Paul Andrew

Automated Builds with VSeWSS 1.3

2009-06-27T03:42:00Z

I just came across this blog post from John W Powell detailing his experience creating automated builds with VSeWSS 1.3.

New Web Development Tutorial with VSeWSS 1.3

2009-05-30T04:05:00Z

Just came across this tutorial for doing web page development and deploying them using VSeWSS 1.3

http://geeksconnected.com/jamil/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=19

OFC204 - Sample Code and Demos I showed at TechEd Last Week

2009-05-18T18:17:00Z

At my TechEd talk last week I showed Visual Studio 2008 extensions for SharePoint 1.3 and I demo'd creating a simple web part that shows data from a SharePoint list in a grid. I also showed command line builds which is one of the features we added in VSeWSS 1.3 and I showed the SPDisposeCheck tool.

For the demos I used the WSS Developer VPC which is available here. I uninstalled the VSeWSS 1.2 that comes on that image and installed the VSeWSS 1.3 from here. I also installed SPDisposeCheck from here.

So that's my machine image to which I also created a sample Employees list and a Projects list in the default SharePoint site. Here's the code that I used in the first demo. Pretty simple stuff.

namespace WebPart1

{

[Guid("64a11214-36e3-4b1a-b8a7-fbb0ca9370c6")]

public class WebPart1 : System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebPart

{

public WebPart1()

{

}

protected override void CreateChildControls()

{

SPGridView customerGridView = new SPGridView();

SPWeb web = SPContext.Current.Web;

SPList list = web.Lists["Employees"];

SPQuery query = new SPQuery(list.DefaultView);

query.Query = "<Where><Eq><FieldRef Name='JobTitle' /><Value Type='Text'>SDE</Value></Eq></Where>";

SPListItemCollection items = list.GetItems(query);

AutoAddColumns(customerGridView, list);

customerGridView.DataSource = items.GetDataTable();

customerGridView.DataBind();

Controls.Add(customerGridView);

base.CreateChildControls();

}

private void AutoAddColumns(SPGridView gridView, SPList list)

{

gridView.AutoGenerateColumns = false;

foreach (string fieldname in list.DefaultView.ViewFields)

{

SPField field = list.Fields.GetFieldByInternalName(fieldname);

BoundField column = new BoundField();

column.DataField = field.StaticName;

column.HeaderText = field.Title;

gridView.Columns.Add(column);

}

TechEd in Los Angeles Next Week

2009-05-07T20:21:00Z

I'm presenting at TechEd in Los Angeles next week. If you're at the event I hope you'll come to my talk. It is "OFC204 Easy SharePoint Development with VSeWSS 1.3".

The talk is suitable for developers who currently don't work on SharePoint. I will demo the coding of building a simple SharePoint web parts that accesses SharePoint data lists. I will also talk about the types of applications people build on SharePoint, how you can integrate SharePoint development with application lifecycle management tools and about the first SharePoint development best practices you need to know and tools to help you with them.

Find my talk here: http://www.msteched.com/sessionlist/default.aspx

Or find it here: Mon 5/11 | 2:45 PM-4:00 PM | Room 153

Windows 7 RC Installed

2009-05-02T15:43:00Z

I updated my primary machine to Windows 7 RC yesterday. One thing I had to search for and update was Messenger settings so it would minimize to the tool tray instead of the task bar. Here's the tip.

Kirk Evans Presents Visual Studio 2008 extensions for SharePoint

2009-03-25T16:03:05Z

Kirk Evans has started recording a series of screen casts for Channel 9 on SharePoint Development. They are great for getting started with the tools and the development environment.

Kirk’s first screencast shows building a simple web part with the Visual Studio 2008 extensions for SharePoint (VSeWSS).

Kirk’s second screencast shows building a low level feature with VSeWSS. Cool how he fixes a bug in his code during the screencast.

For More Information:

VSeWSS v1.3 March 2008 CTP

Visual Studio 2008 extensions for SharePoint (VSeWSS) 1.3 addresses all common SharePoint Developer requests

2009-03-19T15:30:00Z

We have worked hard to listen and respond to the feedback from SharePoint Developers on VSeWSS. After VSeWSS 1.2 released in July 2008 we went out and talked to lots of SharePoint Developers about what they liked and didn't like about developing with VSeWSS. All of the new features in VSeWSS 1.3 are as a result of customer feedback, and there are lots of them. We just finished the VSeWSS 1.3 March 2009 CTP which released a couple of days ago. Read about the new features in the release notes and if there's anything we missed, please tell us.

If you want to see how easy it is to get going with SharePoint Development using VSeWSS, check out Kirk Evans short screecast showing building a Web Part, packaging and deploying it and some of the new features that make workarounds a thing of the past.

If you want to learn SharePoint Development using VSeWSS, check out the hands on labs and training videos at MSSharePointDeveloper.com.

Also released today is a set of 10 new theme projects for VSeWSS. These are individual Visual Studio 2008 projects which when deployed to SharePoint offer fresh new designed themes you can use in your projects.

VSeWSS will continue to be the recommended Microsoft tool for SharePoint Development until Visual Studio 2010 is released including a brand new set of SharePoint Tools. If you are a SharePoint Developer then your feedback about VSeWSS is important to us. You can give feedback on the tool at our Connect site here, or if you want to have a discussion about VSeWSS we recommend the MSDN SharePoint Development forum here. You can also give feedback as a comment on my blog and I will try to reply to anything posted here.

The Release To Web (RTW) of VSeWSS 1.3 is expected in July 2009 and we are not planning any further CTP releases.

If you want even more info about VSeWSS you can learn SharePoint Developer Best Practices direct from Microsoft Patterns and Practices published November 2008 here.

Easy Installation of Visual Studio 2008 extensions for SharePoint (VSeWSS) 1.3

2009-03-18T23:45:00Z

The new version of the Visual Studio 2008 extensions for SharePoint 1.3 include some changes to support install on x64 OS. Specifically it creates a WCF web service that is required to run in x64 and communication with x64 SharePoint. The x86 Visual Studio 2008 makes calls to this web service to do certain SharePoint operations.

The web service is secured so it can only be called by Visual Studio 2008 running on the same machine. We also do not automatically give the web service the required permissions to make calls into SharePoint. The installer notes this, but it's easy to overlook, that you have to add these permissions.

Steve Fox just wrote up a great screen shotted guide for how to do this for Windows Server 2008 here.

MyRampUp.com has new SharePoint Developer Training and Benefits

2009-03-18T23:34:00Z

Ramp Up (www.MyRampUp.com) is a free online learning program for developers. We’ve just launched a new track: SharePoint for Developers, Part 2. This track, along with the other currently offered ones (eg, Visual Studio 2008), teaches the important skills in a guided path, making the learning process easier and more efficient. The easy-to-access video, written and hands-on content (provided by subject-matter gurus) is specifically tailored for the Ramp Up program, and offered in a variety of forms (article, v-lab, codecast and slidecast). Check it out now at www.MyRampUp.com, and see how Ramp Up can help you become more employable by learning important and marketable skills.

Graduation benefits include discounts from Microsoft Learning.

Microsoft SharePoint Developer Forum Challenge - March, April and May 2009

2009-02-27T16:05:00Z

We want you to answer other peoples questions in the MSDN SharePoint Developer Forum. For the months of March, April and May during 2009 we are running a little challenge for people answering questions on the MSDN SharePoint Developer Forum. For each month an entry means a portfolio of at least ten (10) valid answers posted to the Microsoft SharePoint Developer Forum. The forum is here: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepointdevelopment/threads/ What are the prizes? Each month during...(read more)

The Application Cannot Start - Thanks Alex Riley

2009-02-25T18:05:00Z

I had a problem with a virtual machine I'm building for a demo today and after some time getting frustrated, I did a search and found Alex Riley's blog . Visual Studio 2008 reported this error "The Application Cannot Start" on startup when run as Administrator, it was working as a regular user but that doesn't allow me to debug. I copied the two file sthat Alex referred to and it works nicely now. Thanks Alex, that saved me some debugging time....(read more)

VSeWSS 1.3 Feb 2009 CTP Released

2009-02-21T04:49:00Z

This week we released an updated CTP of VSeWSS 1.3 here . Let us know your feedback on the Connect Site or on the MSDN SharePoint Developer Forum . Also today Soma blogged on the Visual Studio 2010 tools for SharePoint and ComputerWorld wrote an article on it here ....(read more)

More SharePoint Developer Best Practice Updates

2009-02-09T00:01:00Z

Recently I blogged about Microsoft's publishing of the SharePoint Dispose Checker tool and the update to the SharePoint Dispose Best Practices Guidance . Also recently we published the Application Lifecycle Management Resource Center for SharePoint . Now there's a new update to the Best Practices: Common Coding Issues When Using the SharePoint Object Model . Check it out....(read more)

SharePoint Development and Application Lifecycle Management

2009-02-01T21:06:00Z

We just released the Application Lifecycle Management Resource Center for SharePoint Server . Here you can find answers to common questions about Application Lifecycle Management with SharePoint such as: Team Development Source Code Control Automated Builds Continuous Integration Build Testing Unit Testing and Test Driven Development Solution Versioning The resource center points to a number of new guidance articles, and tools that we have released over the past 6 months or so. After reviewing this...(read more)

SPDisposeCheck v1.3.1 is released

2009-01-29T17:18:00Z

SPDisposeCheck is a tool to help SharePoint Developers follow memory management best practices when using the SharePoint API with IDisposable objects including SPSite and SPWeb. This tool is not supported by Microsoft and is recommended to be used on Developer workstations and not on production SharePoint Server installations. It was released yesterday at http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/SPDisposeCheck The tool reviews a .NET Assembly (DLL or EXE) and evaluates SharePoint API's used in that assembly....(read more)