AJAX is a very cool technique. No more rountrips to the server. Real-time updating is at hand. The interactivity and user experience grows dramatically. AJAX (asynchronous Java-script + XML) is fantastic, AJAX is new, AJAX is hot!!!! But what is it? Imagine a search engine which gives you instant feedback on the number of results that match your query... Imagine a data entry application that validates upon entry... Imagine a poll on a website which automatically updates any changes...

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

It seems that Microsoft started their own virtual earth as an attack on Google Maps. As stated on the blog of the Virtual Earth team:

"Why Would I use VE? isn't it just like Google maps?
 
A lot of bloggers are taking their first look at VE and wondering why thy would use it instead of Google maps and Google Local. Why? Because our amps go to 11. Seriously, I guess it’s really a matter of taste and utility. At Virtual Earth our goal isn’t just to build an impressive feature list. More importantly to us, we want to enable our users to carry out everyday useful tasks REALLY well. Sure, we’ve built monster features like Autolocate and Autorefresh into VE, but it’s the user scenarios they enable that will keep people coming back to MSN Virtual Earth day after day. Let’s take a quick tour of how we have enabled you to carry out some of these most common tasks."

http://spaces.msn.com/members/virtualEarth/

http://virtualearth.msn.com/

At SharePoint 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

It is almost time. Monday August 1st i will be leaving Tam Tam for another company called LogicaCMG. My year of work at Tam Tam was a lot of fun and i have learned a lot there. I even started this blog at Tam Tam. I wil certainly continue this blog but at a new location. The new location i already mentioned in a post is going to be http://net.bloggix.com

 

From my collegeas at Tam Tam i got the fish shown in the pictures above. Their names are Stef and Paul. Thanks guys :)  

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

For one of our Tam Tam projects we needed a history. Users can alter some topic text through the use of the r.a.d.editor control in a WebPart. After every change the new version of the text is stored into a history . These versions are shown in another WebPart containing for each version a link. By pressing such a link the user can see that version back into the first WebPart.

We decided to use an issue list in the background. The following code examples will show you how to add a new item, and changes on that item into the issue list.

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>");
}