Marc Schuricht

Inherit Global Navigation

Marc Schuricht — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 00:49:16 GMT

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/marcs/archive/2009/07/06/133287.aspx

 I was recently asked to develop a script which would allow all sites to inherit the global navigation.  Here it is.
 
param( $rootUrl = "http://litwaredemo" )"Setting STSADM"$stsadm = "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\bin\STSADM.EXE""Getting Sites XML"[xml] $sites = &$stsadm -o enumsites -url $rootUrl"Loading Microsoft.SharePoint"[
[
　
　　System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SharePoint")System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing")function
{
 
 
[
 
[
 
}
 
 
}
}
　 SetGlobalNav([Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite] $Site)$site.AllWebs | %{ Microsoft.SharePoint.SPWeb] $web = $SPSite.OpenWeb($_.ServerRelativeUrl)if ([Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.PublishingWeb]::IsPublishingWeb($web)) {Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.PublishingWeb] $pweb = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.PublishingWeb]::GetPublishingWeb($web)$pweb.InheritGlobalNavigation = $true $web.Dispose()function
{
  EnumSiteCollections()"Getting Site Collection" 
[
 
 $sites.Sites.Site | %{Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite] $SPSite = New-Object "Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite" -argumentList $_.Url"Setting Global Navigation for $($_.Url)" SetGlobalNav $SPSite 
}
}$SPSite.Dispose()EnumSiteCollections

What is the point of Configuration?

Marc Schuricht — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 21:46:50 GMT

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/marcs/archive/2008/02/22/119898.aspx

I came across an interesting item this morning. I need to deploy web.config changes to a MOSS 2007 farm. After hearing many people including Ted Pattison speak about this in various sessions at the Office Developers Conference, my initial reaction was "Great, now I can make web.config modifications using a SPFeatureReceiver and the SPWebConfigModification class. Additionally, this is discussed in detail here:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb861909.aspx

and Here:

http://www.crsw.com/mark/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=32

However, I began thinking a little more in depth about this and something occurred to me...If I am trying to make modifications to a configuration file so that these items can be changed without compliler dependencies, that is, with needing to rebuild and redeploy my code, why in the world would I build an assembly as a SPFeatureReceiver, strong name it, deploy it as a feature to the GAC, that just holds configuration information????? That seems to break the whole model of the purpose of a configuration file and configuration settings which are not compiler dependant.

So I looked further and found that you can deploy web.config changes to the 12\CONFIG directory.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms439965.aspx

That really made my day, except that WSPs specifically target the 12\TEMPLATE directory and not anything above this directory such as 12\CONFIG. Now, I fully appreciate that I probably don't know what I'm talking about so if anyone can point me in the right direction regarding a managed deployment strategy for config files to the 12\CONFIG directory using SharePoint solutions, I would be more than greatful, otherwise I will build a wix installer which will accomplish the same thing, only must be run on each server in our farm.

What about PowerShell?

Marc Schuricht — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 10:48:06 GMT

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/marcs/archive/2007/12/12/117650.aspx

AJAX Entender within Server Control

Marc Schuricht — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 10:01:39 GMT

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/marcs/archive/2007/12/12/117649.aspx

So, I came across a requirement where the users do not want to wade through a potential 100's of items in a combobox, but are stuck on using a combo box. Our team has already built a generic server control which inherits from TableRow allowing us to add various controls as TableRows within an ASP:Table.

Essentially we get something like this:

<ASP:Table ID="Table1" runat="server">
  <Chadster:DropDownListFieldEditor 
	ID="DropDownListField" 
	Title="Pick an Item" 
	Description="Please Choose an Item from the list" 
	runat="server" />
  .
  .
  . and so on
</ASP:Table>

The interesting twist comes in when we want to implement the AJAX extender, found HERE, to search our list using AJAX.

A couple decisions are made to start:
(1) there may be more than 1 ajax enabled control per page so the page needs to implement the script manager and not the server control.
(2) the server control should be self-contained and nothing external should know or care that the control is ajax-enabled.

That said, here is the implementation:

[ToolboxData("<{0}:AjaxDropDownListFieldEditor runat=server></{0}:AjaxDropDownListFieldEditor>")]

public class AjaxDropDownListFieldEditor : DropDownListFieldEditor

{

private readonly ListSearchExtender searchExtender;

public AjaxDropDownListFieldEditor()

{

searchExtender = new ListSearchExtender();

}

/// <summary>

/// Called by the ASP.NET page framework to notify server controls that use composition-based implementation to create any child controls they contain in preparation for posting back or rendering.

/// </summary>

protected override void CreateChildControls()

{

base.CreateChildControls();

searchExtender.PromptText = "Enter Text";

searchExtender.PromptPosition = ListSearchPromptPosition.Top;

searchExtender.TargetControlID = Editor.UniqueID;

EnsureChildControls();

Page.Form.Controls.Add(searchExtender);

}

The magic happens in two places:

searchExtender.TargetControlID = Editor.UniqueID;

this ensures that we have the control’s unique server-side id, otherwise it complains that it cannot find the control. Secondly here:

Page.Form.Controls.Add(searchExtender);

We need to ensure we add the searchExtender control to the Form’s control collection, not just the page control collection or the generic this.Controls. If you add it to the page controls then the extender control will not be placed in the within a form control with runat=”server”. The latter will result in the extender not allowed to be added a TableRow control.

Enjoy!

MOSS Deployment Scenarios 2 of 4 - Feature.xml

Marc Schuricht — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 06:48:17 GMT

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/marcs/archive/2007/11/11/116785.aspx

In the last post I focused on the Solution file for a MOSS deployment of Andrew Connell's TaskLogger Timer Job found here.

In this post, I'll move on to the second, and in my opinion, simpler Feature.xml.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Feature xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/"
   Id="FF736F29-1356-4236-9718-7899EDE7007D"
   Title="Task Logger Timer Job"
         Description="Installs the timer job."
         Scope="Site"
         Hidden="TRUE"
         Version="1.0.0.0"
   ReceiverAssembly="TaskLoggerTimerJob, 
	Version=1.0.0.0, 
	Culture=neutral, 
	PublicKeyToken=d4efc76f0ce027b5"
   ReceiverClass="TaskLoggerTimerJob.TaskLoggerJobInstaller">
</Feature>

MOSS Deployment Scenarios 1 of 4 - Manifest.xml

Marc Schuricht — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 06:08:30 GMT

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/marcs/archive/2007/11/11/116782.aspx

As I mentioned earlier, I am working on a project that involves using MOSS as a development platform or framework to create an entire application instead of just providing a few simple customizations. This means that may of the items will be deployed as solutions (.wsp) and feature deployments.

There have been many posts on creating solutions and deploying them to MOSS, but many have lacked the level of detail that would help a lot of developers understand and troubleshoot problems with MOSS solution deployments.

For starters, let's look at the different files and configurations:

Manifest.xml
Feature.xml
Elements.xml
<ProjectName>.ddf

Generally speaking, these are the three files needed to define a solution package and a 4th ddf file used to create a wsp (CAB) file that MOSS will use to install.

Let's use a semi-real-world example to get an understanding of what's going on. Once we have the two classes set up, we can start to define the different solution/feature files. For the content of what we will deploy, I will use Andrew Connell's TaskLogger Timer Job as a reference.

http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog/articles/CreatingCustomSharePointTimerJobs.aspx

Manifest.xml

This is the primary file which defines the solution package as a whole. MOSS uses this file to know where to look for various files.

 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Solution xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/"
          SolutionId="A32DFE4D-B965-42af-B862-5897FA297755"
          DeploymentServerType="[ApplicationServer | WebFrontEnd]">

 <FeatureManifests>
  <FeatureManifest Location="TaskLoggerTimerJob\feature.xml" />
 </FeatureManifests>

 <Assemblies>
  <Assembly DeploymentTarget="[WebApplication | GlobalAssemblyCache]" Location="TaskLoggerTimerJob.dll"></Assembly>
 </Assemblies>
</Solution>

The Solution element defines the SolutionId, just a new guid and the deployment server type. In this case, since we are deploying a time job, we will use the ApplicationServer. However, a scenario where you might just use WebFrontEnd would be deploying a simple web part.

The FeatureManifests element refers to the feature.xml files collection. Yes, you can deploy many features with one solution. Just specify the different Feature folders. One, caveat, you must define a feature.xml file for each feature. Meaning you cannot name the feature.xml file as anything other than feature.xml. Doing so will give the following error upon deployment:

"The feature path <FeatureName>\otherfeat.xml' must be of the form directory\feature.xml".

The Assemblies element defines which assemblies you are deploying. For timer jobs, you MUST deploy to the GAC, however, for other items, you can choose WebApplication as the deployment target. If you deploy as a WebApplication, you must add an entry into the web.config located in the root of the virtual directory of the target of the deployment which specifies the file as a "SafeControl" in the SafeControls Element.

Introduction

Marc Schuricht — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 22:03:10 GMT

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/marcs/archive/2007/10/12/116016.aspx

Recently, I was asked to help build a web application that, like most custom dev projects, has its own RDBMS, and general application layers to present the data users are able to manage. The application has some simple workflows, but generally is simple CRUD stuff. Additionally, the client needs to be able to associate the data stored in the custom application with physical files which can range from 50-300MB each.

At this point, anyone reading this blog is thinking...why are you blogging about this??

The catch is the client has already made the decision that all web developement must be surfaced through MOSS 2007. Immediately several design options come to mind to get this to work.

I can create a standard web application that "looks" like MOSS and just have that run as a traditional web app off of a link within SharePoint.
I can follow the same approach as 1, but expose the interface through an IFrame web part. or
Dig deep into the MOSS environment and take this opportunity to show that an application can be built leveraging the existing MOSS environment as a development framework.

I Choose 3!

So, I'll begin to discuss the problems and solutions as well as headaches and successes that occur as this application begins to take form.

MOSS and Dynamics AX. A Happy Family

Marc Schuricht — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 23:26:51 GMT

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/marcs/archive/2007/08/22/114888.aspx

After creating this blog 2+ years ago, and only posting 3 articles and starting lots of other, I realized, that I suck at blogging. So, I have resolved to blog more often, but with shorter topics:

That's right, Microsoft has finally realized the need to have an integration path with MOSS (their premere corporate portal solution) with Dynamics AX (their premere ERP system) Please read this white paper, it has a lot of great ideas!

http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/E/D/9ED7F2E2-116B-4207-82F6-774F8225F3F8/MicrosoftDynamicsAX_WSS_WhitePaper.pdf

Enjoy!

Wonderful World of Dynamics

Marc Schuricht — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 01:43:00 GMT

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/marcs/archive/2006/10/25/95089.aspx

Microsoft has recently released Dynamics AX 4.0, their latest version of Enterprise ERP to attempt to compete better with the "Big Guys", namely Oracle, and SAP. After seeing some of the capabilities of CRM 3.0, I wasn't too excited about the most recent release of any MBS technology. Boy was I surprised after I got the install working (yikes). In case some of you haven't heard, here are a few of the development features DAX 4.0 has:

Its own OO language (yep, that's right, read it again just to make sure you got it...Polyporphism, Encapsulation, Inheritance, the works.)
An IDE...doesn't rival VS2005, but for what it is, not bad
CLR integration complete with Intellisense
Open Source
Enterprise Portal/Web Part integration
Integrated Unit Testing

I got to thinking about the 3rd one and realized that with complete CLR integration some of the possibilities. So, just for the heck of it, I decided to throw together a little sample that will allow a user to record a debit from a petty cash account using a smart phone. More to come on that.

VSS with VS

Marc Schuricht — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 22:36:00 GMT

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/marcs/archive/2005/11/23/61027.aspx

Yesterday when working with VS 2005 I ran into a particular frusteration. My client has dictated that even thought this project is a 2.0 project they are not yet ready to use VSS 2005 and, for obvious reasons, not ready to use VSTS. so we are stuck with good ole 6.0d. When starting my team had some particular problems with storing a web project and getting latest of the code. Turns out the MS has hidden the Open Solution from Source Control command. It is now a left-hand task item on the file explorer common control when doing a regular open solution. I actually like this approach better since it is more consistent with the other XP file explorer common controls, however, it would have been nice if this was somehow documented or at least configurable so that teams used to working with 6.0 are not left to scour newsgroups for this feature. Anyway, I just wanted to throw this out there in case any of you are having the same difficulty.

For more details, click here

2.0 Release Wish List

Marc Schuricht — Wed, 09 Nov 2005 06:56:00 GMT

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/marcs/archive/2005/11/08/59485.aspx

Yeah, I know it has not even been 24 hours since the release of 2.0 but I've already compliled a list of likes/dislikes and here they are. Maybe someone at Microsoft will stumble across this:

~~Prompting when I clear all my breakpoints??!? c'mon I'm smarter than that!~~
Refactor doesn't rename folders on my machine. Ok, this is a huge wish, but sho' would be nice
ecapsulating a field won't format the class so that my fields are at the top, then constructors then properties then methods. That can't be too hard.
classes aren't public by default
Limited Integration with VSS for MSBuild (yeah yeah, I know there are tools available, but again...sho' would be nice)
With ObjectDataSources I can't choose an interface for my business object (with the wizard). Shouldn't I be able to bind to a contract?