Shared Points for SharePoint : SharePoint development

A good under-the-hood SharePoint book?

Jon Løken — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:49:19 GMT

My former colleague Kjell-Sverre has written a review on the book Building the SharePoint User Experience, where he absolutely recommends reading the book. This is a hardcore book for SharePoint developers. I haven’t read it yet, but it’s on its way.

Kjell-Sverre’s review is worth reading, including his follow up post on List Content Type Forms

Building the SharePoint User Experience (Expert's Voice in Sharepoint)

Copy listitems from one custom list to another, then move them into subfolders.

Stian Kirkeberg — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 10:01:15 GMT

One problem I stumbled over the other day, was how to copy item from one custom SPlist to another. The two lists are identical and I thought moving the items should be quite easy through use of the object model. It turned out be not so straight forward.

Normally, SPListItem.CopyFrom() and SPListItem.CopyTo() should do the trick:

SPListItem listItem = web.GetListItem(listItemUrl);
listItem.CopyTo(destinationUrl); // Copies the item to the specified destinations

or

listItem.CopyFrom(sourceUrl); // Overwrites the current item with the specified version of the item.

Sadly, this does not work with custom lists or custom properties. A small search on live.com showed that I was not the only one struggling with this. Several solutions are available like:
http://www.communardo.de/techblog/2008/01/08/sharepoint-listenelement-splistitem-in-eine-andere-liste-kopieren/ (you can read the code… )
http://www.informationworker.co.za/blogs/mirror/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=312

http://www.k2distillery.com/2007/10/copy-version-history-with_5.html

So, there is not really need for another posting of this code. Except for the fact that I wanted to move the copied item into subfolders. Trying to do so resulted in the error:
”Source item cannot be found. Verify that the item exists and that you have permission to read it.”
It doesn’t tell you much now does it?

But, if I combined the logic from the posts above with a SPFile.MoveTo(…) it was finally working OK.

SPListItem item = Web.Lists["Announcement"].GetItemById(5);
SPFile file = Web.GetFile(item.Url);
file.MoveTo("New location...with the ID_.000");

http://blogs.inetium.com/blogs/khofer/archive/2008/03/16/fix-can-t-move-copy-an-splistitem.aspx

Summarized:

1. Copy the item by iterating through all fields, and optionally for all versions of the item

2. Copy the attachments.

3. Delete the original item, if applicable.

4. Move the new item into appropriate subfolder.

Hope this can save you time if you need to do the same sort of thing.

Create Datasheet view missing

Stian Kirkeberg — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 22:06:00 GMT

The other the I got asked why the “Datasheet view” option was laking from “Create a new view”. It turned out to be a more troublesome way to find the solution than first expected.

First I checked the users rights on the site collection, but that really did not give any answers.

Secondly, I checked this on a virtual dev machine, with (more or less) the same configuration and features: No repro. Create datasheet view was available as it should be. So what could be the difference between these machines?

Thirdly, I compared site features and site collection features, but this neither give any findings.

OK, let’s see what happens in the ViewType.aspx which display this page:

fHideGridViewOption = ListViewWebPart.RestrictedTemplateType(spList) || !spList.DoesUserHavePermissions(SPBasePermissions.UseClientIntegration);

… and some more… but nothing really telling me why it might be hidden.

So I asked and looked for suggestions elsewhere: A lot of search hits and problem related to the DataSheet view is client integration, that was a dead end here. From one client I could reproduce the problem on one server and not on another. And the problem is not viewing the view.

Finally, I tried to open an existing datasheet view on the server with the problem. This gave the following error:

"The standard view of your list is being displayed because your site configuration does not support the Datasheet"

“Site configuration” – it should have said web application. Central Admin - application management - authentication providers - <your provider> – scroll to the bottom:

“Enable client Integration” was set to “NO”.

This was a setting long forgotten, since it is set to “YES” when you create a new web application in the GUI. However, one server had been set up using STSADM commands with the SharePoint PowerShell Deploy from Codeplex using EXTENDVS, so somehow I needed to compensate for this.

The easiest way is to call another stsadm command after the extendvs,

stsadm -o authentication

-url <URL name>

-type <type>

[-usebasic]

[-usewindowsintegrated]

[-exclusivelyusentlm]

[-membershipprovider] <membership provider name>

[-rolemanager] <role manager name>

[-enableclientintegration]

[-allowanonymous]

ref. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263116.aspx

and set the –enableclientintegration flag.

Just another small annoying thing that take a little too long to figure out…

New Version of SharePoint SiteConfigurator Feature Released!

Stian Kirkeberg — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 23:37:39 GMT

We have just released a new version of the SharePoint SiteConfigurator feature on codeplex.com.

In this release we have focused on some new features and making sure the build is stable. This involved some refactoring as well as splitting the project in three parts, one for the code and logic, one part for the feature and one test project. This new structure will make it much easier and faster to reuse the project from farm to farm.

As the release notes states, we also focused on:

split VS project in two for easier maintenance and upgrades
added Type Mock project (simply remove that project from the solution if you don't use it)
rewrote log functionality
added verbose logging option
fixed disabling of web part toolbar (still some minor issues here)
made the complete solution independent of it's features names.
Added provisioning of files and make it possible to choose welcome page based on xml parameter
Added support for links with parameters in AddQuickLaunchLinks
Created support for QuickLaunchHeading and
DeleteQuickLaunchHeading elements.
Rearranged and refactored the main project
Fixed some bugs

Enjoy the new release and please give us feedback so we can improve it further!

SPNavigationNode issue

Frank Jusnes — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 15:17:00 GMT

While working on some enhancements for the Site Configurator Feature we just released to CodePlex, I was struggling with an unexpected behavior when trying to add create SPNavigationNodes programmatically for quick launch and top navigation links. There are two constructors to select from:

public SPNavigationNode(string title, string url)
public SPNavigationNode(string title, string url, bool isExternal)

Since I needed to support both internal and external links, I chose the second one. Adding external links and links to subsites works fine, but adding links that point to the same site seems to fail. In the following example I am trying to create a duplicate of the out-of-the-box "Lists" quick launch heading.

SPNavigationNode node = new SPNavigationNode("MyInternalLink", "/_layouts/viewlsts.aspx?BaseType=0", false);
web.Navigation.QuickLaunch.AddAsLast(node);

The link will be added like this: http://_layouts/viewlsts.aspx?BaseType=0. Which obviously is invalid. So how did I come around this? Using .NET Reflector I checked the OnSubmit method of the NavNodeCreatePage class (NavNodeCreatePage is the codebehind for newnav.aspx). This is the page used when adding navigation nodes in the user interface. Interestingly I found that the "isExternal" parameter was "hardcoded" to "true". So I changed my code to:

SPNavigationNode node = new SPNavigationNode("MyInternalLink", "/_layouts/viewlsts.aspx?BaseType=0", true); web.Navigation.QuickLaunch.AddAsLast(node);

It does not make sense to me, but at least it solved the problem. If anyone can explain it, please leave a comment.

Unit testing MOSS part 2 (of 2)

Jan Tore Lamøy — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 17:29:00 GMT

In the 1. article on Unit testing MOSS I described some of the findings and experience on unit testing SharePoint applications using the TypeMock Isolator framework. In this 2. article I will provide some examples of unit tests. Code under test You should...(read more)

Unit testing MOSS part 1 (of 2)

Jan Tore Lamøy — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 14:53:00 GMT

Some of our team members, including me and Frank Jusnes , were recently responsible for providing recommendations on how to unit test in SharePoint projects, and this is an overview of our findings and experiences. This is the first of two posts on the...(read more)

Announcing SharePoint Site Configurator Feature on CodePlex

Stian Kirkeberg — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 12:32:30 GMT

It is an pleasure to announce the second of our two new SharePoint projects on Codeplex.com: Project Description SharePoint Site Configurator Feature is a small framework for taking care of all configurations, settings and featurestapling you need for...(read more)

Announcing SharePoint PowerShell Deploy on CodePlex

Stian Kirkeberg — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 12:31:41 GMT

It is an pleasure to announce the first of our two new SharePoint projects on Codeplex.com: Project Description SharePoint PowerShell Deploy is a set of PowerShell files to help you build, deploy, upgrade and destroy a SharePoint farm. It can be used...(read more)

Unit testing SharePoint code

tommyo — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 14:15:00 GMT

In some projects lately I've been faced with the question about how to unit-test SharePoint code. I've been experimenting with unit testing in Visual Studio 2008 and particularly testing SharePoint code. What do I mean by "SharePoint code" ? I mean server-side...(read more)

How To: Creating a VS web application below a SharePoint IIS web application

Stian Kirkeberg — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 10:38:29 GMT

In certain scenarioes it would be very convenient to create a full Visual Studio web application below a SharePoint web application. This can be when you have a lot of asp.net files which do not have many connections or use of SharePoint functionality,...(read more)

Sample code acceptance checklist for IT organizations

Stian Kirkeberg — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 12:41:33 GMT

"Web sites that are based on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 often include custom solutions. The ability to customize sites by adding custom solutions gives Office SharePoint Server 2007 power and flexibility. However, a poorly designed or implemented executable module that runs in a SharePoint farm can do harm even beyond the scope of the Web application for which it was intended. Poorly implemented custom solutions can introduce security or performance risks, increase the cost of support, complicate deployment, and reduce productivity.
Because the impact of installing custom solutions in a SharePoint server farm can be either positive or negative, we recommend that you to carefully evaluate all custom solutions before deploying them in your production environment. Among the areas to evaluate are the following:

Was the solution developed, tested, and piloted consistently with the best practices described in Design and build sites for Office SharePoint Server 2007 and in white papers such as Implementing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Solutions?

Along with requiring that the solution be developed in accordance with general best practices, we recommend that you have developers submit a checklist to verify that their solutions have been coded and tested according to best practices.
(...)"

Sample code acceptance checklist for IT organizations

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 VHD

Stian Kirkeberg — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 12:38:24 GMT

Brief Description

This download comes as a pre-configured VHD. This download enables you evaluate Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

Overview

The Microsoft VHD Test Drive Program provides customers with an enhanced server-based software evaluation experience that’s faster, better supported and more flexible. You can now access the entire catalog of pre-configured Microsoft and partner products and solutions in the VHD format and start evaluating and testing today from www.microsoft.com/vhd.

This download enables you evaluate Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is an integrated suite of server capabilities that can help improve organizational effectiveness by providing comprehensive content management and enterprise search, accelerating shared business processes, and facilitating information-sharing across boundaries for better business insight. Office SharePoint Server 2007 supports all intranet, extranet, and Web applications across an enterprise within one integrated platform, instead of relying on separate fragmented systems. Additionally, this collaboration and content management server provides IT professionals and developers with the platform and tools they need for server administration, application extensibility, and interoperability.

This fully functional pre-configured VHD provides you a trial software will automatically expire after 30 days.
This is a preconfigured virtual machine contained within the Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) format. Virtual Server 2005 R2 is required to run this VHD. Please refer to the system requirements section for more details.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=67f93dcb-ada8-4db5-a47b-df17e14b2c74&DisplayLang=en

SharePoint Development and Programming FAQ

Stian Kirkeberg — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 15:37:52 GMT

MSDN forums opened SharePoint Development and Programming FAQ recently - add it to your favorites right away! :)

Best Practices Resource Center for SharePoint Server 2007

Stian Kirkeberg — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 09:42:37 GMT

To avoid common pitfalls and keep your Office SharePoint Server 2007 environment available and performing well, follow these best practices based on real-world experience from Microsoft Consulting Services and the product team.

Best Practices Resource Center for SharePoint Server 2007