Office Development

Tim Heuer: vista and office dev: creating preview handlers

Steve Bargelt — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 22:51:00 GMT

This is awesome... TimH creates an Office 2007 code attachment preview handler...

in outlook 2007, when you have an attachement in a mail message and click on the attachment file, you are presented with an option to preview this attachment directly in outlook...just like the preview pane for a normal message...
...a few handlers of my own. as a developer i frequently get code files sent as attachments. i generally have to open them up and look at them in visual studio or notepad2 for code highlighting, etc. well, with my new found knowledge i created a code preview handler. it will see .cs, .vb, .js and .sql files and enable a previewer to show them in code-highlighted formatting in the preview window of outlook 2007 or windows vista explorer.

VSTO: Custom Button Pictures

Steve Bargelt — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 15:35:00 GMT

Jeesh... this really should be easier.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/ms268747(VS.80).aspx

1. Create a new class named ConvertImage. This class uses System.Forms.Axhost to convert an image file to an image type that can be applied to the menu item.

2. Add a method to convert the icon file into an Image file by adding it to an ImageList. This code sends the Image file to the ConvertImage.Convert method you created and then returns the file to the caller.

Web Content Management Links and Resources

Steve Bargelt — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 02:57:00 GMT

From Andrew Connell:

This page contains links and resources specific to Web Content Management (WCM). WCM part of a larger Enterprise Content Management (ECM) strategy that's part of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007. MOSS is built on top of Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) v3.

Web Content Management Links and Resources.

Starter Kits for MOSS 2007 / WSS V3

Steve Bargelt — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 02:20:00 GMT

Windows SharePoint Services V3 Starter Kit: Workflow Developer Starter Kit for Windows SharePoint Services V3
Download details: Workflow Developer Starter Kit for Windows SharePoint Services V3.

2007 Office System Starter Kit: Enterprise Content Management Starter Kit
Download details: ECM Starter Kit for 2007 Office System.

How to Fix Canonical Error in MOSS 2007

Steve Bargelt — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 02:18:00 GMT

How to fix “Canonical Error” in MOSS 2007…

Angus Logan's Portals Blog : Canonical Error in MOSS 2007 and running up 8 server farm at Web Central.

Source Code from Tech Ed Available

Steve Bargelt — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 01:48:00 GMT

Out of all of the sessions that I attended at TechEd 2006 only three presenters really wowed me. Todd Bleeker and Ted Pattison on MOSS 2007 / SharePoint 2007 and Scott Guthrie on ASP.Net and ATLAS. Here are the links to all of the source from those presentations.

For Todd’s artifacts you must register at the MindSharp site:

Office DevCon 2006: Day 3

Steve Bargelt — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 16:19:00 GMT

Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Microsoft Office (VSTO): Creating Multi-Tier Application
John Durant — dude gets it! This guy in an awesome presenter. Probably the best session of the conference and it isn’t even about 2007 Office System! I wish I could bottle his energy – the dude is a ball of fire! Unfortunately there isn’t a lot to report here since the session was all about shipping products and technologies.

I think he had about 6 slides. The rest of the time was spent in Visual Studio and Office. We saw code. We saw lots of code.

Bottom line: if you ever get a chance to see John present – do it. Ignore the subject matter – just go see him work the room – it will be well worth your time.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007: Extending Web Content Management – Page Authoring and Rendering
Starting out well – only 5 minutes in and Visual Studio is up and we’re looking at code! Nice.

*Custom field controls
The example MovieSelector. Edit mode derives from BaseRichSelector. Two classes for the FieldControl – one for edit mode one for view mode. MovieField.cs and MovieSelector.cs. Nice and clean way to create the control. I like.

Note: I’ve bitched incessantly about wanting to see more code and less PowerPoint – which I still believe should be the case at a DevCon – but I also now realize that it is much harder to take notes and/or blog about code samples!

*Smart Client Authoring
To be honest – I did other work during these demos. I might change my mind in the future but as of right now I don’t care about Smart Client Authoring. I do commend Jim Masson for his sparse use of PowerPoint and the amount of time spent in Visual Studio.

*Create or Edit Pages Automatically
The basic premise here is to automatically create a publishing page when a document is added to a document library. So building upon the smart client authoring demo (which I did not pay attention to) you can setup an event handler on a doc lib and have it kick off your document converter. The classic example: press releases. So when marketing dude uploads a new press release to a doc lib you can create a publishing page on your intra/inter net site(s).

Publishing API =
SPWeb web etc.
Publishingweb pubWeb = PublishingWeb.GetPublishingWeb(web)

*Extending The Page Editing Bar

XML file defines actions
Links Code
Context Sensitive!

In code you can select the states that your custom action should show up under

ConsoleAction base class – derive from this class
In code you can security trim your custom actions!
ShowError mesa GE – VERY COOL. This allows you to surface error messages in the Page Editing Bar in a uniform way.

*Other Authoring Extensibility Points

HTML Editor – add new buttons and code to toolbar
Styling and branding

Master Pages, Layouts, CSS
HTML editor styles using CSS
Web part styles using XSL

Automation

Event handlers
Custom workflows
LOB Apps and/or page integrated into SharePoint (example HR app HTML page to show vacation balances etc.)

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 : Extending Web Content Management Features — Navigation, Caching and Operations
ASP.Net 2.0 Post cache substitution – very cool to allow customization (and the like) on cached pages.

Jim mentioned that most of will only have to worry about caching on Internet sites. I had to chuckle. Our Intranet gets more use than most Internet sites!

Claims 500–800 requests per second per processor on the WFE with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 when using page caching.

This was a good session on a dry topic – performance and caching. To be honest – I’m tired of typing notes!

Office DevCon 2006: Day 2, Part 2

Steve Bargelt — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 21:44:00 GMT

Developing Workflows for the 2007 Microsoft Office System and Windows SharePoint Service “v3”
Basic steps for workflow development

Model workflow in VS
Create and bind InfoPath forms
Deploy to SharePoint Server
Debug the running workflow

Examples use the Office “12” SharePoint Servers Beta 1 TR Starter kit – which adds a project type “SharePoint Sequential Workflow…”

Types of InfoPath forms in Workflows

Association form

when user adds workflow to a list
for setting options on WF

Initiation form

for manual workflow start
collects WF params

Task completion form

a user completes a task

Modification form

To deploy your workflow to a SharePoint server:

Generate metadatafiles

Feature.xml
Workflow.XML

Create the CAB (WSP) – box admin installs (via spadmin, IISreset)
Install/activate the features
Associate WF to the list/library

Now we get to see CODE! Sweet – my fast is happy now!

Linking InfoPath forms into a workflow – in InfoPath designer you can export source files. One of which is a .xsd file. Then run xsd.exe on that .xsd from within a VS command prompt. That generates a c# file (class) based on the form. Now reference the class from within your workflow project. Very slick

Customizing and Extending Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Search
I see a pattern here. The presenter is busy clicking checkboxes and configuring web parts from within the tool parts. WTF? When did the definition of “Developer” include button clicking? This is frustrating. The description of this presentation has this phrase: “how to make use of the search engine and API from within your code”

So the presenter just said that he was showing us the GUI crap so that we have a frame of reference. Jeezus – I can click around a freakin’ UI myself. I equate this to a college professor reading from a book. I can do that on my own. Show me something that ain’t in the book. Show me cool stuff!!! ooooooo now we’re geeting into code. NOT… we are changing the XSLTs. Cool stuff for Ux dudes… but not for me.

Cool search thing #1 – I think we (at work) will be able to define an XSL for certain content types (think News) so that they show up differently in search results. Not sure how useful it is but it seems like there might be some value here.

Last hope for the day (it has Visual Studio in the title – must be cool, right?):
SharePoint Technology Tools, Techniques, References and Resources for Visual Studio Developers
Use ~~FrontPage 2007~~ SharePoint Designer to:

Write no-code workflows
Modify CSS files
Edit .aspx pages
Add script to pages
Customize look & feel of web parts
Write XSLT to customize data rendering

Introducing Code Name “Visual Studio Extensions for SharePoint Services”

Aims to address pain points around SP development
Adds SP project type to VS
Set of VS Project and Item templates
Build. Deploy, debug support
EWSS XSDs for XML intellisense

After installing Visual Studio Extensions for SharePoint Services there will be a a “SharePoint” node in the Visual Studio new project dialog where you can create a new:

web part
site definition
list definition
feature definition
event handler
workflow activity

SWEET! It gets better:
When you it F5 it creates the CAB, deploys the web part, registers in SafeControls, adds to gallery, attaches to process. Wow. How hard was this in SharePoint 2003? This is a serious PITA! I think I have 4 or 5 docs I reference to get web part debugging working with the current version! Wow… this is awesome.

The bad news… won’t be ready until RTM. So much for helping beta and TAP customers!

Cool tips. Create a batch file like:

stsadm -o deleteweb -url http://localhost/test
stsadm -o createweb -url http://localhost/test -lcid 1033 -sitetemplate HELPDESK#1 -title TestWeb
start http://localhost/test

This would be good to setup/teardown a web for UnitTests.

Office 12 (207 Microsoft Office) NDA Lift

Steve Bargelt — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 20:15:00 GMT

By the way – in case you were wondering of the M$FT police were going to come after me for blogging about Office 12:

As of March 21, 2006, Microsoft is officially lifting our previous request for non-disclosure of Office Server products. This change in our NDA policy is driven by the open nature of the Office Developers Conference and the information that is being covered at that event.

The following things are now public:

Product naming and packaging
All Client applications, including Groove 2007
All Server applications, including both capabilities and feature-level server details
Key investment areas (collaboration, Business Intelligence, Enterprise Content Management, Enterprise Project Management).

Visual Studio Tools for Office "v3" March CTP

Steve Bargelt — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 20:04:00 GMT

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=2e85132b-7370-4137-a19a-15752ea83952&displaylang=en

Overview

This is the March 2006 Community Technology Preview of Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Office "v3", planned for the next version of Microsoft Visual Studio ("Orcas").

Note: This CTP requires you to have the Beta 1 Technical Refresh of Microsoft Office 2007. Only customers currently registered with the Microsoft Office 2007 Beta 1 program (including the Office Developer Conference 2006 attendees) are able to install this CTP. If you are not one of them, there will be another release of this CTP coming later this spring that will be available for installation by the general public.

The primary goal of this CTP is to give Microsoft Office 2007 beta 1 technical refresh developers an early glimpse at some of the key new features and feature directions in the area of Office programmability. The upcoming release of Microsoft Office 2007 introduces a number of new technologies intended to further establish Microsoft Office as a powerful and flexible solution development platform.

The next version of Visual Studio Tools for Office is designed to help developers take better advantage of those new capabilities in Office 2007, as well as to provide additional infrastructure to ensure .NET solutions in Office run more reliably, efficiently and securely.

The highlights of this CTP include:

Support for the new Office Open XML file formats in Microsoft Office 2007
Support for the new UI ( “ribbon”) extensibility model in Microsoft Office 2007
Add-In projects for Microsoft Access 2007, Microsoft Excel 2007, Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2007, Microsoft InfoPath 2007, Microsoft Outlook 2007, Microsoft PowerPoint 2007, Microsoft Project 2007, Microsoft Publisher 2007, Microsoft Visio 2007, and Microsoft Word 2007
Support for the new application-level customizable taskpane