SharePoint Blogs - SharePoint, XBOX, .NET, Technology

5/24/2007 Displaying the document URL in a document library column - part 2

In Part 1 of this post I discussed the possible options to obtain a document URL for a document in the document library. With this post I will explain how you can achieve this with a simple workflow.

In your document library create a column “Encoded URL” (Single line of text). It will be used to store URL later on. In your document library versioning settings you must set option to require checking out items. This is very important step. The workflow we are going to create will be fired every time document is modified. Since workflow will modify item, if we do not require checking out, workflow might end up in an infinite loop. Without checking out workflow might result in very confusing errors informing you that someone else modified your document that it cannot be saved and similar.

To create a workflow you will need program called Microsoft Office /folder/sharepoint.htm Designer (FrontPage successor). Here is what you need to do:

1.   Open your SharePoint site with SharePoint designer
2.   Choose New > Workflow
3.   For workflow start options choose:

a. Automatically start this workflow when a new item is created
b. Automatically start this workflow whenever an item is changed

4. Create only a single step for your workflow and

a. For step condition choose “Compare Documents field” and set it as on figure below
b. Add tree actions (as shown below)

i.   Check out item
ii.   Set value for encoded URL column
iii.   Check in item

5. Save your workflow

When completed your document library will look like this one (document URL is shown in Encoded URL column):

documents

5/24/2007 SharePoint 2007: Issues with DataForm Web Parts and Site Templates

Have you had this issue yet? Open a site in SharePoint Designer, select Insert Data View from the Data View menu item, and do all the magic to add it to the page. Now save that site as a template and hydrate a site from it. What happens to that web part? Mine breaks and so does all the other devs" that I work with. Here"s the problem. The DFWP DataSources markup (view in SPD) still references the List ID from the templated site! I came up with two, count them TWO, ways to fix this. 1) Never, ever...(read more)

5/24/2007 Web Part Pages

I"m working on a problem with web part pages. I created a document library to hold web part pages. Using this doclib, there are two ways to create pages. The first is using /folder/sharepoint.htm and hitting the New button. After it is created, I edit it in /folder/sharepoint.htm Designer(SPD) and the familiar "Click to insert a web part" link is there. However, the left navigation for the document libary is not there. I can drag my lists from the Data Source Library onto the web parg area just fine. But, when you save and view the page, it is just the page with no navigation.

In SPD, when I create a new page using the Master Page for the document library, it does create the left navigation, but there is no "Click to insert a web part" there. I cannot use Data View | Insert Data View either. I also cannot Insert | /folder/sharepoint.htm Controls | Web Part Zone for some reason.

My problem with the master page is there is not web part zone to drag/drop lists from the Datasource library.

I have been working on creating a custom master page with code from the first method and the second method.

5/24/2007 Updating an Item inside a SharePoint 2007 Workflow

Last week, I had the case where I wanted to update an item in a list inside a workflow process.
Of course, I wrote quickly the following code :

workflowProperties.Item["Status"] = "Archived";
workflowProperties.Item.Update();

So what ? Everything worked well !! ..Until...I wanted to have my workflow starting on the Updated event. And the the workflow crashed.
Why ? Because workflowProperties.Item.Update(); raised another Updated event, and the workflow tried to loop. But because one instance of the same workflow is already running, he didn"t agree !

The solution I"ve found is to use the following code:

workflowProperties.Item.SystemUpdate();

which writes directly the data to the database, without invoking list events. You can even add a flag (true/false) for incrementing the version number.

Hope this help.

5/24/2007 Learn the tools of the trade, not just the tricks of the trade.

I"ve been developing with /folder/sharepoint.htm since the dark old days of 2001. All of that experience with Patton Boggs LLP where I work. This blog marks the start of my experience with MOSS 2007. I am a believer that writing about something is an excellent way to increase ones own depth of knowledge and understanding about any given topic. I"ve had a lot of success doing just that with my blog on the markets. This is my attempt to repeat that success with /folder/sharepoint.htm 2007. I wouldn"t be writing about it if I didn"t think it was worth writing about. There"s a lot to like about this release.

This is my blog "title" and "about me" section, but I suppose it makes a good introduction.

5/24/2007 Using Delegate Controls in Sharepoint

After wrestling with the SDK information which skips a step or 2, I finally got the delegate control example to work that allows you to replace the /folder/sharepoint.htm Search box on the fly with your own custom control without ever having to touch the aspx page itself. This is a very cool feature with unlimited ramifications.

Why it is cool

Using the concept of a delegate control, you can take any control that exists in /folder/sharepoint.htm today or your own custom creations and place them on a sharepoint page such that they override the existing control at whatever scope you desire (individual site, site collection or farm) and yet require no recoding of the page(s) itself. On every /folder/sharepoint.htm deployment I have ever done, it has been requested that the search box be modified, either comsmetically or functionally. In previous /folder/sharepoint.htm versions, this involvded either customizing the pages one by one and/or creating a whole new site defintion. WIth the concept of delegate controls in /folder/sharepoint.htm 2007, its a handful of lines of code and its far more powerful.

How it works

On a typical WSS page, there is no longer a Search Box control tag, just this little beauty.....

<SharePoint:DelegateControl runat="server"
ControlId="SmallSearchInputBox"/>

The delegate control tag, the best I can deduce, does a lookup of the features on the site that will share the controlID value of "SmallSearchInputBox". Out of the box, there is only 1 of these declared, in the feature called ContentLightup.

What you can do (as documented in the SDK) is create your own feature that uses this same controlID but refers to a different underlyling .ascx (custom control) file. The delegate control feature will then check the list of all controls with this same ID and use the one that has the lowest sequence number as declared in the <control> tag as part of another xml file in the feature

Thus by copying the original feature and lowering the sequence number and the .ascx file, you will cause /folder/sharepoint.htm to dynamically change the control that <SharePoint:DelegateControl> tag produces on the page.

Caveats on the SDK Topic "How to: Customize a Delegate Control "

The SDK topic doesnt mention the sequence number being the key to which versoin of the control gets displayed (thanks guys), but if you run the new feature and change it to be lower or higher than 100, you will see the site act accordingly.

Also, do an IISreset each time before reinstalling the new feature or it wont work properly. At least it didnt for me.

Ramifications

Based on how you scope this feature, you can take any control, not just the search box and use the delegate control tag when creating a new site defintion or master page where your control may be located and easily customize the control"s functionality or look and feel for any given collection or sub site as desired without changing anyone else"s current implementation and without having to recode any pages.

This has a lot of use for branding and customizing of sites in a much more maintainable way than was previously possible.

5/24/2007 A bit about me!

Hi everyone and welcome to my blog! About time too, probably.

I"m an experienced Consultant who has specialised in SharePoint and other collaborative technologies since early 2003. Prior to this, I was focussed on Business Intelligence. I"ve got substantial experience of the full development life-cycle including the analysis and management of customer requirements and the subsequent design, build and implementation of systems. I have both a technical leadership and hands-on approach, coupled with a great enthusiasm for delivering quality work that meets the information needs of the customer.

I take a lot of pride in doing a good job in a friendly and honest way.

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog, I hope there"s something useful for you.

Jason

5/24/2007 Datagrid not retaining viewstate on postback

I haven"t done much DataGrid programming in the past but it"s used quite a bit at my new job. I thought I was pretty proficient at ASP.Net 1.1 but I was having some trouble getting the DataGrid viewstate to work. The problem was when you have AutoGenerateColumns set to false you have to do a little bit of extra work for the viewstate to load, you need to set up the columns on each page load.

http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t111954-net-datagrid-contents-lost-on-postback.html

5/23/2007 Displaying the document URL in a document library column

One of my readers (Joel) sent me an email with the following question:

I am trying to do something that I think should be simple in SP: display the URLs of Word docs in a doc library. I can send the URL as a link in an e-mail, but I can"t figure out how to display the URL in the public view. Please help.

What can one do to solve this? Here are some options:
1) As Joel said you can use Email as link option. It will open your email client and you will be able to c/p link from there
2) You can also try to find the URL of file by right-clicking on its name. It will open browser’s default context menu. From here you can use Copy shortcut option to copy URL.

These methods are available but it is very hard to teach an IW to use them. The third one requires a little bit of work, but once completed will have URL displayed on screen next to file name.

Here is what you need do: with your SharePoint Designer create a workflow that will copy document URL to the “URL” column (you will need to add one) in your document library. Workflow will be triggered when document URL is modified. In my next post I will provide you with step-by-step guide on how to do this with your SharePoint Designer.