NavListUrl="Lists/NavList"

  17:            IgnoreQuery="True"

  18:            />

19:

  20:          <add name="SPNavigationProvider" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Navigation.SPNavigationProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" />

Lines 1,2 and 20 already exist and are shown so you know where to insert the custom code. The good bits are lines 10-18. Line 11 is the provider name, can be whatever you want, just remember what is is as you will use it on whatever pages you want to use this provider. Line 12, that’s our provider. The first part is the type name, second part assembly name, and the 3rd is our public key. Lines 13-17 are custom properties for our provider. Go ahead and add them now, it won’t harm anything.

Verification

At this point, you should have a modified web.config file.

Sidebar: Cousins and Nephews?

The Publishing Provider has some nice features. For example, when you are on a Node, it shows you just that node downward, so only the selected node’s siblings and children. To mimic this behavior, I added some properties, HideNephews and HideChildren. I suppose I could have simplified it with a ShowOnlyDescendants property, but I didn’t. You can fix it later.

Example hierarchy

Root

S1.1
S1.2
S1.3

S2.1
S2.2

S3.1
S3.2
S3.3

Here we see all the S nodes are cousins to each other. All the P nodes are also cousins. The S nodes are also nephews to their non-parent nodes (S2 is a nephew to P1 and P3 and a child of P2.) What this means is if we are on Node P1, we will only see the S1 nodes (and siblings of P1) if HideNephews is true. If we are on node S3 and HideCousins is true, we will only see the siblings of S3 and the parent of S3 (P3) and the siblings of the Parent (P2 and P1) but not the children of the siblings of the parent (we will not see S2.x or S1.x) Confused? Well try it out and see.

Step 4: The Magic

To make all this happen, we’re going to:

Configure the Provider upon application startup
Define an in-memory record reflecting each SharePoint List Item
Read the items from the SharePoint List when the provider is called
Cache the items for x minutes for performance reasons
Use LINQ to query our in memory collection of Nodes

Let’s take each task in Sequence.

Configure the Provider upon application startup

First thing we need to do is define some variables to hold our configuration values:

   1:          /// <summary>

   2:          /// Config key name for CacheTimeout option.

   3:          /// </summary>

   4:          const string CACHETIMEOUT = "CacheTimeout";

5:

   6:          /// <summary>

   7:          /// Config key name for HideNephews option.

   8:          /// </summary>

   9:          const string HIDENEPHEWS = "HideNephews";

10:

  11:          /// <summary>

  12:          /// Config key name for HideCousins option.

  13:          /// </summary>

  14:          const string HIDECOUSINS = "HideCousins";

15:

  16:          /// <summary>

  17:          /// Config key name for NavListUrl option.

  18:          /// </summary>

  19:          const string NAVLISTURL = "NavListUrl";

20:

  21:          /// <summary>

  22:          /// Config key name for the IgnoreQuery option.

  23:          /// </summary>

  24:          const string IGNOREQUERY = "IgnoreQuery";

25:

  26:          /// <summary>

  27:          /// Gets/Sets the number of minutes to cache the nodes.

  28:          /// in memory.

  29:          /// </summary>

  30:          public double CacheTimeout { get; set; }

31:

  32:          /// <summary>

  33:          /// Gets/Sets the value used to sort the in memory dataset.

  34:          /// </summary>

  35:          public string SortOrder { get; set; }

36:

  37:          /// <summary>

  38:          /// Determines if nephews are hidden.  If true, provider

  39:          /// will only return the current node, children of the current node

  40:          /// and siblings of the current node.

  41:          /// </summary>

  42:          public bool HideNephews { get; set; }

43:

  44:          /// <summary>

  45:          /// Determines if cousins are hidden.  If true, cousin nodes

  46:          /// will not be shown.

  47:          /// </summary>

  48:          public bool HideCousins { get; set; }

49:

  50:          /// <summary>

  51:          /// Gets/Sets the Url used to drive list navigation.

  52:          /// Once cached, the nodes are not re-read, even if this

  53:          /// value changes.

  54:          /// </summary>

  55:          public string NavListUrl { get; set; }

56:

  57:          /// <summary>

  58:          /// Determines if the Query (?...) is igniored when doing a node lookup

  59:          /// </summary>.

  60:          public bool IgnoreQuery { get; set; }

We’re using the new get; set; goodies from .Net 3.0. This will automagically generate the properties for us. Now we need to set the values upon initialization.

   1:          /// <summary>

   2:          /// Sets up the provider.

   3:          /// </summary>

   4:          /// <param name="name"></param>

   5:          /// <param name="config"></param>

   6:          public override void Initialize(string name,

   7:              System.Collections.Specialized.NameValueCollection providerConfig) {

   8:              Mark();

9:

  10:              CacheTimeout = tryParse(providerConfig[CACHETIMEOUT], 1.0);

11:

  12:              HideNephews = tryParse(providerConfig[HIDENEPHEWS], true);

  13:              HideCousins = tryParse(providerConfig[HIDECOUSINS], true);

14:

  15:              IgnoreQuery = tryParse(providerConfig[IGNOREQUERY], true);

16:

  17:              NavListUrl = getValue(providerConfig[NAVLISTURL], "Lists/NavList");

  18:          }

19:

  20:          private bool tryParse(string value, bool defaultValue)  {

  21:              bool retVal;

  22:              return bool.TryParse(value, out retVal) ? retVal : defaultValue;

  23:          }

24:

  25:          private double tryParse(string value, double defaultValue) {

  26:              double retVal;

  27:              return double.TryParse(value, out retVal) ? retVal : defaultValue;

  28:          }

29:

  30:          private string getValue(object value, string defaultValue) {

  31:              if (value == null)

  32:                  return defaultValue;

33:

  34:              return value.ToString();

  35:          }

Initialize is one of the routines provided by the base class. We’re passed a name value collection and we assign our properties. You can ignore line 8, that is for debugging. See the full source to see what that line does. tryParse is a helper function which will either return the value from the config file or a default value if the desired key doesn’t exist.

Define an in-memory record reflecting each SharePoint List Item

   1:      public class SPListItemSiteNode {

   2:          public string Key { get; set; }

   3:          public string Title { get; set; }

   4:          public string Description { get; set; }

   5:          public string Url { get; set; }

   6:          public double SortOrder { get; set; }

   7:          public SiteMapNode SiteMapNode { get; set; }

8:

   9:          public string ParentKey { get; set; }

  10:          public SPListItemSiteNode Parent { get; set; }

  11:      }

This is a very simple class that contains the properties we need to build our navigation.

Read the items from the SharePoint List when the provider is called

   1:          /// <summary>

   2:          /// Reads the node from a SharePoint list and return it as a List<>

   3:          /// </summary>

   4:          /// <returns></returns>

   5:          private List<SPListItemSiteNode> buildNodeTree() {

6:

   7:              var nodeIMDB = new List<SPListItemSiteNode>();

8:

   9:              string navListUrl = NavListUrl;

10:

  11:              Microsoft.SharePoint.SPContext spContext = Microsoft.SharePoint.SPContext.Current;

  12:              //Don't dispose of this object - we didn't create it, we don't destroy it.

  13:              Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite currentSite = spContext.Site;

14:

  15:              using (SPWeb listWeb = currentSite.OpenWeb(navListUrl, false)) {

16:

  17:                  SPList navList = listWeb.GetList(listWeb.ServerRelativeUrl + "/" + navListUrl);

18:

  19:                  if (navList != null) {

20:

  21:                      //Future functionality: appending the navlist url

  22:                      //so we can aggregate multiple lists.

  23:                      string keyPrefix = navListUrl;

24:

  25:                      foreach (SPListItem listItem in navList.Items) {

  26:                          var newNode = new SPListItemSiteNode() {

  27:                              Title = listItem.Title,

  28:                              Description = getValue(listItem["Description"], string.Empty),

  29:                              Url = listItem["Url"].ToString().ToLower(),

  30:                              Key = keyPrefix + listItem.ID.ToString(),

  31:                              SortOrder = (Double)listItem["SortOrder"],

  32:                              ParentKey = listItem["Parent"] == null ? ROOTID :

  33:                                  keyPrefix + (listItem["Parent"] as string).Split(';')[0]

  34:                          };

35:

  36:                          newNode.SiteMapNode = new SiteMapNode(this, newNode.Key, newNode.Url, newNode.Title, newNode.Description);

  37:                          nodeIMDB.Add(newNode);

  38:                      }

39:

  40:                      //Set Parents

  41:                      foreach (var row in nodeIMDB)

  42:                          if (row.ParentKey != ROOTID) {

  43:                              //Look for the parent row

  44:                              var parentRow = nodeIMDB.Find(n => n.Key == row.ParentKey);

45:

  46:                              row.Parent = parentRow;

  47:                              row.SiteMapNode.ParentNode = parentRow.SiteMapNode;

  48:                          }

  49:                  }

  50:              }

51:

  52:              return nodeIMDB;

  53:          }

This is fairly straightforward, read from the SharePoint list, load it into the List<> object and return it. The only thing slightly funky is the two-pass reader to set the parents. Before we can build the tree, we have to have all the nodes loaded, which is why we have it in two loops. Also check out line 44, we’re using a Lambda expression to go and find the parent row.

Cache the items for x minutes for performance reasons

To achieve this, we’re going to create a public property which calls our buildNodeTree function and stores the result. As the provider runs, it will access this property which will be responsible for the caching.

   1:          /// <summary>

   2:          /// Returns the Cached Nodes list.

   3:          /// The nodes are read from the SPList and then caches the results for better

   4:          /// performance.

   5:          /// </summary>

   6:          public List<SPListItemSiteNode> AllNodes {

   7:              get {

   8:                  attach();

9:

  10:                  //Build our cached key.  We use the provider name in case we loaded

  11:                  //multiple copies

  12:                  string cacheKey = this.Name + "allNodes";

13:

  14:                  var nodes = (List<SPListItemSiteNode>)HttpContext.Current.Cache[cacheKey];

15:

  16:                  if (nodes == null)

  17:                      //Simple double check lock to update cache

  18:                      lock (HttpContext.Current.Cache) {

  19:                          nodes = (List<SPListItemSiteNode>)HttpContext.Current.Cache[cacheKey];

  20:                          if (nodes == null) {

  21:                              nodes = buildNodeTree();

  22:                              HttpContext.Current.Cache.Add(cacheKey, nodes, null,

  23:                                  DateTime.Now.AddMinutes(CacheTimeout),

  24:                                  System.Web.Caching.Cache.NoSlidingExpiration, System.Web.Caching.CacheItemPriority.Normal, null);

  25:                          }

26:

  27:                      }

28:

  29:                  return nodes;

  30:              }

  31:          }

You can ignore line 8, that’s some debug code to attach the debugger, if you’d like to see it, check out the full source.

Now we can leverage the AllNodes everywhere and not worry about caching anywhere else.

Use LINQ to query our in memory collection of Nodes

   1:          /// <summary>

   2:          /// Returns the root node

   3:          /// </summary>

   4:          /// <returns></returns>

   5:          protected override SiteMapNode GetRootNodeCore() {

   6:              Mark();

7:

   8:              //Find the node with no parent

   9:              SiteMapNode rootNode = AllNodes.First<SPListItemSiteNode>(n => n.Parent == null).SiteMapNode;

10:

  11:              rootNode.ParentNode = null;

12:

  13:              return rootNode;

  14:          }

   1:          /// <summary>

   2:          /// Given the URL, finds the appropriate node.

   3:          /// </summary>

   4:          /// <param name="rawUrl"></param>

   5:          /// <returns></returns>

   6:          public override SiteMapNode FindSiteMapNode(string rawUrl) {

   7:              Mark(rawUrl);

8:

   9:              rawUrl = rawUrl.ToLower();

10:

  11:              if (IgnoreQuery && rawUrl.Contains('?')) {

  12:                  int offset = rawUrl.IndexOf('?');

  13:                  rawUrl = rawUrl.Substring(0, offset);

  14:              }

15:

  16:              try {

  17:                  var row = AllNodes.First<SPListItemSiteNode>(i => i.Url.Contains(rawUrl));

18:

  19:                  return row.SiteMapNode;

20:

  21:              } catch {

  22:                  return null;

  23:              }

  24:          }

   1:          /// <summary>

   2:          /// Given a node, return the parent node.

   3:          /// </summary>

   4:          /// <param name="node"></param>

   5:          /// <returns></returns>

   6:          public override SiteMapNode GetParentNode(SiteMapNode node) {

   7:              Mark(node);

8:

   9:              var row = AllNodes.First<SPListItemSiteNode>(n => n.Key == node.Key);

10:

  11:              if (row.Parent == null)

  12:                  return null;

  13:              else

  14:                  return

  15:                      AllNodes.First<SPListItemSiteNode>(n => n.Parent.SiteMapNode == node).SiteMapNode;

  16:          }

   1:          /// <summary>

   2:          /// Gets all children for a specific node

   3:          /// </summary>

   4:          /// <param name="node"></param>

   5:          /// <returns></returns>

   6:          public override SiteMapNodeCollection GetChildNodes(SiteMapNode node) {

7:

   8:              Mark(node.Title);

9:

  10:              SiteMapNodeCollection childNodes = new SiteMapNodeCollection();

11:

  12:              //Don't show nephew nodes -

  13:              if (HideNephews &&

  14:                  node.ParentNode == CurrentNode.ParentNode && node != CurrentNode) {

  15:                  return childNodes;

  16:              }

17:

  18:              //Don't show cousins

  19:              if (HideCousins && node != CurrentNode) {

  20:                  SiteMapNode myParent = CurrentNode.ParentNode;

21:

  22:                  if (myParent != null) {

  23:                      SiteMapNode myGrandparent = myParent.ParentNode;

24:

  25:                      if (myGrandparent != null &&

  26:                          (node.IsDescendantOf(myGrandparent) && node != myParent))

  27:                              return childNodes;

28:

  29:                  }

  30:              }

31:

  32:              ///Find all nodes with this parent

  33:              var childRows = from n in AllNodes

  34:                        where n.Parent != null && n.Parent.SiteMapNode == node

  35:                        orderby n.SortOrder

  36:                        select n;

37:

  38:              if (childRows != null) {

  39:                  foreach (var childRow in childRows) {

  40:                      childNodes.Add(childRow.SiteMapNode);

  41:                      childRow.SiteMapNode.ParentNode = node;

  42:                  }

  43:              }

44:

  45:              return childNodes;

  46:          }

Lines 33-36 do the most work. It’s our LINQ query to return the nodes for this parent.

That’s It! We now have our provider.

Verification

At this point, the code for the provider is complete, everything should compile and deploy to the GAC.

Step 5: Put it to use

Add the following code to a master page, or wherever you’d like to use it.

Figure 6

The key control is the SiteMapDataSource. That acts as the glue between our provider and the AspMenu control. The SMDS also allows us to change the starting node and adds some other UI based functionality (like ShowStartingNode.) Try playing around with it and see how it affects the UI. Pay attention to that StartingNodeOffset.

When it’s all said and done, lets see a page with it in action.

Figure 7

Here I’ve put our new menu on top and the Out-of-Box menu below. You can see how the OOB is just a flat view and our custom menu has levels. Needless to say, I am not a UI guy, so my only styles are color changes, but you can really take this far. In fact, you can use the Dynamic properties to have flyout menus as well.

Figure 8

After navigating to Parent List 2, we can see how the cousin/nephew hiding is working. We’re only seeing the child nodes of Parent List 2.

Here’s the code:

Link to Code

Basics facts of Publishing Sites

ketaanhs — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 18:30:00 GMT

Wish you All A Very Happy New Year 2009!!!

I am working on a MOSS publishing site and thought of sharing some of the basic things that we should always remember while implementing a Publishing site on MOSS / Sharepoint 2007:

1. There can only be one and only one PAGES library in any sharepoint publishing site (we can create a document library and treat it as Pages library but I don’t know if this is supported as the publishing document library (PAGES) has several features like approval workflow, etc attached to it on creation)

2. Sub-folders are not supported in PAGES library (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948614/en-us)

3. Always remember Web parts(WP) doesn’t save any data and they are not stored with the Pages, WPs are only referenced in the Pages. Andrew Connell has an excellent blog on Field Controls and Web Parts here: http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog/archive/2008/10/09/Publishing-sites-field-controls-or-Web-Parts.-that-is-the.aspx

4. You can't save the publishing site templates using the SAVE AS SITE TEMPLATE, even with the hacks that are floating around as this is not supported.

5. Beaware of those links referenced in the Content Editor Webparts they dont transfer nicely from environments to envrionments when you do a Content deployment from lets say integration to Staging or from Staging to Production envrionment. But hold there is a solution to this problem and Maxime Bombardier explains it in details here: http://blogs.msdn.com/maximeb/archive/2008/12/23/fixing-absolute-urls-for-all-alternate-access-mappings-aam-of-content-editor-web-part-with-a-control-adapter.aspx

6. If you want to programmatically check if the Content Page is Published, the best way to achieve this is by using the PublishingPage.ListItem.File.Level (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.sharepoint.spfilelevel.aspx) i.e. check out the following classes and its members PublishingPage, SPListItem, SPFile and finally the SPFileLevel enumerator. Thanks to Mak for point this out.

7. Programmatically find out all the Page Layouts currently used by any or all content pages in the site collection:

StringCollection strPLCollection = new StringCollection();

using (SPSite site = new SPSite("http://litwareinc"))

{

foreach (SPWeb web in site.AllWebs)

{

if (PublishingWeb.IsPublishingWeb(web))

{

PublishingWeb publishingWeb = PublishingWeb.GetPublishingWeb(web);

try

{

foreach (PublishingPage contentPage in publishingWeb.GetPublishingPages())

{

string strPLURL = contentPage.Layout.ServerRelativeUrl;

// This will ensure we don’t add the same Page Layout URL

if (!strPLCollection.Contains(strPLURL))

{

//Adding to the string collection

strPLCollection.Add(strPLURL);

}

catch (Exception ex)

{

//write your exception handling message here:

}

web.Dispose();

}

foreach (string strPL in strPLCollection)

{

Console.WriteLine(strPL);

}

8. If you want to move your Master Pages, Page Layouts, etc (almost all of the branding stuff) then use Sharepoint Features/Solutions, and Andrew Connell has explained it in details: http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog/archive/2006/12/20/5451.aspx

9. If you want to keep a webpart always intact on any content page, then open the Page Layout with SharePoint Designer and move the web part outside of the web part zone so the web part is hosted directly by the (Page Layout) aspx. This will not allow the contributors/Authors to move, add or delete any web parts.

Usefull links for a Publising or Internet facing Sharepoint (MOSS) site implementation / development

ketaanhs — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 21:24:00 GMT

I thought of sharing some of the important and useful links for Publishing sites:

Following command can be used to fix an issue with upgraded/ imported site to new farms: http://stsadm.blogspot.com/2007/08/fix-publishing-pages-page-layout-url.html

Dealing with Content Editor web part when migrating sites from Stage to Prod: http://andrewconnell.com/blog/archive/2008/12/24/Working-around-the-CEWPs-absolute-links.aspx

This article will help in gathering information and implementing a localized XSLT for CQWP. Generally XSLT doesnt support localization out of the box (for e.g. READ MORE.... kind of links that are added thru XSLT : http://blog.mastykarz.nl/localizing-content-query-web-part-xsl-templates/

This is an enhanced RTE that can be used to allow vidoes/flash players: http://www.codeplex.com/erte/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=15536

This is MSIT implemented CQWP with dynamic filtering: http://www.codeplex.com/sptoolbox/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=11150

How to use CEWP to display a simple SEARCH Box: http://www.tqcblog.com/archive/2007/10/26/creating-a-custom-advanced-search-box-in-moss-2007.aspx

This utility allows you to generate a Page Layout from a content type without any HTML code in it, so that this can then be handed over to the designer for placing the controls as required: http://blog.mastykarz.nl/generate-page-layouts-imtech-fields-explorer/

This utility should help us reducing the size of the Java script files to achieve page optimization. This utility should be used before uploading the js files to the Styles or any other document library : http://www.codeplex.com/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ProjectName=tmt&ReleaseId=14085

The command PublishAllItems will traverse a site collection, check-in any checked-out items, approve any pending approval, and publish all items (very helpful while doing the development): http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog/articles/MossStsadmWcmCommands.aspx#PublishAllItems

Object Caching: http://blog.mastykarz.nl/obtain-objects-cache/

Optimizing the Images : http://blog.mastykarz.nl/optimize-images/

Locking down a Internet facing Sharepoint Site: http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2007/05/10/how-to-lockdown-an-internet-facing-moss-based-web-site.aspx

What is the support for Virtualization for MOSS (Sharepoint 2007)

ketaanhs — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 18:28:00 GMT

As the KB909840, “Hardware virtualization support for SharePoint products and technologies.” It states: WSS v3 and MOSS are supported in production if they’re on Virtual Server 2005 R2 or later.

Also KB897615 states how 3^rd party virtualization is not supported at all if you don’t have Premier level support, and Microsoft will use “commercially reasonable efforts” Onle if you DO have Premier level support.

But what about Hyper-V support? So do we support MOSS 2007/WSS 3.0 with Hyper-V?

So currently as of Aug 08th 2008 we are awating an Official statement to come out in few weeks, until then I *assume* Microsoft Support may provide Commercial Reasonable Support.

<UPDATE: Aug 19th 2008> From: http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2008/08/18/update-on-virtualization-support-for-sharepoint-products-and-technologies.aspx

As of today, we formally support SharePoint Server 2007 SP1 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP1 running under Hyper-V through our normal support channels. In addition, we now offer support for SharePoint Server 2007 SP1 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP1 running in 3^rd party virtualization software that is certified through our Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP). The SVVP is an opt-in program that non-Microsoft virtualization providers can choose to participate in. A list of participating vendors is here.

</UPDATE>

Hopefully these links should be handy to get you going and select Virtual environment :).

Infopath Publishing thru Central Admin (MOSS / Sharepoint 2007) fails with error!

ketaanhs — Sun, 18 May 2008 00:25:00 GMT

When I was trying to load an InfoPath form template (via Central Admin --> Manage Form Templates), and I got following error:

“This form template has not been correctly published to be browser-enabled. Open the form template in InfoPath Design mode, and click Publish Form Template in the Design Tasks task pane. Follow the steps in the Publishing Wizard to republish the form template, and then try again”

So the basic thing to note here is:

Forms uploaded through Central Admin need to be specifically published for that purpose, by choosing Publish -> To a SharePoint Server and choosing ‘Administrator-approved form template (advanced)’. This option saves a version of the Form Template which is specifically configured for publishing to Central Admin and Forms Services Administration will block uploading XSNs that are not published in this manner.

CAML query with Person or People and Groups column in Sharepoint 2007 (using in Event Handlers)

ketaanhs — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 08:17:00 GMT

I was facing an issue with my simple CAML query where I was trying to filter the Field inside Sharepoint List and supplying value from the properties.AfterProperties of List Item event handler. This field was of Person or to say People and Groups kind of field. Internally inside sharepoint this value is stored as USERID and not as the display name. So I was using a simple CAML builder to build my query and it looked like:

oQuery.Query = "<Where><And><Eq><FieldRef Name='Team_x0020_Member' />" +

"<Value Type='User'>" + properties.Afterproperties[“Team_x0020_Member”].ToString() + "</Value>" + "</Eq>" +

"<Eq><FieldRef Name='Year' /> <Value Type='Choice'>" + properties.AfterProperties["Year"].ToString() +

"</Value> </Eq></And></Where>";

And this never worked for me, then one of my colleagues Madhur Ahuja helped me crack this it was a simple Lookup attribute that was missing, so basically the query should have been:

oQuery.Query = "<Where><And><Eq><FieldRef Name='Team_x0020_Member' LookupId= 'TRUE' />" +

"<Value Type='User'>" + properties.Afterproperties[“Team_x0020_Member”].ToString() + "</Value>" + "</Eq>" +

"<Eq><FieldRef Name='Year' /> <Value Type='Choice'>" + properties.AfterProperties["Year"].ToString() +

"</Value> </Eq></And></Where>";

And this never worked for me, so bottom line if you use People and Groups kind of column in Filters always make sure that you use LookupId ='TRUE' attribute in Filters.

How to un-register an Event Handler on a List, sharepoint 2007, MOSS

ketaanhs — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:20:00 GMT

Best way to deploy your event handlers in Production environment is thru Solutions/Features. All you need to use is Feature Assembly and basically use Feature Activated and Feature Deactivating events.

Following is the code that you might want to refer on Feature Activated:

{

SPWeb web = SPContext.Current.Web;
SPList spListName = web.Lists["Project Time Entry List"];

            string assemblyName = "AssemblyName, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=36f7c742d410fd5b";
            string className = "AssemblyName.TotalCheck_ItmEvntHdlr";
            SPEventReceiverDefinition evntRcvr = spListName.EventReceivers.Add();
            evntRcvr.Name = "TotalCheck_ItemAdding";
            evntRcvr.Type = SPEventReceiverType.ItemAdding;
            evntRcvr.SequenceNumber = 200;
            evntRcvr.Assembly = assemblyName;
            evntRcvr.Class = className;
            evntRcvr.Update();

            SPEventReceiverDefinition evntRcvr_updt = spListName.EventReceivers.Add();
            evntRcvr_updt.Name = "TotalCheck_ItemUpdating";
            evntRcvr_updt.Type = SPEventReceiverType.ItemUpdating;
            evntRcvr_updt.SequenceNumber = 201;
            evntRcvr_updt.Assembly = assemblyName;
            evntRcvr_updt.Class = className;
            evntRcvr_updt.Update();
    }

Following is the code that you can use in the Feature Deactivating code

        {
            SPWeb web = SPContext.Current.Web;
            SPList spListName = web.Lists["Project Time Entry List"];

            for(int i=0; i<spListName.EventReceivers.Count;i++)
            {

                if (spListName.EventReceivers[i].Name != null)
                {
                    if (spListName.EventReceivers[i].Name == "TotalCheck_ItemAdding" || spListName.EventReceivers[i].Name == "TotalCheck_ItemUpdating")
                    {
                        spListName.EventReceivers[i].Delete();

                       i = -1;
                    }
                }
            }
        }

Document Information Panel does not load and errors out in Sharepoint 2007 and Word 2007

ketaanhs — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 02:12:00 GMT

I would like to thank my Friend Bob who came up with this issue which led me in debugging and searching for the solution. So what was the Problem: The document Information Panel does not load at all and errors out with following error when used with Sharepoint 2007 (MOSS) document library:

========================================================================================================================================================================

Document Information Panel cannot create a new, blank form.
Document Information Panel cannot open the form. To fix this problem, contact your system administrator.
Form template: http://litwareinc.com/sites/KSTest/proppanel.xsn
Document Information Panel cannot open the following view: TestForWordIPanel Properties - Server
The following view file is not valid: view2.xsl
The .xsl file is not valid XSL.
Expected token ']' found 'NAME'.

count(p:properties/documentManagement/ns2:KetaanhMultiChoice/ns2:Value[. != 'Ketaanh'-->s<--' and . != 'Bob's' and . != 'Ketaanh']) != 0 or string-length(p:properties/documentManagement/ns2:KetaanhMultiChoice) + 2 * count(p:properties/documentManagement/ns2:KetaanhMultiChoice/ns2:Value) > 253

========================================================================================================================================================================

Well a little debugging revealed that there is no limitation on the number of elements or characters for the Values of a SITE COLUMN used in CONTENT TYPES. But this issue is seen even in case of just 2 values in a site-column, but the Columns had special values and they were:

Ketaanh's

Bob's

Bob

So basically using apostrophe is causing that issue and not the number of characters. So the Solution or rather work-around is to use ASCII value (%27)for the values entered for site-column i.e.:

Ketaanh%27s

Bob%27s

Bob

Following is the result:

So the conclusion is APOSTROPH is creating the trouble with MULTI CHOICE type of SITE COLUMNS and this could resolved using ASCII value for APOSTROPH which is %27.