For one of our customers we needed a specific overview of their KPI's (Key Perfomance Indicators) per defined SLA (Service Level Agreement). The standard Web Parts deliverd by MOBSA (Microsoft Office Business Scorecard Accelerator) were not providing enough possibilities. We decided to build our own custom Web Part using the MOBSA API. It is a very powerfull API and in this example we use it for showing multiple KPI statuses per defined SLA.

I already have seen this link at some other weblogs but find it very important to post it. It is an article at MSDN which describes a checklist for testing SharePoint Web Parts. The checklist can be used to assist with the deployment and maintenance of Web Parts.

	Verify that you can add the Web Part properly to a Web Part zone. Go to steps.
	Verify that static Web Parts render appropriately and do not cause the Web Part Page to fail. Go to steps.
	Verify that the Web Part works correctly regardless of where the Web Part Page is located. Go to steps.
	Verify that property attributes are correctly defined. Go to steps.
	Verify that Web Part changes made in personal view are not reflected in shared view. Go to steps.
	Verify that every public property can handle bad input. Go to steps.
	Verify that the Web Part handles all of its exceptions. Go to steps.
	Verify that the Web Part renders correctly in Microsoft Office FrontPage. Go to steps.
	Verify that Web Part properties displayed in the tool pane are user-friendly. Go to steps.
	Verify that the Web Part appears appropriately in the search results. Go to steps.
	Verify that you can import and export the Web Part properly. Go to steps.
	Verify that the Web Part previews properly. Go to steps.
	Verify that the Web Part can access its resources in different setup configurations. Go to steps.
	Verify that Web Part properties are not dependent on each other. Go to steps.
	Verify that Web Parts work correctly with different combinations of Web Part zone settings. Go to steps.
	Verify that the Web Part renders appropriately based on user permissions. Go to steps.
	Verify that adding several instances of the same Web Part to a Web Part Page (or in the same Web Part zone) works correctly. Go to steps.
	Verify that Web Part caching works correctly. Go to steps.
	Verify that requests to other HTTP sites or Web services are asynchronous. Go to steps.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/odc_SP2003_ta/html/Office_SharePointWebPartsTestingChecklist.asp

Shane started a weblog about customizing SharePoint websites. He uses FrontPage 2003 for customization of all SharePoint to give it a look as a "real" website.

"This entry will likely span into a 4-5 part tutorial on creating a SharePoint site that looks like a "real" website.

I'll try and take things step-by-step in creating a "real website" and then converting it into a SharePoint site. I will keep it as simple as possibe so that it's relatively easy to follow.

For anyone that just wants to follow along and get their feet wet I will include everything I've used for the site creation, HTML/Graphics/CSS etc.

This will be a fairly long post(s) but hopefully if there are a few people out there experiencing the SharePoint (Learning Pains) this should help you."

http://www.graphicalwonder.com/archives/2005/05/stepbystep_tuto.html

 

This weekend i needed a control to show jpeg images based on a folder structure. I decided to create an UserControl and used the Table, TableRow, TableCell, LinkButton and Image classes for generating the view. You could also use a class derived from System.Web.UI.Control and override the Render method for rendering the html.

This control is just an example of how to create your own ImageFolderViewer class. It does not take into account that the images could be portrait or landscape format. So if you need more functionality you have to make the additional changes yourself or wait till i release a better version.

At Rob Howard's blog we can read that CodeSmith 3.0 has been released since Monday May 16th. I agree with him that using code generation tools can save enormous time and prevents common mistakes by writing the same code over and over again.

"Code generation tools represent one of the most interesting areas where a tremendous amount of innovation opportunity still exists for improving the software development process. By automating the process of creating framework, database access, or other common/repeated code patters developers can save time, companies can save money, and users of the end product will get better solutions. Why? Instead of spending hours repeating the same logic flows, data access layers, or implementation frameworks just write it once as a CodeSmith template. That's right -- using .NET code you can write a template for how you want your code to be generated. It's still your code with your formatting your comments and your style -- CodeSmith just helps you write it faster. In fact, you could say it's like hiring your own personal army of developers!"

You can download a free 30 day trial version.

http://weblogs.asp.net/rhoward/archive/2005/05/17/407197.aspx

Adam Machanic has posted a month ago an article about SqlDataReader performance tips. One about using an indexer with the ordinal position, a second one about avoiding the Get methods and a third about opening and closing the reader.

Especially the last one is something we all sometimes forget. Thanks to Adam for these tips! :)

Read more ...

Passing a null value to an int is not possible. The int type is mapped to the System.Int32 structure type and is not capable of storing a null value. Only integer values can be stored in there.

There are two ways which i know of how to solve this problem. The first method is using an object in stead of the int type. For example:

object val = 200;

if (val != null)
{
   return (int)val;
}

In this way you can set the val variable to a null value or an integer value. In case of an integer value you unbox the value to retrieve the integer value.

A second method is using the SqlInt32 type found in namespace System.Data.SqlTypes which is a SQL type. This type supports nullable values. For example:

SqlInt32 val = SqlInt32.Null;

or

SqlInt32 val = 200;

The following link was found when i googled looking for a character entity reference for HTML. It gives you a long list of character formats and their equvalents in HTML like for example:

["] quotation mark

         [name: "] [number: "]

[®] registered trademark 
         [name: ®] [number: ®]

[ ] en space 
         [name:  ] [number:  ]

http://www.bigbaer.com/reference/character_entity_reference.htm

Arphan Shah pointed out on his blog a nice tip about implementing your own Recycle Bin in Windows SharePoint Services. The article at his blog contained a link to Microsoft which describes a guidance on how you can implement your own SharePoint Recycle Bin.

Follow the link below:

Add a Recycle Bin to Windows SharePoint Services for Easy Document Recovery

A really cool web part which makes it possible to create a Wikipedia-like application in SharePoint Portal Server or Windows SharePoint Services is made by Mart Muller. It is still in beta but very very promising. :)

http://blogs.tamtam.nl/mart/TamTamWikiSharePointBeta1ForWSSAndSPS.aspx