SharePoint Blogs

Storing configurable values is easy on Publishing Pages in WSS and MOSS, Just add site columns to the content type associated to the page layout associated to the page. Then use SP Field Controls in page layouts to allow web authors to specify page level configuration. What if you want to have configuration at the Web level? You may have a custom component added to a page, what if you wanted to provide Web level control to override settings at the page level? Why, so web authors can control the settings...(read more)

I like step by step guides with screenshots Content Deployment - Step By Step Tutorial http://blogs.msdn.com/jackiebo/archive/2007/02/26/content-deployment-step-by-step-tutorial.aspx Related References - Content Deployment Post by Tyler Butler: http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2006/05/02/588140.aspx MOSS SDK on Content Deployment: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms549024.aspx TechNet on Plan Content Deployment: http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/f/?en-us/library/edcdacca-8013-460e-95a0-d2b83b6cc7ef1033.mspx...(read more)

Below are the results for the 38 best sessions at the SharePoint Conference APAC. My sessions are highlighted. There were 64 sessions in total. I"ld like to acknowledge the source of the above graph - Grant ‘ I want to do some data mining this morning ’ Paisley of http://ak.com.au...(read more)

I have been working a lot lately with the provider model, http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa479030.aspx.  Specifically I have been creating a custom MembershipUser to work with my custom MembershipProvider.  The goal is to create a single provider that we can use for SharePoint forms based authentication and use in a custom ASP.net app. 

Everything was going peachy until I started to create a class that inherited from the CreateUserWizard Control.  The CreateUserWizard calls the MembershipProvider"s base CreateUser method in a method marked private called AttemptCreateUser().   Now since I created a custom MembershipUser that has additional parameters I cannot call my overloaded CreateUser method. 

The best I could come up with is to use the OnCreatedUser method of the CreateUserWizard class.   Here I cast the Membership.GetUser method to my Custom MembershipUser.  Then fill the extra properties and call Membership.UpdateUser method.  This works, but forces me to store null values or default values in the Database for those extra parameters of my custom MembershipUser.  This is particularly troublesome if it has a FK relation to another table.

Has anyone come up with a better solution using the CreateUserWizard Control?  Yes I know I could create my on control from the base Wizard class, but the CreateUserWizard control already offers everything, with the exception of overriding the AttemptCreateUser method.

Andrew Connell had an interesting post on his blog a few days ago discussing VMWare vs. VPC (http://andrewconnell.com/blog/archive/2007/05/22/6052.aspx).  I had been toying with the idea of using the VMWare Conversion tool on my MOSS 2007 VPC once I finally fished it.  Two Days ago I went to the VMWare Site and downloaded the conversion tool plus VMWare Workstation 5.5 from my company.  I noticed a couple differences.  When you load up the VMWare version I was able to go to the host computer and keep Outlook open plus surf the web without any memory problems.  I am constantly unable to open anything on my host machine when I use a VPC 2007 image, even when running an optimized image.  Also, my MOSS 2007 Sites loaded incredibly fast compared to the VPC Image and I could run a few programs in the VPC, including VS 2005, IIS, and about 3 other windows of who knows what, without any kind of performance degradation on the host machine.  The only problem I had is that I could not figure out how to create an equivalent to a differencing disk and/or an undo disk.  Granted the conversion took a total of 15 minutes at most, however I don"t want to keep converting my VPC Image multiple times.  Right now I am working Microsoft /folder/sharepoint.htm:Building Office Solutions in VB 2005.  I am hoping to build a couple test web parts before things get hectic.

In one of my SharePoint project, I need to customise the SharePoint Wiki so that it will include some extra pieces of information in every single article and these extra pieces of information cannot be stored within the same Wiki Pages Library. The first solution came into my mind was that to create a Web User Control and put it into the Wiki Article Template. You can find the Wiki Article Template @ C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\DocumentTemplates\wkpstd.aspx....(read more)

Want to find more official information about a specific .NET Namespace quickly? Imagine that how nice it could be if we can integrate the .NET Namespace search into MS Internet Explorer 7.0. YES, you can do it. Click on the reversed triangle beside the magnifier and select the Find More Providers. Enter URL as http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/TEST.aspx and give it a Name. Then click on the Install button and that’s it!...(read more)

I do believe that most you knew that SharePoint actually exposed quite a number of web services for developers to work on it to extend the capability of the SharePoint. Currently, I am involved in the project that required me to work with the SharePoint Out-Of-The-Box (OOTB) Web Services. One reason that I chose to use the OOTB Web Services is that it is easier and safer to perform the Impersonation than using the System.Security.Principal . The following block of codes is working properly and perfectly...(read more)

Check out my fun and games creating a Lookup column using a feature 

http://www.sharepointblogs.com/martinbailey/pages/lookup-column-feature.aspx

I have finally managed to put Anton"s code to the test in my own custom field type with great results.

The underlying issue is that the Update method does not seem to get called when adding a new field, and because there are a number of initializations of the field object the values in the custom propery editor controls get lost before you get to the OnAdded event where you could set them!

So, Anton"s plan (which I confirm works very well) is to store the values of the properties in a static string dictionary, keyed with the hash of the current SharePoint context SPContext.Current.GetHashCode() so we get the right property back out in the OnAdded event and can set the correct values.

You can get the full code in the thread linked to above, but I"ll summarize as best I can. I"m using a property called Application that is set by selecting a value from a combo box - which is actually part of a parent child combination used in the Property Editor, but that"s another story...

First we create a new dictionary in the Field Class (the one that inherits from the SPField... class) to store the properties:

private static Dictionary<int, string> updatedApplicationProperty = new Dictionary<int, string>(); 

Create a new method that the Property Editor Control can call to update the dictionary to the value in the property editor control:

        public void UpdateApplicationProperty(string value)
        {
            updatedApplicationProperty[ContextId] = value;
        } 

Then, in the get for the property, return the dictionary stored property value if it exists or the internal value if not:

public string Application

get

{

                if (updatedApplicationProperty.ContainsKey(ContextId))
                {

                    //If we saved a value away and we"re in the middle of the save field process, then pull it out.
                    return  updatedApplicationProperty[ContextId];
                }
                else
                {

                    //Return the existing value for the application property. This will be the case if we already have a field.
                    return sApplication;
                }

}

In the Update method of the Field Control set the custom property value and remove the stored property value:

this.SetCustomProperty("Application", this.Application);

if (updatedApplicationProperty.ContainsKey(ContextId))
     updatedApplicationProperty.Remove(ContextId);

And, lastly, in the OnSaveChange event in the class for the Property Editor Control store the value of the control that represents the property into the dictionary via the Update...Property method for a new field, or set the property as normal if the field already exists:

                BDCField currentBDCField = field as BDCField;

                if (isNewField)
                {
                    currentBDCField.UpdateApplicationProperty(this.cboApplications.SelectedValue);
                }
                else
                {
                    currentBDCField.Application = this.cboApplications.SelectedValue;
                }

Hopefully that"s a reasonable description of the required steps. Anton has a good description of the why he chose the static dictionary in the forum post.

 Thanks again Anton and sorry it took me sooooo long to try it out!!!