Hi All,

Its a long time that a posted a blog at this blogsite. Since end of 2007 i started blogging again over SharePoint, WSS, MOSS 2007 and "The new world of work". If you are still interested in my blog, please change the link or your RSS feed in the following:

http://www.bloggix.com/blogs/microsoft

http://www.bloggix.com/blogs/microsoft/rss.aspx

Thanks all!!

At some point when we were adding a new site under "Sites" by selecting the "create site in the left column, we were not able to select the folder "sites" anymore. Only "personal" was visible. After some investigation i found the cause.

SharePoint works with so called "managed paths". These paths define which paths are excluded (if you need to access a physical path on disk) and which paths are included (paths managed by Windows SharePoint Services).

You can reach this by going into SharePoint Central Administration, Windows SharePoint Services. Select "Extend or upgrade virtual server" and select the website from "complete list". Under "Virtual Server Management" there is an option called "Define managed paths".

Check if the "sites" and "personal" both are defined under "included paths". Now goto "site settings" of your website. select the option "Manage personal sites" under "User Profile, Audience, and Personal Sites".

Check if "personal" is selected at "Personal Site Location". In my case "sites" was selected which caused "sites" missing. The managed path selected here will NOT appear at the create site page. Now goto the website again and select the the page "Sites". Choose "Create site" under "Actions" and there it is again. Your "sites" folder appears again.

I'm already working some time with MOSS 2007 (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server) and have installed the beta 1 and beta 2 versions of the product. Last week i had to reinstall MOSS for some reason and got into problems.

Every time when you try to run the configuration wizard i got the following error:

Failed to create the configuration database. Reason: The language is not supported on the server.

After googling and thanks to a few guys there i found the solution. You have to make some registry changes before running the configuration wizard again. If you have choosen the "advanced" installation containing farms you have to remove two databases from SQL Server 2005.

The fix is:

• Start regedit.exe at your Windows 2003 Server
• lookup the the key [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\ServerLanguage] en put there a string value "1033"=""

You could also put the following into a fix.reg file using notepad:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\ServerLanguage]
"1033"=""

Thanks to Kevin Tunis :)

One of our customers uses document libraries in SPS2001 containing a minus sign in their path. They are going to migrate their environment to SPS2003 and have setup a test environment.

When they created a document library containg a minus sign in its name, its url was created without the minus sign. It was replaced with nothing. For example: The name "new-documents" will generate a document library with the name "new-documents" and the url "http://somedomain/newdocuments" in stead of "http://somedomain/new-documents".

It seems that in SPS2003 the use of a minus sign is not possible anymore. Even if you edit the document library it will not accept the use of a minus sign in the url.

In this case we found a solution. After creating the document library we made some changes in the database. I know that Microsoft does not support changing the database but in this case we had no other solution.

If you go to the table "Docs" and look at the field "DirName" you will find some rows containing the paths to the files: Forms, allitems.aspx, dispform.aspx, editform.aspx, template.aspx, upload.aspx and webfldr.aspx. Change the names by entering the minus sign at the correct solution.

Finally there is in the column "LeafName" one recor containing the name "newdocuments" and the column "DirName" is empty. Also this one has to be changed to "new-documents".

No try it by entering the correct (with minus sign) url in your webbrowser. It works! :)

Today i'm giving a presentation for a group of students about a project using SharePoint. In my case its a project built in Windows SharePoint Services (WSS).

Last week i was at the customers location and did a backup of the WSS site. Today i tried to set it up in my Virtual PC environment, and with success! :)

There are still some issues which are not handled by the backup / restore functionality of stsadm command.

Just for your information some of these issues:

• It is only possible to restore the WSS site when the same or higher service pack is installed
• If you're using Custom WebParts. You have to copy them into your bin folder or install them into the GAC.
• Also do not forget to place the <SafeControl> entry in the web.config file
• If you're using SessionState do not forget to turn it on in the web.config file
• I always advise to create per site your own layouts and images folder. Change the paths of the virtual directories in IIS

I used the following command line to restore the database:

stsadm -o -restore -url http://somsite -filename d:\pub\somesite.bkp -overwrite

Its always a fact that Microsoft does not support modifications to database schemas or database structures of SharePoint. These changes can be overwritten by service packs, upgrades or new versions of the product.

But.... still.... i came accross an article by Andy May which contained a link to the MSDN of microsoft where Microsoft describes each table of the SharePoint database. It still contains a Microsoft standard warning at the top. :)

So, whats the reason for this? Why listing the database tables?

The link to MSDN can be found at:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/spptsdk/html/tsdbTables_SV01051532.asp

The article of Andy May can be found at:

I always like these kind of postings. Proofing that some things are possible :) In his example he adds a WebPart Page to a Document Library by altering some code in the well-known ONET.XML. Do not be afraid of editing this file. Its quite easy to understand whats going on.

Check your documentation "Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies 2003 Software Development Kit" (file spptsdk.chm) and look for ONET.XML. You will find an article describing each bit of this file.

The article describing pre-populating a document library can be found at:

http://blogs.msdn.com/cjwalker/archive/2005/10/26/484879.aspx

Thanks to Christopher Walker!

Todd wrote a nice article about showing styles when moving your cursor around. A lot of people asked him how to alter elements of WSS WebPart Pages. He gives a good walk-through and some code. Thanks Todd :)

http://mindsharpblogs.com/todd/archive/2005/10/25/798.aspx

I found a nice topic in the SharePoint documentation which explains the properties that can be set on the command line using the stsadmin.exe tool with the getproperty and setproperty operations. This is as follow:

stsadm.exe -o getproperty -pn <property name> [-url <url>]
stsadm.exe -o setproperty -pn <property name> -pv <property value> [-url <url>]

As stated in the "Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Administrator's Guide" (file SharepointPSAdmin.chm):

"Some properties are available for the entire server, and are called server properties. Some are only available for an individual virtual server. When you get or set a server property, you can omit the url parameter. You must include the url parameter to get or set virtual server properties. For more information about setting properties, see "Introducing the Administration Tools for Windows SharePoint Services" in the Windows SharePoint Services Administrator's Guide."

The properties are divided in several categories:

Server Properties for Windows SharePoint Services

• Antivirus properties
• Data retrieval services properties
• HTML Viewer properties
• Site confirmation and automatic deletion properties
• Usage analysis properties

Virtual Server Properties for Windows SharePoint Services

• Alert properties
• Content database properties
• Data retrieval services properties
• General properties
• Site confirmation and automatic deletion properties

Lookup "Command-Line Properties" in the mentioned file for the complete list and explaination of each property divided over the categories.

But it would be nice if you can access these properties programmatically. This is possible with the following code:

Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPGlobalAdmin globAdmin = new Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPGlobalAdmin();
Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPGlobalConfig globConfig = globAdmin.Config;

SPPropertyBag propBag = globConfig.Properties;
System.Collections.ICollection keys = propBag.Keys;

foreach (object key in keys)
{
   output.Write(SPEncode.HtmlEncode(key.ToString()) + " :: " + 
   SPEncode.HtmlEncode(propBag[key.ToString()]) + "<BR>");
}

I got a lot of questions of colleages regarding custom templates and site definitions.

As stated in the help: "A custom template is a customization applied to a site definition. When a user customizes a site or list in the user interface, the custom template consists of the difference between the original state of the site or list as determined by its definition and the state of the site when the custom template is generated. Custom templates remain tied to a particular site definition (for example, the one for a SharePoint site or a Meeting Workspace site), so that if the site definition is not present or is changed, the custom template will not work."

In many cases building Portals with SharePoint Portal Server you want to change the defined Site definitions. These Site definitions are the templates you can choose from when you create a new site.

The problem with changing a Site definition is that when somebody else in another Portal creates a site with the same template, he is also getting your changes. So the following sequence of steps can be taken to create your own Site definition.

The first thing you have todo is copy an existing Site definition and rename it. Existing site definitions are found in the folder <localdrive>:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\60\Template\<localeid>. For example copy the STS folder and rename it to MYSTS.

In this folder you will find an XML folder containing the file ONET.XML. This is the schema file containing Collaborative Application Markup Language (CAML). If you want to make changes to the listings, WebParts and other stuff showing up when creating a site, this is file to make the changes in.

The next step is telling SharePoint that there is a new template defined. Under the folder <localdrive>:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\60\TEMPLATE\<localid>\XML you will find a schema file called WEBTEMP.XML. Copy this file and call it WEBTEMPMY.XML. It is very important that the name of the file starts with WEBTEMP.

Your WEBTEMPMY.XML will look like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<!-- _lcid="1033" _version="11.0" _dal="1" -->
<!-- _LocalBinding -->
<Templates xmlns:ows="Microsoft SharePoint">
   <Template Name="MYSTS" ID="10200">
      <Configuration ID="0" Hidden="False" Title="<some title>" Type="0" ImageUrl="<someimage>" Description="<somedescription>"> 
      </Configuration>
 </Template>
</Templates>

The following things are very important:

• Make sure that the Name property of the Template element is the same as the name of your folder.
• The ID property of the Template element should be in the range of 10000 or higher. Make sure its not used anywhere else.
• The ID property of the Configuration element points to a configuration with the same id in the ONET.XML.
• Property Hidden determines if the template should appear in the list when creating sites. It could be that you create your own sites based on the Site definition in a custom WebPart and users are not able to use your Site definition.

The final step is resetting the IIS by calling iisreset. It also works when recycling the application pool used by your Portal.

Further information regarding this subject can be found in the article "Creating a Site Definition from an Existing Site Definition" in Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies 2003 Software Development Kit.

And finally a good article which goes further into this by Robert Bogue:

Did you ever wonder where those sites went if you create one under the Sites directory within SharePoint Portal Server? I did! If you try to list a sites by using the SPSite.AllWebs they will not show up. Why? So far as I can see they are created as "floating" sites. But there is a way to list them. The Sites directory is a Area and can be found easily.

First create a TopologyManager and retrieve the PortalSite object by using an Uri object.

TopologyManager topologyManager = new TopologyManager();
Uri uri = new Uri(" http://localhost/ ");

PortalSiteCollection sites = topologyManager.PortalSites;

PortalSite portalSite = sites[uri];

Then get the PortalContext and use this to get the Guid of the SystemArea. The SystemArea is an enumeration providing you some starting points of Areas.

PortalContext portalContext = PortalApplication.GetContext(portalSite);

Guid homeGuid = AreaManager.GetSystemAreaGuid(portalContext, SystemArea.Home);

Based on the Guid its very easy to retrieve the actual Area object. And based on that Area object we retrieve the SitesArea object from its children.

Area homeArea = AreaManager.GetArea(portalContext, homeGuid); 
Area sitesArea = homeArea.Areas["Sites"];

Loop through the AreaListings in this Area object and check if its type is ListingType.Site. The URL property contains the url to the created sites.

foreach(AreaListing listing in sitesArea.Listings)
{
   if (listing.Type == ListingType.Site)
   {
      output.WriteLine(String.Format("{0} ({1})<br>", listing.Title, listing.URL));
   }
}

I found an impressive list of SharePoint links to divided in several categories. The list is made by Eric and can be downloaded as a zipped .htm file for importing into Internet Explorer. The list can be found at the following url:

I'm doing some research about areas in SPS 2003. During my research i found a control called BreadCrumbTrail in the namespace Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.WebControls which indicates were the current area is in the portal structure. Some googling brought me to the blog of Manuel Montes . He gives us an example of how to use the control. Thanks Manuel! :)  

See below:

• Open any of the default.aspx pages for an area template in your favourite editor. For example, the SPSTOPIC\default.aspx page.
• Locate the following code that renders the page title :
  <tr> <td ID="onetidPageTitle" class="ms-pagetitle"> <SPSWC:CategoryProperty runat="server" Property="Name" /> </td> </tr>
• Comment this entry
• Replace the code with the following:
  <tr><td><spswc:breadcrumbtrail id="BreadCrumbTrail2" runat="server" titlelocid="MultiPage_BreadcrumbWebPartTitle" verticalmode="false" frametype="None"></td></tr>

Note that you will need to give the control a unique ID ("BreadCrumbTrail2") ast here is another control already on the page.

• Save the Page and take a look… You should see something like this in place of the Page Title.
  Back to: Home > Topics > Applications

Changing the appearances can be done changing the following styles:

.bc-cell
.bc-htable
.bc-trail
.bc-leadin
.ms-vb bc-cell

http://pasteldelimon.blogspot.com/2005/06/breadcrumb-links-for-sps-areas.html

For one of our customers we build a Portal used as a Company Management System. It is a management system for internal documents needed at several indoor as outdoor locations. This Portal is a very good example of creating a design for customers. Together with a designer it only took 5 days manhour to accomplish this. It involves changing styles, adding new styles and adding new images. Some changes in custom WebParts was needed.

When a visitor logs into the intranet the main page containing a diagram is shown. Through this diagram he is able to go deeper into the portal. Documents are divided into four categories all indicated with another description, images and color.

When the visitor has selected a process from the diagram he will see a number of elements in which the process is divided. The customer can add new elements, remove them or change them with separate WebParts which are only available for the content administrator.

Inside an element there is a description and links to documents. All documents are placed in a document library at the root of the Portal. This is divided into categories. The customer is able to link per element one or more documents. The view shows documents per category. In this way the documents are placed at only one location if a document belongs to more then one element.

Thanks to Dustin an overview of the features found in SharePoint v3.

UI / UX

• WSS will have an entirely new user interface that includes better navigation controls and built-in breadcrumb trails.
• Pages will derive from “master pages“, meaning that you could re-skin an entire SharePoint site by modifying just one template file
• More professional out of the box themes
• FrontPage can directly edit each site's CSS file(s)
• Workflow built-in all over SharePoint, with tight integration with Outlook 12 tasks
• Individual documents can have document-specific workflows
• Item-level security on lists and libraries
• FrontPage has evolved further into a SharePoint designer tool (I read that as: the only SharePoint designer tool), and apparently, ghosted/unghosted pages won't be a problem any longer
• Recycle bin with user and administrator restore features for document libraries and list items
• InfoPath forms can be filled out with only a browser when published as (to?) a SharePoint site (even with FireFox)
• Customizable and extensible search (and search API), including “did you mean“-type search term corrections
• Lists can be viewed on mobile devices

Integration

• All lists and libraries have RSS feeds, and each list's feed can be customized to include whatever fields you'd like
• Event list RSS feeds include iCal files as enclosures
• Each site has a master “aggregating“ RSS feed
• Outlook 12 can perform 2-way online/offline syncronization of the following list types:
  • Contacts
  • Events
  • Tasks
  • Discussion Lists
  • Document Libraries (!)
• Discussion lists can create their own e-mail alias in Active Directory, allowing you to e-mail that alias to automatically archive that e-mail (and its attachments) to a SharePoint discussion list
• ALL lists and libraries have version history capability, and only “diffs“ are stored (differences from one change to the next)
• Access treats SharePoint sites as honest-to-goodness data sources

Developer-oriented news

• Existing web parts will “just work“ in the new SharePoint web part page framework
• Site definitions/templates will ship in the box for blogs and wikis (blogs can be built directly on your “My Site“!)
• All lists and libraries will have synchronous event handlers (not sure how these work with other interfaces to SharePoint data, like OM, WEBDAV, SOAP, etc., if the event handler has to raise an exception)
• List/library version history is exposed programmatically by way of the OM
• Multiple “content types” (sets of metadata, or “metadata templates“, if you will) for document libraries and lists, that include view information, workflows, bound events.
• FrontPage can edit workflows
• Business Data Catalog (datasource catalog on steroids, apparently).  This doesn't seem all that new to me, so I'll reserve commentary until more details emerge after the expected PDC sessions)

Service Pack 2 has been released for Windows SharePoint Services. Is includes updates previously released for Windows SharePoint Services:

• Windows SharePoint Services Service Pack 1
• Security Update for Windows SharePoint Services: KB887981

ServicePack 2 also includes stability improvements developed as a result of user input from the Microsoft Online Crash Analysis in Windows SharePoint Services and from Microsoft Product Support feedback.

You can get specific information about this update in the Microsoft Knowledge Base article (887624): Description of Windows SharePoint Services Service Pack 2 .

Have fun :)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9c552114-dc9a-43ee-9281-b080b7c280b4&DisplayLang=en

A good friend of mine, Pedro Serrano of CaveDigital , just started recently his own blog. Just have a look. His company specialises also in SharePoint and he has some nifty, cool things built.

I get a lot of questions of starting SharePoint developers that when setting up their development area and try to test their newly created WebParts they often get the error message "Not registered as safe on this website...".

This message can mean anything because it is a standard message from SharePoint. But in most cases the following will work. So here a simple but handy walkthrough when you are developing WebParts.

• Set your debug output folder of your WebPart Library development to the bin folder of your Portal
• Make sure that there is a <SafeControl .... /> tag placed in the web.config
• Use a tool like InstallAssemblies to generate your dwp files and add them to your Portal
• Set the trust level to "Full" in the web.config

Important!!
Keep in mind that taking these steps will give you full control of all API stuff in SharePoint. But a lot of it is under CAS (Code Access Security) which means that if you do not have sufficient rights the method or property will throw an exception.

So always test your WebParts in a test environment when they are for example signed and try to access it with a SharePoint user not having the same role as the Administrator does. (in most cases when you are developing you have Administrator rights)

Have you ever wondering who designed the look and feel of SharePoint? I have... sometimes i wonder why they did the look of SharePoint as it is today. One of the things i really don't like is that when you create a new site with a name and description the following look and feel is presented:

As you can see the description is below the line, means it takes up space of a table row where WebParts are normally displayed. The "Home" text has a ridiculous size in comparison with the title i just entered. So after some changes to the default.aspx file you get the following:

This is more like it :) So how did i do this? It is very easy. Just open the default.aspx file in an editor (or use Frontpage if you want), and look for the following:

<SharePoint:ProjectProperty Property="Description" runat="server"/>

This part will produce the description of the site. We are gonna move it to the position of the "Home" text. The home text can be found under the section <!-- Title -->. Just replace it and remove the description from its original place (don't forget to through away the <tr><td>....</td></tr>)

Now look for the following:

<SharePoint:ProjectProperty Property="Title" runat="server"/>

You will see that this is found in the same section <!-- Title --> just before the "Home"text. Notice the styles used in the <td> ... </td> elements for both parts.

The property title uses the style ms-titlearea, and the moved property description is using the ms-pagetitle. Now swap both styles.

This is everything we have todo. :)

When you add one or more new templates to your SharePoint environment you normally have to call iisreset.exe to let SharePoint recognize the new templates. On a development machine its not so bad to do this, but on a live environment it also shuts down other sites and Portals. You could also do the following:

Make sure that your Portal has its own Application Pool and recycle the pool will have the same effect. Your new templates are now recognized.

In some cases you need to nest a CDATA inside another CDATA like when you use a ContentEditorWebPart in the ONET.XML by creating a template definition. A CDATA is used to let the parser skip the information found between the brackets in case you don't want that part to be parsed.

For example:

<AllUsersWebPart WebPartZoneID="Left" WebPartOrder="1">
   <![CDATA[
      <WebPart xmlns:xsd="" xmlns:xsi="" xmlns="">
        <Title>Title</Title>
        <Assembly>Microsoft.SharePoint, ...</Assembly>
        <TypeName>Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.ContentEditorWebPart</TypeName>
     
        <ContentLink xmlns="" />
        <Content xmlns=""> 
            <html><b>Hello there</b></html>    
        </Content>
      </WebPart>
   ]]>
</AllUsersWebPart>

This example will fail because it tries to parse the html inside the <Content> tag. So you could do the following:

<AllUsersWebPart WebPartZoneID="Left" WebPartOrder="1">
   <![CDATA[
      <WebPart xmlns:xsd="" xmlns:xsi="" xmlns="">
        <Title>Title</Title>
        <Assembly>Microsoft.SharePoint, ...</Assembly>
        <TypeName>Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.ContentEditorWebPart</TypeName> 
        <ContentLink xmlns="" />
        <Content xmlns=""> 
            <!CDATA[
               <html><b>Hello there</b></html>  
            ]]>  
        </Content>
      </WebPart>
   ]]>
</AllUsersWebPart>

Also this is not gonna work. The parser actually thinks that the part it should not parse stops at the first ]]> found. The solution is relative simple but in some cases it can be time consuming.

<AllUsersWebPart WebPartZoneID="Left" WebPartOrder="1">
   <![CDATA[
      <WebPart xmlns:xsd="" xmlns:xsi="" xmlns="">
        <Title>Title</Title>
        <Assembly>Microsoft.SharePoint, ...</Assembly>
        <TypeName>Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.ContentEditorWebPart</TypeName>
        <ContentLink xmlns="" />
        <Content xmlns=""> 
            &lt;html&gt;&lt;b&gt;Hello there&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/html&gt;  
        </Content>
      </WebPart>
   ]]>
</AllUsersWebPart>

By rewriting characters that cause the parser to think that it is xml will solve your problem. That means that the sign < will be &lt; and the sign >will be &gt;

The following sources are available on the internet:

http://www.peej.co.uk/articles/cdata

http://xml.silmaril.ie/authors/cdata/

http://weblogs.asp.net/bsimser/archive/2005/03/29/396135.aspx

http://www.dpawson.co.uk/xsl/sect2/cdata.html

The SPWebCollection returned by the member SPWeb.Webs is a not sorted list of SPWeb objects. So i wrote a class which makes it possible to return a sorted list of SPWeb objects based on the property of a SPWeb. It is basically very simple and uses some standard .NET interfaces for enumerating and comparing.

public class SPSortedWebCollection : IEnumerable, IEnumerator
{
   private ArrayList list = new ArrayList();
   private int index = -1;
   private string property = "";

The constructor of the class needs a name of the property and the original collection of SPWeb objects returned by for example the SPWeb.Webs member. It adds the SPWeb objects and initializes the class.

   public SPSortedWebCollection(SPWebCollection webs, string property)
   {
      this.property = property;

      foreach(SPWeb child in webs)
      {
         Add(child);
      }

      Reset();
   }

This method can be used to add some additional SPWeb objects. Don't forget to call the Reset() member for resetting and sorting the collection again.

Inside the class another class is found which stores the SPWeb objects. It uses the IComparable interface for comparing itself against another instance of SPSortedWeb. The Sort member of the ArrayList automatically uses the CompareTo member of the interface when sorting the list.

   protected class SPSortedWeb : IComparable
   {
      private SPWeb web = null;
      private string property = "";

      public SPSortedWeb(SPWeb web, string property)
      {
         this.web = web;
         this.property = property;
      }

      public SPWeb Web
      {
         get
         {
            return web;
         }
      }

      public int CompareTo(object obj)
      {
         SPSortedWeb sw = obj as SPSortedWeb;

         string val = SharePointHelper.GetPropertyCode(web, property);
         string compareToVal = SharePointHelper.GetPropertyCode(sw.Web, property);

         return val.CompareTo(compareToVal);
      }
   }

Finally the class is given some methods for enumerating through the list. You can use easily the foreach(...) loop to retrieve the SPWeb objects.

   public IEnumerator GetEnumerator()
   {
      return this;
   }

   public void Reset()
   {
      list.Sort();
      index = -1;
   }

   public object Current
   {
      get
      {
         SPSortedWeb sw = (index < 0 || index >= list.Count) ? null : list[index] as SPSortedWeb;
    
         return sw != null ? sw.Web : null;
      }
   }

   public bool MoveNext()
   {
      index++;

      return index < list.Count;
   }
}

For retrieving the property of a SPWeb object the following class is used:

public class SharePointHelper
{  
    public static string GetPropertyCode(SPWeb web, string property)
   {
      if (web.Properties.ContainsKey(property))
      {
         return web.Properties[property];
      }

      return "";
   }
}

To use the class the following example gives you some idea of how it works:

SPSortedWebCollection col = new SPSortedWebCollection(currentWeb.Webs, "Number");

foreach(SPWeb child in col)
{
...
}

Reading through my RSS feeds i came accross a post pointing out that Microsoft has released a number of applications for WSS. These applications are from abscense and vacation schedule to Help Desk support. Here are some of them listed:

• Absence Request and Vacation Schedule Management
• Change Management
• Employee Timesheet and Scheduling Management
• Help Desk Dashboard
• New Product Development
• Project Team Site

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sppt
/wssapps/default.mspx

It seems that SharePoint is really important for Microsoft! Bill Gates has taken the lead of PM manager himself on the windows SharePoint services v3 User Experience.

That's great news!! :)

http://blogs.msdn.com/bowerm/archive/2005/08/03/447378.aspx

It took some time to get everything up and running at my new employee, so there is time to start blogging again. I needed some search functionality in WSS while SPS was not installed. I found the following tool:

Tim Heuer already mentioned in a post about this tool found at the website of SharePoint Experts. Its a search tool which makes it possible to search through multiple WSS sites without even SharePoint Portal Server installed. Even the costs are not that high :)

Here some of the features mentioned at their website:

Search multiple sites simultaneously
Results are returned from the current site, and all children of the current site

No new UI necessary
Search queries are entered using default search box

No complicated install
Just back up one file (to be safe!) and drop in our replacement!

Template-based results
Customizable XSL templates format the results

Server-side script interface
Call PowerSearch™ from any web app by passing URL parameters, and receive XML results (planned feature for next release)

SOAP Web Service interface
Integrate PowerSearch™ results into any site design using FrontPage and the XSLT Data View web part, or easily include results in your Windows Forms applications (planned feature for next release)

Custom filters and limits
Use the XSLT Data View to apply custom filters and limits to search results, such as "records modified in the past week" (planned feature for next release)

PowerNav™-aware
Future releases of PowerNav™ will extend your ability to customize PowerSearch results

http://www.sharepointexperts.com/software_powersearch_wss.htm

http://timheuer.com/blog/archive/2004/08/12/1155.aspx

It seems we have a new blogger in town :)  Welcome!! His name is Maxim Tarassenko and he wrote a "how to" article about implementing OWS Web Controls to simplify SharePoint Development.

"In order to simplify SharePoint development, it is possible to use standard web controls implemented in Microsoft SharePoint assemblies and used by SharePoint team throughout the whole SharePoint system. These are for example OWS web controls contained in Microsoft.SharePoint.dll and available both in Windows SharePoint Services as in SharePoint Portal Server."

http://www.dotnetblog.de/PermaLink,guid,9e6c6910-2b91-40cc-94c4-83697913b685.aspx

Modonovan posted an article which explains how to use the IRuntimeFilter to hide or show WebParts in the Portal. as stated in the article:

"By implementing IRuntimeFilter you are essentially creating a rule or a set of rules that determine if a web part should be displayed or not. For example:

• SharePoint Portal Server (SPS) uses a IRuntimeFilter for audiences. A user will setup the audiences that are allowed to see a web part (using the advanced section in the web part’s toolpane), then when a user visits the web page the filter runs and determines if the web part should be shown or not. If a virtual server is extended with SPS then the Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.Audience.AudienceManager filter is installed by default.
  
• You could create a custom IRuntimeFilter that determines if a web part should be displayed based on the WSS role the user is a member of. This is what the sample code in this document does
  
• You could create a custom IRuntimeFilter that determines if a web part should be displayed based on any arbitrary property or rule(s) that you come up with."

I often use some kind of check in my code behind to find out which roles the current user has and then based on the information i show or hide the WebPart. This solution presented by Modonovan is far better. :) Thanks!!

http://blogs.msdn.com/modonovan/archive/2005/07/07/436394.aspx

AtSharePoint Thoughts a good article is posted about the most seen error message in SharePoint. You know that message which pops up when you try to drag a WebPart on your Portal site. Its a generic error message from SharePoint caused by one of the following:

• is applied whenever an instance of WebPart cannot be created or
• is disallowed, either explicitly or implicitly, from rendering via the SafeControls list.

Read more by following the link below:

http://www.bluedoglimited.com/SharePointThoughts/ViewPost.aspx?ID=189

Mart and Maurice also posted an article about error messages. Follow the link below:

http://blogs.tamtam.nl/mart/SharePointErrorMessagesAreTheBest.aspx

I was setting up SharePoint Portal Server 2003 on one of my home computers. After installation of the Services Packs i went into the administration website to create a new Portal. Before that i made a folder and added a new website to the IIS 6.0 pointing to that folder.

Strange enough the new created website for the Portal was not selectable. Going into the list of virtual servers showed my why.

It seems that some sites and also the one i just made is set to "Not Administrable". After doing a google search (whichs delivered ony 3 hits on this subject) i found out you had to install the service packs. But i already did that. Today i finally found the solution.

Because i'm not always working at home i use a Removable Harddisk which is FAT32 formatted. It seems that putting the folder on a FAT32 formatted disk is causing this problem. Moving it to a NTFS partition or reformatting the FAT32 partition will solve this issue.

Mart Muller did a great post about adding a reply programmatically to a discussion board. Just like my last post about programmatically adding history to an issue in an issue list also this is not described clearly in the documentation of SharePoint. The following code is used:

SPListItem newItem = discussionList.Items.Add();
newItem["Title"] = "Title of item";
newItem["Body"] = "Body Text";
newItem["ThreadID"] = [ThreadID of original thread];
newItem["Ordering"] = [Ordering of original thread] + DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyyMMddhhmmss");
newItem.Update();

Mart's article:

http://blogs.tamtam.nl/mart/SharePointTipAdding
ADiscussionReplyItemInAThreadProgramatically.aspx

Article about adding history to an issue in an issue list:

http://net.bloggix.com/PermaLink,guid,aa4c6b98-2039-432b-af80-b8baf901fdf2.aspx

If you create a WebPart containing a multiline TextBox, the TextBox does not size automatically with the width of the WebPart. Requesting the Width of the WebPart is not an option because its not yet in the clients browser. So the following example shows a way of sizing the TextBox to 100% in the WebPart. tbRemark is a TextBox with the TextMode set to TextBoxMode.MultiLine.

protected override void RenderWebPart(HtmlTextWriter output)
{
   output.WriteLine("<style>.StyleRemark { width:100%;height:100; }</style>");

   output.WriteLine("<TABLE id=\"Table1\" cellSpacing=\"1\" cellPadding=\"1\" width=\"100%\" border=\"0\">");
   output.WriteLine("<TR><TD>");

   tbRemark.Text = Remark;
   tbRemark.CssClass = "StyleRemark";
   tbRemark.RenderControl(output);

   output.WriteLine("</TD></TR>");
   output.WriteLine("</TABLE>");
}

Today i had a head breaking issue. I needed two discussion boards placed on a WSS site using the ONET.XML template. Whatever i tried it resulted into another view of the same discussion board instead of a seperate discussion board. Then i saw it (together with a collegea)...

The following you have to add in the ONET.XML. First add a new ListTemplate element between the ListTemplates:

<ListTemplates>
   ...
   <ListTemplate   Name="discuss" 
                   DisplayName="Discussiebord" 
                   Type="999" 
                   BaseType="3" 
                   OnQuickLaunch="TRUE" 
                   SecurityBits="12" 
                   Description="..." Image="...">
   </ListTemplate>
</ListTemplates>

According to the documentation: "The Name attribute must be set to the exact name of the new list folder. To identify the list, assign a numerical ID that is not being used elsewhere and that is less than 1000 to the type attribute".

In this case we use the same name as the already existing discussion board ListTemplate element.

The rest is very simple. Just add the new defined list as you do with each list. Put the following List element in the Lists inside the Configuration:

<Configuration ID="2" Name="Topic">
   <Lists>
      ...
      <List Title="Topic discussion" Url="..." QuickLaunchUrl="..." Type="999" />
   </Lists>
</Configuration>

Finally put the View element in the File inside the Module:

<Modules>
   <Module Name="Topic" Url="" Path="">
      <File Url="default.aspx" NavBarHome="True">
         ...
         <View List="999" BaseViewID="0" WebPartZoneID="Left" WebPartOrder="2" />
      </File>
   </Module>
</Modules>

Do'nt forget the restart IIS to see some results. :)

Mark Harrison did a post containing some usefull links to documentation for the new Business Scorecard Manager 2005. It seems that this tool is not gonna be a free tool like the previous version and that the licenses are not that cheap. :( We have to see...

Business Scorecard Manager 2005 documentation includes the following:

Scorecard Manager Server Planning and Administration Guide
The Planning and Administration Guide contains information that system administrators use to install, configure and manage a Business Scorecard Manager server deployment.

Business Scorecard Builder Help Documentation
The Business Scorecard Builder Help includes conceptual and procedural information that users need to build scorecards using the Scorecard Builder application.

SharePoint Web Part Help
The SharePoint Web Part Help is written for end users who use Business Scorecard Manager scorecards and reports in SharePoint.

Business Scorecard Manager API Reference
The Application Programming Interface (API) reference provides developers with the complete reference for the Business Scorecard Manager 2005 Beta 2 API

Article by Mark Harrison:
http://markharrison.co.uk/blog/2005/07/documentation-for-business-scorecard.htm

When you change the application pool for a WSS site and you request the WSS site in a browser you could get a 403 error telling you that access is denied. By adding /default.aspx at the end of the url it works again.

This problem is caused by changing the application pool for the WSS site and not for its Application folders.

To solve the problem just change the application pool for its Application folders to the same as the WSS site. The Application folders I had to change were _layouts, _vti_bin and _wpresources.

"The purpose of the SharePoint Utility Suite is to provide a packaged collection of Tools and Utilities showcasing the rich Object Model that is delivered with the SharePoint Product and Technologies SDK (which includes Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 and SharePoint Portal Server 2003). This package includes code and tool examples that SharePoint Developers and SharePoint Administrators might find useful."

http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint/downloads/components/detail.asp?a=724

Thanks to Paul Schaeflein and Jessica Gruber

Paul Schaeflein did a post about an example how to programmatically upload a file to a document library. The example is in VB.NET and could be very handy to use in custom made WebParts. Thanks for that! :)

Sub ProcessPostedFile(ByVal fileUpload As HtmlControls.HtmlInputFile)
    Try
    ' get the filename and stream
    Dim fn As String = System.IO.Path.GetFileName(fileUpload.PostedFile.FileName)
    Dim stm As System.IO.Stream = fileUpload.PostedFile.InputStream
    Dim contents(CInt(stm.Length)) As Byte

    stm.Read(contents, 0, CInt(stm.Length))
    stm.Close()

    ' get the library path
    Dim docLibPath As String = Configuration.ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings("DocUploadPath")
    ' first, get the site containing the library
    Dim site As SPSite = New SPSite(docLibPath)
    Dim web As SPWeb = site.OpenWeb
    ' then get the folder
    Dim docFolder As SPFolder = web.GetFolder(docLibPath)

    ' delete the file if it exists
    Dim docFile As SPFile
    Try
        docFile = docFolder.Files(fn)
    Catch ex As Exception
    End Try

    If Not docFile Is Nothing Then
        docFolder.Files.Delete(fn)
    End If

     ' save the file
    docFile = docFolder.Files.Add(fn, contents)

    Catch ex As Exception
        Context.Trace.Warn(ex.ToString)
    End Try
End Sub

http://sharepointblogs.com/SPDiary/archive/2005/07/12/2632.aspx

Article written by Bil Simser doing the same upload using a HTTP PUT. Meaning that you could use it from any place and not only on the SharePoint server.

http://weblogs.asp.net/bsimser/archive/2004/06/06/149673.aspx

Angus Logan has been using AJAX.NET under SharePoint and came accross a "cast exception" when using RegisterTypeForAjax. He explains in his article a solution for this by adding manually the client side references to AJAX.NET.

http://msmvps.com/anguslogan/archive/2005/07/09/56884.aspx

The new Office Business Scorecard Server 2005 Beta 1 is available with the following features and benefits

• Align actions with strategy
• Gain complete insight in context
• Collaborate on business management and action.
• Empower employees to monitor and deliver against key metrics
• Achieve extensible functionality

The Beta software can be downloaded using the following link:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/isv/technology/bss/beta/default.aspx

Rumours says that in the last weeks of july beta 2 will be released. It is worth while waiting for that version to start with :)

I came accros a post, forget from who, referring to a article written by Heather Solomon. It describes a questionaire for SharePoint to gather information for determining which product implementation suit their needs. It helps you to decide between a Portal, WSS or both.

I think this questionaire is very helpfull for this kind of descisions and Heather did a great job posting it for all of us! Thanks Heather.

The questionaire can also be found by clicking on the link at the bottom of this post.

Topic: Overall

1. Please explain your business needs and expectations for a site.
   Review answer and use to aid in determining which implementation is best.

Topic: Content

1. Check all that are applicable: (List of checkboxes)
   • You have content that you want to make available to all employees. (i.e., policies, procedures, news releases, product information, etc.)
     Checked: Portal
   • You have content that you want available only to a controlled (select) group of employees. (i.e., team information for a specific audience such as project status, management reports, etc.)
     Checked: WSS Site
   • You have content targeted at a specific group of employees, but all employees could view it. (i.e., company campus information, division procedures, strategy, etc.)
     Checked: Portal
   • You want a collaboration area for employees to work on documents, projects or meetings.
     Checked: WSS Site
2. What type of content requests do you receive for providing information to people?
   Review answer and use to aid in determining which implementation is best.
3. How static is the content you want to provide? (List of checkboxes)
   • Weekly
   • Monthly
   • Yearly
   Frequent edits in a good reason to have a site manager or overall content owner for the site. Having a person in charge of doing or reviewing all edits will keep the tone the same and consistent and reduce content duplication. Edits that happen infrequently can probably be handled by a central administration group and will possibly not require the group to undergo training.
4. How many people contribute to or are responsible for this content? (List of checkboxes)
   • Less than 5
   • Less than 15
   • Less than 30
   • More than 30
   The more people involved with a site's content, the bigger the need for a central site manager or overall content owner. See the reasoning above for more details. Additionally if there is a large group of people editing the content, the site may be a good candidate for Content Management Server.
5. Do you want to provide any of the following types of content? (List of checkboxes) All of these are available with Portal or WSS Site except where noted.
   • Document libraries (if checked answer additional information below)
   • Surveys
   • Lists (i.e., events, links, announcements, issues, tasks, contacts, custom, etc.)
   • Discussion boards
   • Forms
   • Images/graphics
   • Workspaces (Section specifically targeted to group collaboration on document(s), meeting(s), project(s), team(s), list(s) and/or web page(s).)
     Checked: WSS Site
   • Other
     Please describe:
     Review answer and work with an implementation team member to determine which product meets the content need.

Document Library - Only complete if document libraries is a type of content you want to provide.

6. Where do the documents currently reside and what type of information is it?
   Review answer, may effect how content is moved to site and storage space allocation costs for client.
7. Who needs access to these documents?
   Review answer, documents targeted to all employees can be on a Portal, documents targeted to a select group of employees will need to be on a WSS Site (best implementation) or on a restricted access sub area of a Portal.

   (The following are questions with Yes/No checkboxes).

8. Will the documents require unique user permission assignments?
   • Yes Checked: WSS Site
   • No Checked: WSS Site or Portal
9. Will the documents need versioning?
   • Yes Checked: WSS Site
   • No Checked: WSS Site or Portal
10. Will the documents need an approval process before being posted for all users to see?
    • Yes Checked: WSS Site
    • No Checked: WSS Site or Portal
11. Are there any old or archived documents that need to be available as well to users? (If answer is Yes, answer additional question below).
    • Yes Checked: See below
    • No Checked: No further action
12. Do old documents need to be available for search only and not collaboration and browsing?
    • Yes Checked: Portal
    • No Checked: WSS Site or Portal

Topic: Search

Topic: Audience

1. Audience (check all that are applicable) (List of checkboxes)
   These are general guidelines for which server farm the site should live on. Each site will have to be handled and evaluated on a case by case basis.
   • Contractors Checked: Content needs to reside in the Intranet server farm.
   • Clients Checked: Content needs to reside in a non-Intranet server farm.
   • Employees If only one checked: Content needs to reside in the Intranet server farm; If checked in conjunction with Clients: Content needs to reside in a non-Intranet server farm.
   • Limited group of employees. Estimated number in group: ___________ Checked: WSS Site; For an ideal WSS Site, estimated number in group needs to be under 150.
2. What services do you provide your audience? (i.e., HR policies, online payroll, weekly status reports)
   Items targeted for all employees like HR policies, should reside in a Portal. Items that are targeted to a smaller subset of employees, like weekly project status reports, should reside in a WSS Site. If the content is geared for mass assumption and distribution, it should be a Portal. If the content is geared to a limited number of employees who would be the only ones that would understand and use the content, it should be a WSS Site.
3. How often do you need to interact with your audience? (List of checkboxes)
   • Daily
   • Weekly
   • Quarterly
   • On demand
   Frequent interaction is better suited for a WSS Site, while content that does not change very often is better suited for a Portal.
4. Is the interaction with your audience short-term or long-term?(List of checkboxes)
   • 1 - 6 months
   • 6 - 12 months
   • 1 - 2 years
   • 2 + years
   Short term content is better suited for a WSS Site, while longer term content is better suited for a portal.

Topic: Site Setup, Support and Administrative Roles

1. Site Setup, Support and Administrative Roles (check all that are applicable) (List of checkboxes)
   • Which best describes your initial site setup needs?
     • Full setup - SharePoint administration team sets up entire site structure and inputs content
     • Partial setup - SharePoint administration team sets up entire site structure, but does not input content
   • Which best describes your site support needs going forward after the initial setup?
     • Full support - SharePoint administration team supports and maintains entire site
     • Partial support - SharePoint administration team provides Help Desk support and high level administrative support
   
   Note: A site manager is responsible for managing sub sites, workspaces and adding/updating areas for content contribution. Either the site manger or a designated security administrator is responsible for adding users as a reader to the site.
2. Do you have a person(s) in your group to serve as "site manager" over the site? (List of checkboxes)
   • Yes
   • No
3. Do you have a person(s) in your group to serve as "security administrator" over the site? (List of checkboxes)
   • Yes
   • No
   Depending on the outcome of this survey and what implementation is determined to be the best fit for the client, a Site Manager may or may not be required, although one is always strongly suggested. For large sites, a Site Manager is highly suggested and if there is no one they can identify to fill this role, we need to discuss that further with them to see how we can help effectively manage the site.

Topic: Custom Development

1. Do you have existing applications that need to be linked to or incorporated into a SharePoint site? Please explain.
   Answers will have to be reviewed on a case by case basis.
2. Do you need custom content functionality/development? Please explain.
   Answers will have to be reviewed on a case by case basis.

http://heathersolomon.com/blog/articles/446.aspx

There is a whitepaper found at winapp technology which explains how to inject some more of Office back into SharePoint with an "Outlook Send Tool" developed by them.

"This Winapp Technology whitepaper explains how to inject some more of office back into SharePoint with these code snippets and customizations that allow you to select multiple files in a document library and send links and attachments from Sharepoint."

Follow the following link to receive a free article and code:

http://www.winapptechnology.com/wtregistration/registration.aspx?registrationid=2&callingurl=www.winapptechnology.com

Mark Harrison mentioned the new Telerik site in a post yesterday. It is a company specialised delivering controls to make it for us, as developers,  a lot easier. They have a WYSIWYG editor called the r.a.d.editor implemented as a WebPart for easy integration into SharePoint. I'm currently working on a SharePoint project where the user has to make changes to articles using this WebPart.

http://www.sharepointcontrols.com/Default.aspx?PageId=2466

At the blog SharePoint from Scratch  an article is posted which describes a ways to delete a personal site in SharePoint. As you know the personal sites exists only in the database and uses the same aspx files. The following walkthrough finds the correct url for the personal site and makes it possible to delete it through the "Site Administration".

• Click on Site Settings.
• Under User Profile, Audiences, and Personal Sites click Manage Profile Database.
• Click  View User Profiles
• Search for yourself, hover over your name and select Manage Personal Site.  At this point you could get the error User Has Not Create a Personal Site.
• Look at the URL: http://MyPortal/personal/MyUserName/_layouts/1033/settings.aspx
• Now you can add anyone's username to the URL and get the site settings for that user.
• From there, you can click on Site Administration and the Delete This Site.

http://sharepointblogs.com/spfromscratch/archive/2005/06/29/2311.aspx

My collegea Mart wrote an article about the last modified date of a WSS site. The SPSite class has a property called LastItemModifiedDate returning the last date of modified content. If the method GetSubwebsForCurrentUser is used this property does not contain a value when used for the root web. The following definition of both members is found in the MSDN library:

LastItemModifiedDate
property of the SPList class gets the date and time that an item, field, or property of the list was last modified.

LastContentModifiedDate
property of the SPSite class gets in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) the date and time when the content of the site was last changed.

Mart and Tariq give us a solution for this problem by getting the SPVirtualServerCollection of the SPGlobalAdmin and then looping through the Sites collection per SPVirtualServer. The property LastContentModifiedData is filled in. :)

Thanks guys! I'm gonna need this in one of my next projects

http://blogs.tamtam.nl/mart/SharePointTipLastItemModifiedDateAndLastContentModifiedDate.aspx

The support for additional languages under WSS is larger then for SPS. It is possible to install additional languages next to the selected language at installation. When creating WSS sites the user can choose from the installed languages. See following article:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;555106

This is a link to an add-on package for WSS giving allowing the users to create WSS sites in other languages then the default language at installation.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e7eec77d-4365-4b66-8e8d-9d079c509679&DisplayLang=en

Tom van de Kerkhof has written a very cool WebPart which makes it possible to change your active directory password through a WebPart. It uses the SmartPart written by Jan Tielens . More information about SmartPart can be found at www.smartpart.info .

You can download the WebPart at his blog . :) My compliments!!

http://www.blogs.jpworks.be/Tom/PermaLink.aspx?guid=983ea9cf-3b9b-416e-8a49-d1152c7af60c

Jan Tielens has posted a nice article about adding WebParts to a WebPartPage programmatically in SharePoint. In his article he discusses two scenarios to accomplish this.

• First scenario is getting the is creating a new WebPart (in his case a ListViewWebPart) and adding it to the SPWebPartCollection.
• Second scenario is building a XML string containing the information about the WebPart and use the SPWebPartCollection to add this string.

http://weblogs.asp.net/jan/archive/2005/06/22/414283.aspx

At the blog #region /* mads's thoughts */ an important article is found called "COM objects need tight leash". It gives an example of increasing memory usage when working with the SharePoint object model and th Office interop components.

In that case it seems that the Garbage Collector was cleaning up the managed references which were wrappers around COM objects and these COM objects were not cleaned up.

I have had a similair problem in the past writing wrapper classes in C# around C++ unmanaged code. The unmanaged code was not cleaned up by the garbage collector ofcourse and you had to do that yourself.

It never hurts to mention this again. Be very carefull when calling the Dispose or Close method on SPSite or SPWeb objects. If the object is a shared resource it will give you a nasty "access violation error". For example never do the following:

SPSite site = SPControl.GetContextSite (this.Context);
// Code to perform a task
site.Dispose ();  -> WRONG

SharePoint will dispose the object if needed so never call the Dispose method in this case. If you create your own SPSite or SPWeb objects you can use the Dispose or the Close method for these objects. In case you're referencing the object never ever call the Dispose or Close method.

See the article referred to below:

http://www.kbalertz.com/kb_901259.aspx

If you want to integrate WSS into SPS there is an article at Stramit's SharePoint Blog containing serveral links explaining how to do this. the links found in the article are also in this post. 

• KB 824877 : How To Integrate an Existing Windows SharePoint Services Installation with SharePoint Portal Server 2003
• Integrate an Existing Windows SharePoint Services Installation with SharePoint Portal Server
• Connect the Windows SharePoint Services Site to the Portal Site
• Add a Link for the Windows SharePoint Services Site to the Sites Directory in the Portal

A valuable posting :)

http://blog.spsclerics.com/archive/2005/06/21/2311.aspx