ZogBlog

The recently released Windows Live Toolbar includes a new Windows Live Favorites syncing feature The toolbar pic shown above is from their site, but for some odd reason they aren't showing the Favorites button (but you can see it here) - or even listing it as a feature. That's just stupid.

Anyway, from what I can tell it syncs up your favorites to a central server... and then later when you move to another machine it syncs up to that one. I played with this feature at work on IE6 - and at first I hated it because I was looking for a drop down with my bookmarks... and the Live Toolbar only gives you the option to sync - it doesn't actually show you your favorites. Seemed like a waste (and counter-intuitive to my IE Google Toolbar beta with Bookmarks experience), until today while on one of my laptops with IE7b2 I noticed the favorites button to the left of the tabs. I get it now... keep your favorites where IE always had them... just sync them to a server! Cool. 

 While waiting on Microsoft I started using the new IE Google Toolbar (the Firefox one doesn't have the bookmarks feature yet). It has this perfect little bookmarks drop down that saves bookmarks to a server - with the typical Google tag-style method like Gmail vs. the more common folder/sub-folder structure in IE.

Anyway, that's why I didn't get the Windows Live Favorites at first. Unfortunately IE7b2 crashed on me once a day so I had to give it up... but hey, IE7, the nifty favorites button and the Live Toolbar are going to work great together - that is if the IE team doesn't force the toolbar to load a new copy into memory for EACH tab - like they force the Google Toolbar to do. Sigh....

SharePoint WebParts. SharePoint 2003 & WSSv2 can only run SharePoint 2003 WebParts, which are essentially server controls that inherit from Microsoft.SharePoint.WebParts.WebPart. If you run VS2003 & SharePoint 2003 on the samebox you can get debugging support (don't even try to do this remotely - trust me).

Windows SharePoint Services v2, sp2 (WSSsp2v2) + ASP.NET 2.0 + Son of SmartPart (SoS). With Son of SmartPart you get two SharePoint 2003 WebParts that allow you to either load an ASP.NET 2.0 UserControl (SoS-UC) or an ASP.NET 2.0 WebPart (SoS-WP).

Windows SharePoint Services v3 (beta). In the future both Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) and Windows SharePoint Services v3 (WSSv3) will run on ASP.NET 2.0 with a slightly altered ASP.NET 2.0 WebPart Framework. ASP.NET 2.0 WebParts will work in SharePoint but will be unable to communicate with each other. For part-to-part communication (known as Advanced Communication), Microsoft will require you to build a SharePoint WebPart (of the v3/MOSS kind).
* Information obtained from MOSS 2007 Developer Class given by Todd Bleeker (MindSharp) in Minneapolis, MN in July 2006.

If you are looking for a hybrid solution that will work today, and offer an easy upgrade in the future, your best choice is to configure WSSv2sp2 with ASP.NET 2.0 and Install SoS-WP. Then build an ASP.NET 2.0 WebPart.

So, since out of the box ASP.NET 2.0 WebParts do not load in WSSv2sp2 with SP2 and ASP.NET 2.0 - you will need Son of SmartPart. Here's what I've found using Son of SmartPart - WebPart (SoS-WP):

• The DWP and SoS-WP must have the TypeName set to Namespace.Class.
• The Assembly must be in the local BIN, GAC doesn't work.
• Trust must be set to full, and the assembly MUST be in the bin (This is not ideal, but I've found that no other combo works.)
• STSADM cannot be used to create the SafeControl entry (because it doesn't understand 2.0).
• In order to get Debugging to work, you have to:
  1. Run VS2005 & SharePOint on the same box
  2. Set the Project build property to start the URL in a browser
  3. Attach to the w3wp process. This combination has worked once for me, and hopefully will continue to work.

Unfortunately, WebParts (either SharePoint 2003/WSSv2, MOSS 2007/WSSv3, or ASP.NET 2.0 WebParts) do not have a design surface... because they are essentially Server Controls. In order to get a Design surface (So we can actually build a decent UI), you could use Page.LoadControl inside the WebPart (either in CreateChildControls() or RenderContents() method) - but it doesn't seem to work with UserControls that have a code-behind (inline page models work). My best guess here is that I need to publish a website* that contains the control separately (from the ASP.NET 2.0 WebPart project) and copy the ascx (with the compiled assembly name reference) to the UserControls folder, its assembly into the local bin, and then the Page.LoadControl in the WebPart should work. This seems like an incredible pain in the ass, but may be my only option. I will continue testing and report back here, so stay tuned.
* This is due to the partial-class/page-level compilation model of ASP.NET 2.0. The "Publish Web Site" option under the build menu for an ASP.NET 2.0 WebSite in VS2005.
 
In my journeys, I have been unable to get page theming to work in WSSv2sp2. As you probably know, WSSv2 was originally designed in ASP.NET 1.x (which didn't have theming/masterpages), and was only recently retrofitted with SP2 to even run ASP.NET 2.0. If anyone figures this out - PLEASE, let me know.

Thankfully many of the compromises and half-stepping that a SharePoint developer goes through today will go away with MOSS 2007. My biggest pet peeve - the lack of design support - unfortunately will not. WebParts will most likely always be based on strictly-code-based Server Controls. Yes, I know - it's a HUGE barrier to entry for the teaming masses.