Jie Li's GeekWorld : IE8

Search Suggestions in IE8 with SharePoint/Search Server

Jie Li — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 03:23:13 GMT

IE8 Beta 2 has been there for a while. Although it is not supported to use together with SharePoint products yet (there’s no chance to support a beta product), you can still try it out. There’re couple of new features introduced like WebSlices, Accelerators and Search Suggestions.

Search Suggestions! Isn’t it cool to make your intranet SharePoint portal to be a Search Provider and have this lovely suggestion feature?

However, by default you can make SharePoint a Search Provider, but no way to add a suggestion feature.

So here it comes – an update to “Search As Your Type(SAYT)” codeplex project, with Search Suggestion working in IE8! And I also included a small green “S” logo icon file for that, all free:)

Since it needs time to update codeplex project, I’ll put something here.

1. Install SAYT on your SharePoint Server/Search Server as instructed. Do some test searches, to make sure it works.

2. Download new update from here:

http://cid-8007edf5c56fc334.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/SharePointSearchIE8.zip

3. Extract this zip file, copy all files to the directory you put GetInfo.aspx in first step, and overwrite it.

4. Modify ssprovider.xml as needed. Replace SharePointSearchCenter and SAYTUrl with your own ones.

5. Use IE8 to navigate to add.html, and add search provider.

6. Choose the green “S” provider and try it out!

You can add a sample provider on http://www.mssearch.cn:8099/add.aspx, and try type in “search server” to see the result.

Disclaimer: This code is not support by Microsoft, if you have problems, leave your comment here. SAYT Codeplex project will be updated later to include this feature.

IE 8.0 Beta 2 with SharePoint, what’s the story?

Jie Li — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 09:47:50 GMT

Today Internet Explorer 8.0 Beta 2 was released. Well, if you tried Beta 1 with Office SharePoint Server 2007 or Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, you may notice that some of the features like content editor webpart does not function properly, even in IE7 mode.

But IE7 mode should be the same as original IE7, not to cause new problems. After several months’ bugfix and feature improvement, that problem now is gone.

There’re also some changes between IE8 Beta 1 and Beta 2. For example, there’s no IE7 mode button anymore, it is changed to a “Compatibility View” button next to refresh button. And that is not turned on by default.

So what will happen if I use IE8 Beta 2 to access a SharePoint site?

That depends on your master page of the site. IE8 Beta 2 will check DOCTYPE and meta tag to determine wether to use Compatibility View or not. If there is no DOCTYPE indicated in the page, IE8 Beta 2 will use this mode by default, and you will not see the button at all. This is what happened for default master pages come with SharePoint Server. All things should work by default.

It is quite common that you are using your own modified themes in master pages. So what if DOCTYPE is there in the pages? Will it cause any problem?

Maybe. But if you want to ensure everything works, I would recommend to add a meta tag in your master pages:

When IE8 Beta 2 reads this line, it will automatically switch to Compatibility View and make everything right. This can be seen as a temporary solution. IE8 native mode will be supported in future SharePoint v3 service pack.