SharePoint Content and Resources : Articles

Thank You, SharePoint MVPs!

randalli — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 01:20:00 GMT

The MVP Summit is in full force this week, and the SharePoint Developer Documentation Team would like to take a moment to recognize all the outstanding contributions our SharePoint MVPs have made to MSDN since Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 & Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 shipped.

Here is a list of Visual How-to screencasts, book excerpts, and technical articles we have published with our Most Valuable Publishing partners! The list totals more than 50 pieces of content, with more lined up to publish in the coming months!

I look back over the past year, and I am saddened by the loss of a colleague and friend, Patrick Tisseghem. We all miss him.

MSDN Technical Articles

Technical Articles are one of our most popular content types on MSDN. They are usually scenario-based and walk people end-to-end through a typical developer task, sometimes in a 2- or 3-part article series.

MVP Name	Title and Link	Date Published
Andrew Connell	Approaches to Creating Master Pages and Page Layouts in SharePoint Server 2007	February 2009
	Finding Developer Help for SharePoint Products and Technologies	December 2008
	Implementing a Brand in a SharePoint Server 2007 Publishing Site	November 2008
	Prescriptive Guidance for SharePoint Server 2007 Web Content Management Sites	October 2008
	Creating Custom Timer Jobs in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0	April 2008
	Understanding and Creating Customized and Uncustomized Files in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0	April 2008
David Mann	Workflow Scalability and Performance in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0	February 2009
	Delivering Modular SharePoint Workflow Functionality (Part 1 of 2)	June 2008
Patrick Tisseghem	Development Tools and Techniques for Working with Code in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (Part 1 of 2)	June 2007
	Customizing and Branding Web Content Management-Enabled SharePoint Sites (Part 1 of 3)	October 2006
Scot Hillier	Integrating External Document Repositories with SharePoint Server 2007	February 2009
Wouter van Vugt	Creating a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Custom Field by Using the EntityPicker	August 2008

Visual How-to Screencasts

A Visual How-to is a short (about 5 – 10 minute) screencast centered on a How-to task. There is a code sample, a video, an article explaining the code, and links to more information. We look forward to creating more of these in the future and getting more folks involved!

MVP Name	Title and Link	Date Published
Andrew Connell	Automating Solution Package Creation for Windows SharePoint Services by Using MSBuild	April 2008
	Configuring Multiple Authentication Mechanisms with Alternate Access Mappings in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0	April 2008
	Adding Code-Behind Files to Master Pages and Content Pages in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0	March 2008
	Creating, Deploying, and Debugging Custom Timer Jobs in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0	March 2008
	Adding Code-Behind Files to Master Pages and Page Layouts in SharePoint Server 2007	January 2008
	Adding Custom Quick Access Buttons to the Page Editing Toolbar in SharePoint Server 2007	January 2008
Patrick Tisseghem	Creating Workflow Association Pages for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0	February 2008
	Using Smart Clients to Communicate with Workflows in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0	February 2008
	Customizing Search Results with Custom XSLTs in SharePoint Server 2007	December 2007
	Building Custom Activities for Use in SharePoint Designer 2007	July 2007
	Building Simple Custom Approval Workflows with InfoPath 2007 Forms	July 2007
	Creating Search Queries Programmatically by Using the Search Object Model in SharePoint Server 2007	July 2007
	Creating Search Queries Programmatically by Using the Search Web Service in SharePoint Server 2007	July 2007
	Exposing Enterprise Search in SharePoint Server 2007 by Using Internet Explorer 7 and the Office Research Pane	July 2007
	Creating a Custom Search Page and Tabs in the Search Center of SharePoint Server	April 2007
	Creating and Exposing Managed Properties in the Advanced Search Page of SharePoint Server Enterprise Search	April 2007
	Creating and Exposing Search Scopes in SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise Search	April 2007
	Creating Content Sources to Crawl Business Data in SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise Search	April 2007
Ted Pattison	Activating Auditing Programmatically for a Single Document Library in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0	May 2007
	Activating Auditing Programmatically for a Site Collection in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0	May 2007
	Configuring IntelliSense with CAML Files When Developing for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0	May 2007
	Creating an Application Page in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0	May 2007
	Creating a Custom HttpHandler in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0	May 2007
	Creating a Feature for an Entry Control Block Item in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0	May 2007
	Creating a Feature for the Site Actions Menu in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0	May 2007
	Creating a Solution Package in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0	May 2007
	Creating a Visual Studio Project for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0	May 2007
	Displaying Data by Using the SPGridView Control in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0	May 2007
	Reading Entries from the Audit Log in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0	May 2007
	Reading ListId and ItemId from an Application Page in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0	May 2007
	Running Commands with Elevated Privileges in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0	May 2007
	Writing Custom Entries to the Audit Log in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0	May 2007

Book Excerpts

We have a way of publishing one or two chapters from several book publishers, including Microsoft Press and Wrox, among others.

MVP Name(s)	Title and Link	Date Published
John Holliday, John Alexander, Eli Robillard, Brendon Schwartz, Matt Ranlett, J. Dan Attis, Adam Buenz	Chapter 8: Building Personalized Solutions from the book Professional SharePoint 2007 Development	February 2009
Andrew Connell	Chapter 14: Authoring Experience Extensibility from the book Professional SharePoint 2007 Web Content Management Development: Building Publishing Sites with Office SharePoint Server 2007	August 2008
Andrew Connell	Chapter 20: Incorporating ASP.NET 2.0 Applications from the book Professional SharePoint 2007 Web Content Management Development: Building Publishing Sites with Office SharePoint Server 2007	August 2008
Ted Pattison and Daniel Larson	Chapter 2: SharePoint Architecture (Part 1 of 2) from the book Inside Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0	November 2007
Ted Pattison and Daniel Larson	Chapter 3: Pages and Design (Part 1 of 2) from the book Inside Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0	November 2007

Call for Content

Want to help contribute? Please post a comment to this entry or start following me on twitter: http://twitter.com/sharepointdev, where you can send direct messages.

Thanks again for all your contributions!
Randall

New MSDN Content - September 2008

randalli — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:50:00 GMT

Hello everyone.

We have just published a couple of exciting new SharePoint Technical Articles this month on MSDN. We have also refreshed the PerformancePoint Monitoring SDK. Here is the info:

Capitalizing On the Social Network Capabilities of SharePoint Server 2007 User Profiles

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc973103.aspx

Summary: Learn about organization hierarchy, membership groups, and quick links to understand the user profile social network capability in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, and concepts such as custom properties, colleagues, and workgroups. (18 printed pages)

Using Team Foundation Server to Develop Custom SharePoint Products and Technologies Applications

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc948982.aspx

Summary: Use Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server to support SharePoint application development, and provide an integrated development environment and single source code repository for process activities, integrated progress reporting, and team roles. (12 printed pages)

PerformancePoint Monitoring SDK Documentation

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb848116.aspx

The PerformancePoint Monitoring Software Development Kit (SDK) documentation contains overview topics, how-to topics, and code examples for developing custom PerformancePoint Monitoring Server extensions. Monitoring Server builds upon the Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) infrastructure, and takes advantage of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 technologies and features.

Got RSS?

randalli — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 22:47:00 GMT

It has been a little while since my last post, but I wanted to give a quick update to everyone to share a really useful feed from MSDN that you should subscribe to:

http://www.microsoft.com/feeds/msdn/en-us/sharepoint/rss.xml

The MSDN SharePoint RSS Feed contains information about recently published Technical Articles, How Do I…? Screencasts or Visual How To videos and articles, Book Excerpts, New Portal Pages, SDKs, Downloads, and even SharePoint-related event notifications.

Here is a sampling of the feed, outlining all the great content and tools we have published on MSDN since our last SDK drop:

Windows SharePoint Services Resource Center Launches

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Explore 5 new resource centers for Administration, Pages and User Interface, Provisioning, Security and Web Parts. Find articles, how-to topics, references, downloads, blog and forum entries, and other resources for Windows SharePoint Services development.

Chapter 2: SharePoint Architecture (Part 1 of 2)

Monday, November 12, 2007

Read this excerpt from "Inside Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0" to understand how Windows SharePoint Services extends the ASP.NET Framework. You can also learn how to create your own application pages.

Chapter 2: SharePoint Architecture (Part 2 of 2)

Monday, November 12, 2007

Understand the important concepts and terminology used in IIS and ASP.NET, as well as the difference between site pages and application pages. Then learn how to use CustomAction elements to create custom application pages and integrate them into the menus of a site.

Convert InfoPath 2007 Forms in a Specific File Format from a SharePoint Form Library

Monday, November 12, 2007

Learn how to enable users to convert and download InfoPath forms directly from SharePoint form libraries in a file format that is not XML.

Seamless Security Integration of SharePoint 2007 Sites with Community Server Membership Database

Monday, November 12, 2007

Learn how to use Community Server accounts with SharePoint 2007 sites. This article walks through how to integrate the Community Server membership database together with the role-based security of SharePoint Server 2007.

Microsoft Search Server 2008

Monday, November 05, 2007

Learn about the new federated search feature, creating federated search connectors, and the federated location definition file schema in the Beta SDK documentation of Microsoft Search Server and Search Server Express.

Upgrade SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Customizations to SharePoint Server 2007 (Part 1 of 2)

Monday, November 05, 2007

Learn the requirements to perform an upgrade of SharePoint Portal Server 2003 customizations to SharePoint Server 2007.

Upgrade SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Customizations to SharePoint Server 2007 (Part 2 of 2)

Monday, November 05, 2007

Learn to work with upgrade definition files, understand key elements and attributes, and walk through an annotated sample upgrade definition file so that you can perform an upgrade of SharePoint Portal Server 2003 customizations to SharePoint Server 2007.

Setting Up a Development Environment for the 2007 Microsoft Office System (Oct07 Update)

Monday, October 29, 2007

Learn how to create projects based on the 2007 Microsoft Office system and build solutions that use both the new client and server extensions in the platform.

How Do I: Create a Custom Task Pane to Consume SharePoint Server 2007 Query Services in Word 2007

Monday, October 29, 2007

Enterprise Search in SharePoint Server 2007 exposes its search functionality through an XML Web service, so that you can access Enterprise Search results from client applications and Web applications outside the context of a SharePoint site.

Video: Creating a Custom Task Pane to Consume SharePoint Server 2007 Query Services in Word 2007

Monday, October 29, 2007

In this visual how-to video, learn how you can access Enterprise Search results from client applications and Web applications outside the context of a SharePoint site.

Sample: Setting Up a Development Environment for the 2007 Microsoft Office System

Monday, October 22, 2007

In this download, you will find four code samples for use with the MSDN article, "Setting Up a Development Environment for the 2007 Microsoft Office System." Samples include project files and sample files to create a basic Workflow template, a custom task pane, a Word add-in, and event handler.

How Do I: Develop Custom Applications by Using Excel Web Services in SharePoint Server 2007

Monday, October 15, 2007

Excel Services is a new server technology included in SharePoint Server 2007. This shared service enables the ability to load, calculate, and display Excel 2007 workbooks on SharePoint Server 2007.

Video: Developing Custom Applications by Using Excel Web Services in SharePoint Server 2007

Monday, October 15, 2007

In this visual how-to video, learn to create a custom application that uses the SharePoint Server 2007 Excel Web Services.

How Do I: Add Excel Web Parts to Pages Programmatically in SharePoint Server 2007

Monday, October 08, 2007

Learn to use Visual Studio 2005 to create an application for Windows that presents a simple user interface that accepts information from the user and then adds the Excel Web Access Web Part to an Office SharePoint Server page.

Video: Adding Excel Parts to Pages Programmatically in SharePoint Server 2007

Monday, October 08, 2007

Watch this visual how-to video and learn to programmatically add an instance of the Excel Web Access Web Part to a Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 page.

How Do I: Create Custom Enterprise Search Web Parts in SharePoint Server 2007

Monday, October 08, 2007

Learn how to use Visual Studio 2005 to create a Web Control Library that contains a Web Part that uses the Enterprise Search functionality included with SharePoint Server 2007.

Video: Creating Custom Enterprise Search Web Parts in SharePoint Server 2007

Monday, October 08, 2007

Watch this visual how-to video and learn to use Visual Studio 2005 to create a Web Control Library that contains a Web Part that uses the Enterprise Search functionality included with SharePoint Server 2007.

Helper Classes for the SharePoint Server 2007 Search Query Web Service Built Using the Microsoft .NET Framework

Monday, October 01, 2007

Learn about some helper classes built by using the Microsoft .NET Framework that make it easier to build query requests for the Microsoft SharePoint Server Search Query Web service and handle query responses.

Search Sites Protected by Forms Authentication with Enterprise Search in SharePoint Server 2007

Monday, October 01, 2007

Learn to use Enterprise Search to crawl sites that are protected by forms authentication or cookie-based authentication, and walk through creating a sample custom security trimmer for trimming the returned search results.

Usage Event Logging in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

Monday, October 01, 2007

Parse the log files that Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 produces when logging is enabled to effectively analyze the usage event data.

How Do I: Create User Profiles in the User Profile Store in SharePoint Server 2007

Monday, September 24, 2007

Learn to create a SharePoint Server 2007 user profile by using the SharePoint UserProfileService Web service.

Video: Create User Profiles in the User Profile Store in SharePoint Server 2007

Monday, September 24, 2007

In this visual how-to video, learn to create a SharePoint Server 2007 user profile by using the SharePoint UserProfileService Web service.

How Do I: Display Custom Fields in Content Query Web Parts in SharePoint Server 2007

Monday, September 24, 2007

Learn how to display custom fields in the Content Query Web Part by setting the CommonViewFields custom property and editing the default XSLT transformation used to render items.

Video: Display Custom Fields in Content Query Web Parts in SharePoint Server 2007

Monday, September 24, 2007

In this visual how-to video, learn to display custom fields in the Content Query Web Part by setting the CommonViewFields custom property and editing the default XSLT transformation used to render items.

Register Now for the Microsoft Office SharePoint Conference 2008

Friday, September 21, 2007

The conference will be held March 2-6, 2008 in Seattle, WA USA with Bill Gates as the keynote speaker and over 100 SharePoint technical sessions and hands-on labs.

Microsoft Office System Developer Conference 2008

Friday, September 21, 2007

In February 2008, join us in San Jose to usher in the office development revolution. Expand your horizon beyond what you know.

PerformancePoint Server Developer Portal - Now Live!

Friday, September 21, 2007

Welcome to the new PerformancePoint Server developer portal on MSDN. Learn how PerformancePoint Server 2007 provides all the functionality that is needed for performance management, and how its features help analysts monitor and analyze organizational performance, as well as do critical planning, forecasting, and financial reporting.

Advanced Server-Side Authentication for Data Connections in InfoPath 2007 Web-Based Forms

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Learn about several different approaches for authenticating cross-domain data connections from form templates deployed to InfoPath Forms Services, as part of either Forms Server 2007 or SharePoint Server 2007.

Chapter 1: An Introduction to Excel Services (Programming Excel Services)

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

In this book excerpt, author Alvin J. Bruney provides an introduction to Excel Services, a new technology built and conditioned to interact with Excel spreadsheets.

Chapter 3: Excel Web Access (Programming Excel Services)

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

In this book excerpt, the author focuses on building Web Parts from Visual Studio 2005 and installing them on SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 so that they can be used in SharePoint applications.

Create a SharePoint Server 2007 Custom Master Page and Page Layouts for a Web Content Management Site

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Follow step-by-step instructions with code examples to create a SharePoint Server 2007 custom master page and related page layouts based on a minimal master page.

Optimize a SharePoint Server 2007 Web Content Management Site for Performance

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Learn to optimize an Internet-facing Web content management (WCM) site to achieve maximum performance and an effective user experience.

Best Practices: Common Coding Issues When Using the SharePoint Object Model

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Learn about common issues surrounding writing custom code using the SharePoint object model, and identify best practices to help correct them.

Create a Database Connection by using the Business Data Catalog Definition Editor

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Learn how the Business Data Catalog Definition Editor automatically generates the XML metadata for the LOB system, making it easy to create an application definition file for the Business Data Catalog.

Download the SharePoint Server 2007 SDK (Aug 07 1.2 refresh)

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Check out the new tools and samples in the latest SDK update: Microsoft Business Data Catalog Definition Editor, WSHelloWorld Web Service, Excel Services User Defined Function Sample, WSOrders Custom Proxy Sample, SAP Sample, Sample Protocol Handler, Custom Content Source, and the IRM Document Protector.

Tons of New SharePoint Content Now Live on MSDN - July 12, 2007

randalli — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 00:36:00 GMT

Hello folks.

It has been several weeks since I posted an update on new MSDN content. We have been extremely busy publishing content, and here is the list of content published in the month of June and the first week of July:

Visual How-to Screencasts

· Creating Search Queries Programmatically by using the Search Web Service in SharePoint Server 2007
By Patrick Tisseghem

· Creating Search Queries Programmatically by using the Search Object Model in SharePoint Server 2007
By Patrick Tisseghem

· Exposing Enterprise Search in SharePoint Server 2007 by using Internet Explorer 7 and the Office Research Pane
By Patrick Tisseghem

Technical Articles

· Development Tools and Techniques for Working with Code in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
By Patrick Tisseghem

o Part 1: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb530302.aspx

o Part 2: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb530301.aspx

· Using the Business Data Catalog and Smart Tags with the 2007 Office System
by Scot Hilier and Bhushan Nene (Microsoft Corp.)

o Accompanying Download for the Business Data Catalog and Smart Tags article

· Evaluating and Customizing Search Relevance in SharePoint Server 2007
by Dmitriy Meyerzon, Avi Schmueli, and Jo-Anne West (Microsoft Corp.)

· Using Forms Solutions in Groove 2007
by Josh Mahoney

· Upgrading an MCMS 2002 Application to SharePoint Server 2007
by Microsoft Corp.

o Part 1: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb466172.aspx

o Part 2: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb466171.aspx

Developer Guides

· Excel Services and Excel 2007 Windows Compute Cluster Server Job Submission Sample Developer Guide

· Excel Services and Excel 2007 Windows Compute Cluster Server Job Submission Sample (Download)

Book Excerpts

o Chapter 3: Customizing and Extending the Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 Search (Part 1 of 2)
By Patrick Tisseghem

o Chapter 3: Customizing and Extending the Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 Search (Part 2 of 2)
By Patrick Tisseghem

o Chapter 6: Integrating Spreadsheets into the Enterprise

Downloadable White Papers

· Windows white paper: Software Update for Web Folders (Download)

Microsoft Office Interactive Developer Map

Check this out if you haven’t already seen it! It’s a Windows Presentation Foundation-based, interactive developer map like the ones we have available for download. It also has dynamic content via RSS feeds, so you can always get the most up-to-date information. So cool!

· http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/office/bb497969.aspx

Keep the feedback coming! We want to hear from you.

Just Published on MSDN (5/17/2007)

randalli — Thu, 17 May 2007 20:57:00 GMT

Here is the rundown of Technical Articles, Visual How-to Screencasts, and their accompanying downloads published over the last couple of weeks on MSDN.

Technical Articles

Team-Based Development in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
Learn to properly conduct team-environment development of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 sites and assemblies (Web Parts, site templates, custom list templates), as well as develop Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer artifacts (master pages, workflows, CSS sheets). (13 printed pages)
Upgrading an MCMS 2002 Application to SharePoint Server 2007 (Part 1 of 2)
Learn how to upgrade a Microsoft Content Management Server (MCMS) 2002 application to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 by using this step-by-step guide and the WoodGroveNet MCMS 2002 sample application. This article is part 1 of 2. (25 printed pages)
Upgrading an MCMS 2002 Application to SharePoint Server 2007 (Part 2 of 2)
Learn how to upgrade a Microsoft Content Management Server (MCMS) 2002 application to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 by using this step-by-step guide and the WoodGroveNet MCMS 2002 sample application. This article is part 2 of 2. (35 printed pages)

Visual How-to Screencasts

Enabling Users to Act on LOB Data with Business Data Catalog Actions
Learn how to enable your users to act on line-of-business data by using Business Data Catalog Actions.
Activating Auditing Programmatically for a Single Document Library in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 includes a powerful new infrastructure for auditing user access to pages, and document and list items. You can enable auditing for an entire site collection, but it can be more efficient to enable auditing with more granularity. For example, you might want to enable auditing for one specific list or document library. You can go even further and just enable auditing for one specific list item or one specific document.
Activating Auditing Programmatically for a Site Collection in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 includes a powerful new infrastructure for auditing user access to list items, and documents and pages. In Windows SharePoint Services, auditing is configured on a site collection-by-site collection basis. It just takes a few lines of code to fully enable the auditing for an entire site collection. When you do this, Windows SharePoint Services writes an audit entry to its audit log each time a user views or modifies a list item, document, or site page.
Configuring IntelliSense with CAML files when developing for SharePoint 2007
When developing for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS), you are often required to create and modify XML files that contain Collaborative Application Markup Language (CAML). It is recommended that you configure Visual Studio on your development workstation to reference a XML schema file named WSS.XSD so that IntelliSense works properly when working with CAML-based files.
Create a Custom HttpHandler in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
ASP.NET programming supports the creation of custom HttpHandler components, which provide a flexible and efficient way to process requests that don't return standard HTML-based pages. For example, HttpHandler components are great for situations in which you want to return simple text, XML, or binary data to the user.
Although development techniques involving HttpHandler components are useful when creating standard ASP.NET applications, you should also see them as a valuable building block for building business solutions for Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Office SharePoint Server 2007.
Creating a Feature for an Entry Control Block Item in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
You can add a custom menu item for an entry control block to a list item or a document in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 by creating a Feature with a CustomAction element. In this way, you can add custom commands to the default SharePoint user interface. These menu commands allow users to perform custom operations on items and documents. For example, you can create a custom menu item for an entry control block for a list item or document that redirects the user to a custom application page. Use this as a starting point to create business solutions that provide an intuitive user interface to automate domain-specific tasks on list items and documents.
Creating a Feature for the Site Actions Menu in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
You can add a custom menu item to the default Site Actions menu in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services by creating a Feature with a CustomAction element. In this way, you can add custom commands to the default SharePoint user interface. These commands are available to users as they move between pages on a SharePoint site. When you create a Site Actions menu item, you can configure it to redirect the user to any URL. For example, you can redirect the user to another Web site. You can also redirect users to a custom application page that allows them either to see a custom display of data, or to perform custom operations on the content within the current site.
Creating a Solution Package in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 introduces a deployment mechanism named "solution packages." A solution package is a CAB file with a .wsp file-name extension that contains all the files that must be deployed on the front-end Web server and a set of XML-based installation instructions. Windows SharePoint Services provides a rich infrastructure that simplifies deployment of solution packages in a Web farm environment.
Creating a Visual Studio Project for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
Development for Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 often involves deploying custom source files into the WSS \TEMPLATE directory. It is helpful to create a Microsoft Visual Studio project with a directory structure that parallels the \TEMPLATE directory so you can automate copying your source files into the location required for deployment and testing.
Creating an Application Page in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
You can create custom application pages to add user interface components to a custom solution based on Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. Unlike site pages (for example, default.aspx), a custom application page is deployed once per Web server and cannot be customized on a site-by-site basis. Application pages are based in the virtual _layouts directory. In addition, they are compiled into a single assembly DLL. They are also used across all sites within a server farm. For these reasons, they perform better than site pages. With application pages, you can also add inline code. With site pages, you cannot add inline code.
Displaying Data by Using the SPGridView Control in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
When you create ASP.NET applications, you often need to display data in the format of rows and columns. Although you could create an HTML table by using code, you become much more productive by using server-side controls such as the GridView control introduced with Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0. The Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services platform provides a grid control named SPGridView that inherits from the ASP.NET GridView control. The SPGridView control provides a great alternative for displaying tabular data in SharePoint-based solutions.
Reading Entries from the Audit Log in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 introduces a powerful new infrastructure for auditing user access to list items, documents, and pages. However, you must write custom code to take advantage of this auditing infrastructure because no default features utilize it. Some of the other Visual How-To topics show you how to enable auditing. Here you can learn how to retrieve information from the audit log so that you can display and report on user activity within a custom solution based on Windows SharePoint Services.
Reading ListId and ItemId from an Application Page in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
In Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, you can create a menu item for an entry control block that redirects users to a custom application page. For example, the MSDN article Item-Level Auditing with SharePoint Server 2007 demonstrates how to provide each document within a document library with its own menu item in the entry control block. This menu item redirects the user to a custom application page that displays the audit history for that particular document.
When a user clicks a menu item in the entry control block, it runs an application page. The code behind the application page typically must program against the list item or document that supplied the menu item. To do this, the application page must be able to identify the list item or document. Windows SharePoint Services does this by passing the information that identifies the list item or document to the application page in a query string. The page uses this information within the page-initialization code to create an SPListItem object and its containing SPList object.
Running Commands with Elevated Privileges in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services uses impersonation so that code running within a Web Part or behind a custom application page executes with the identity and permissions of the current user. In the vast majority of cases, this behavior is exactly what you want because it prevents standard users from being able to execute commands or see information that is intended only for privileged users such as a site administrator. However, occasionally your code must call restricted methods within the Windows SharePoint Services object model even though the request is initiated by a nonprivileged user. In such cases you must be able to elevate the privilege of your code as it executes on the Web server.
Writing Custom Entries to the Audit Log in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services provides an auditing facility that allows you to see the actions users take within the context of a site collection. Examples of user actions that you can audit automatically include viewing, updating, and deleting list items and documents, as well as viewing site pages. One important limitation of the built-in auditing facility is that it cannot audit access to application pages that are deployed within the \LAYOUTS directory.
If you want to audit the actions of users as they view your custom application pages, you must add code that writes custom audit entries into the Windows SharePoint Services audit log. You can write custom audit entries within the context of any auditable object, such as those of type SPSite, SPWeb, SPList, and SPListItem.

10 Office Visual How-to Screencasts Now Published for MOSS!

randalli — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 23:13:00 GMT

A couple of weeks ago I announced the arrival of a new content type: the Office Visual How-to Screencast. Now instead of 3 of them we have published 10 for MOSS!

Search

Creating a Custom Search Page and Tabs in the Search Center of SharePoint Server by Patrick Tisseghem, U2U
The Search Center is a new type of site that is included by default in the site collection when you provision a collaboration portal. Its goal is to provide users with a customized search experience, and to replace the search box that is available at the top of the pages in the portal. There are two editions of the Search Center: the Search Center Lite and the Search Center with Tabs. The Search Center Lite is typically added to site collections where the publishing features are not activated. An example is a site collection with only team sites. The Search Center with Tabs offers a full customization using a tab-based user interface, but it requires the publishing features to be active. This is the case by default within collaboration portals. This article covers two customization options that can be performed in the Search Center with Tabs: how to add custom search pages and tabs, and, how to replace the XSLT for the search results with a custom XSLT.
Creating and Exposing Managed Properties in the Advanced Search Page of SharePoint Server Enterprise Search by Patrick Tisseghem, U2U
Lists and document libraries in SharePoint sites typically have extra columns defined for them. This custom metadata is collected by the crawler when it indexes the contents of these containers. Administrators can expose this custom metadata to the users who perform search queries in the Search Center. The Advanced Search page has a property picker that can be populated with managed properties. This article explains and illustrates how to expose managed properties to the user, and also explains how developers can programmatically create managed properties.
Creating and Exposing Search Scopes in SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise Search by Patrick Tisseghem, U2U
Search scopes in SharePoint Server 2007 are used to narrow the search results returned to users executing a search query. Search scopes can be shared or locally defined. You can use different rules in the definition of a search scope, from simply scoping based on a content source to more complex scoping with conditions using custom metadata. You can view search scopes in the browser with scope pickers. Scope pickers are connected to a display group listing the scopes to be displayed.
Creating Content Sources to Crawl Business Data in SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise Search by Patrick Tisseghem, U2U
A content source is a location that contains resources, and you may want the resources crawled or indexed. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 includes functionality to search Web sites and SharePoint sites, folders, and data exposed using the Business Data Catalog. In this Visual How-to article, we'll focus on working with the Business Data Catalog with step-by-step instructions and samples.

Business Data Catalog (BDC)

Refining Business Data Catalog Search with Scopes by Ryan Femling, 3Sharp
You can use Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 to search entities and other Business Data Catalog items, site collections, and people. You can easily refine the results of these Business Data Catalog searches with scopes. When you define the scopes, you can use them to segregate your Business Data Catalog search results from the rest of your SharePoint Server 2007 search results. You can display this data in a separate Web Part on the Search Results, or in a separate landing page altogether. This ability to segregate yet display the data side-by-side allows the searcher to easily see what they have searched on that is in the Business Data Catalog, along with any relevant material from SharePoint Server 2007.
Using Business Data Catalog Actions to Pass Parameters to InfoPath 2007 Browser Forms by David Gerhardt, 3Sharp
You can build forms with Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 that run both in InfoPath 2007 and in a Web browser. For browser scenarios, you can integrate with the Business Data Catalog in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 by having a custom action pass a parameter value to form files.

Filtering one Business Data Catalog List from Another by Using Associations in SharePoint Server 2007 by John Peltonen, 3Sharp (previously announced)
The Business Data Catalog allows you to define multiple entities for a given line-of-business (LOB) system. Furthermore, within the metadata file, you can create associations that define a hierarchy within the entities. For example, if there are two entities defined, such as customers and orders, you can create an association to tie the customer entity directly to the order entity. This allows users within your Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 portal to create master-child behavior.

Creating Business Data Catalog Entities in SharePoint Server 2007 by John Peltonen, 3Sharp (previously announced)
The Business Data Catalog is a Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 feature that exposes and incorporates Line-of-Business (LOB) data into other baseline portal functionality, such as lists and enterprise search. To incorporate this data into your portal, you must build an XML file that identifies where the data is stored (either Microsoft SQL Server or a Web service) and what the data looks like (for example, what the data types and primary keys are).

Excel Services

Creating Managed-Code UDFs for Excel Services by Joel Krist, Akona Systems
Much like previous versions of Microsoft Office Excel, Microsoft Office Excel 2007 provides support for user-defined functions (UDFs). UDFs are custom functions that extend the calculation and data-import capabilities of Excel 2007.

Retrieving Excel 2007 Workbooks or Snapshots Using Office SharePoint Server 2007 Excel Services by Joel Krist, Akona Systems (previously announced)
If you want to save a copy of an up-to-date workbook, store it somewhere, send it to someone, and so on, you can retrieve an entire workbook or a snapshot using Excel Web Services. When a user or application requests a snapshot, Excel Services opens the Excel file on the server, refreshes data sources, and calculates all Excel formulas. Excel Services then generates and sends a snapshot back through the Web service API.

Let us know what you think! We have many more coming soon for MOSS, and we look forward to your feedback about the subjects we're choosing, the usefulness, and the technical depth of the videos. Let us know what you'd like to start seeing more of or less of!

More information: Office Visual How-to Center on MSDN

Announcing the 1st Office Visual How to Videos for MOSS! 3 BDC and Excel Services Screencasts Posted on MSDN!

randalli — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 02:39:00 GMT

I'm very excited to announce that we launched a new content type on MSDN recently: the Office Visual How to!

Here's the idea behind the Office Visual How to topics:

See It. If you've got 10 - 15 minutes to watch a video showing the code in action, you can stream it from the article page. You can also download it!
Code It. If you want to see the code and copy it into your project to try it out yourself, it's also printed with the article.
Read It. We also walk you through the code and give you contextual information so you can see what's going on in detail.
Explore It. We provide links to more information in the MOSS SDK, on the MOSS Developer Portal, in team blogs, and elsewhere on MSDN.

We have 3 new Visual How to topics for MOSS that went live this week:

Filtering one Business Data Catalog List from Another by Using Associations in SharePoint Server 2007 by John Peltonen @3Sharp
Creating Business Data Catalog Entities in SharePoint Server 2007 by John Peltonen @3Sharp
Retrieving Excel 2007 Workbooks or Snapshots Using Office SharePoint Server 2007 Excel Services by Joel Krist @Akona Systems

We have a long list of MOSS videos and topics that will go live in the coming weeks, so stay tuned to this blog or the MOSS Portal on MSDN for updates! Also, don't forget to check out the Office Developer How-to Center on MSDN for a complete list of our popular How-to content type.

Also published recently on MSDN:

Item-Level Auditing with SharePoint Server 2007 by Ted Pattison

New MSDN Technical Articles and Downloads Published for MOSS

randalli — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 20:13:00 GMT

The following MOSS Technical Articles have been published recently in the MSDN Library. There is one article about Enterprise Search Best Practices, and three articles (two with downloads) about Excel Services.

Enterprise Search

Best Practices: Writing SQL Syntax Queries for Relevant Results in Enterprise Search

Excel Services

What is a Technical Article? Typically, it is a magazine-style article of 5 - 25 pages that demonstrates an end-to-end scenario around a core programming task. Often there are downloadable samples with the article, and at the very least we have code inline with the article. Another distinguishing feature is that articles usually stand on their own; in other words, you can read the article from end-to-end and get the full story. Nevertheless, we always provide links to additional information or to the relevant sections of the SDK.