SharePoint Hunter ...

Cascading dropdown in InfoPath2010

2012-01-20T09:14:00.000-08:00

Useful link
https://www.nothingbutsharepoint.com/sites/eusp/Pages/Browser-Based-InfoPath-2010---Creating-Cascading-Dropdown-Fields-with-no-Code.aspx

How to configure PDF iFilter for SharePoint Server 2010 or Search Server 2010

2011-10-10T23:34:00.000-07:00

For one of my requirement used the below url for configuring iFilter for SharePoint 2010.
Installation process
• Install iFilter
• Place Icon
• Modify registry
• Restart SP Search service

http://www.mossgurus.com/adnan/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=40

Editing Page in SharePoint Designer 2010 with Advance Mode

2011-05-30T08:12:00.000-07:00

I have tried to edit a page and got a code that was marked in yellow. In addition, the Ribbon was missing some of the tabs. I was unable to edit the code on the page.

Solution:Click on “Advance Mode” button that is located on the Ribbon.
Once you have clicked it, you’ll see the other tabs and you will be able to edit the page.

Yeshwant kanetkar articles on c# fundas

2011-04-03T11:05:00.000-07:00

Wn ever i need C# fundamentals i would prefer Yeshwant kanetkar's C# Fundas book. The following link has few articles published by Yeshwant kanetkar.

Yeshwant kanetkar C# Articles

Caching the PropertyBag in WSS3.0

2010-03-26T21:19:00.000-07:00

For one of the req i have got the chance to go through the CKS code.Here i would like to onboard the code snippet.
The below code illustrates how to use Lock(),HttpRuntime.Cache and SPproperybag etc.
public class BlogSettings
{
private readonly object _Lock = new object();
private static readonly Cache Cache = HttpRuntime.Cache;
private SPWeb _CurrentWeb;
///

/// cached WebProperties
///

private readonly SPPropertyBag _WebProperties;
///

/// always create a new BlogSettings object to be able to store WebProperties
///

///
public BlogSettings(SPWeb oWeb)
{
_CurrentWeb = oWeb;
_WebProperties = null;
}
///

/// read BlogSettings from Cache. if the cache is not available, read blogsettings and store them in the cache (with sliding expiration).
/// this BlogSettings object is read only!
///

public BlogSettings(string url)
{
string webUrl = GetWebUrl(url);
string blogSettingsCacheName = string.Format("EBE{0}", webUrl);
lock (_Lock)
{
// try to get blogsettings for this webUrl from the cache
var blogSettings = Cache[blogSettingsCacheName] as SPPropertyBag;
if (blogSettings != null)
{
Trace.WriteLine("Using cached BlogSettings (webUrl=" + webUrl + ")");
}
else
{
// read blogsettings from web
Trace.WriteLine("Reading BlogSettings and store them in the cache (webUrl=" + webUrl + ")");
using (var site = new SPSite(url))
using (var web = site.OpenWeb())
{
var bs = new BlogSettings(web);
blogSettings = web.Properties;
int cacheTimeout = bs.PageOutputCacheTimeout;
Cache.Add(blogSettingsCacheName,
blogSettings,
null,
Cache.NoAbsoluteExpiration,
TimeSpan.FromMinutes(cacheTimeout),
CacheItemPriority.Normal,
null);
}
}
_WebProperties = blogSettings;
}
}

CKS:EBE Community website based on SharePoint

2010-03-23T19:44:00.000-07:00

CKS:EBE2.0 has been availale on CodePlex.
CKS:EBE is a Feature?...Noooo...it is a huge application on WSS
The first thing to say about the CKS:EBE is that it is a feature, not a site template. Essentially this means that you can create a standard WSS blog site and use it, later you can add the EBE functionality if you want. This is very useful as it does not require you to make a decision about what type of blog you are going to use when you initially create the WSS site.
Every WSS developer should go through the code and analyze for Best practices.
It has been using for me while doing my current assignment.
This solution mainly focus the wss core things like features that contains all the pages, lists ,new columns,custom themes,storing Media files in Lists,HttpHandler and HttpModules,custom controls,braning files and lot of xsl needed for the EBE.

More Pics on Winner Legue 09 function!

2010-01-17T22:22:00.000-08:00

Winner Legue 09 function has happend on Nov09.
The actual link is
@http://naveedshare-licensetoplay.blogspot.com/2009/12/knowledge-champion-on-moss.html
I would like to add few pics on this board.

SharePoint 2010 technical videos

2010-01-14T21:39:00.000-08:00

The Channel 9 Learning Center is the destination for free technical training on MS Technologies.
Currently it has updated the portal with SharePoint2010.

Validations on InfoPath2007?

2010-01-03T05:26:00.001-08:00

I did two projects on Infopath2007 . I got the chance to work on high level info path object model and have played around one year on infopath surface.
I would like to post one of the simple screenshot which explain the validation of the form.

After reviewing related docs Supervisor group should change task status based upon errors.
In this screen shot based on Minor and Major errors(s) user should select the proper approval choice (COMPLETED, COVERWRAP, INVALIDXEMID, REJECTED, ALREADYAPPROVED, AWC, NOTSTARTED, FAILED and SUBMITTED etc).
These three controls would depend upon each other. I implemented rules to select proper options based upon severity else show error message on the form.

Variations in MOSS2007

2009-12-30T09:50:00.000-08:00

From Last few months i have been working on WCM features for one of the world class intranet portal. Especially on PageLayouts for publishing article pages,List templates,Site Definition ,Conent Types,WebParts,Social sites from NewsGator and Variations.
In this post I would like to explain how to implement multilingual on MOSS.
1. Open the Site Settings of the top-level site and click on Variation Settings.
2. On the Variation Settings page

3. In the Site Settings page, click now on Variation Labels.
A. Click New Label and create the source label.
B. Enter English as the label name.
C. Set English as the display name.
D. Set the local to English (United States)
E. Check Set this variation to be the source variation.
F. Select appropriate site template
(In the below screencast we are using custom site definition)
G. Click OK.

4. Like that we r using 10 variation Labels

Based on the profile settings and browser settings default locale page would open.User can select required language based on the user control

Knowledge Champion on MOSS?

2009-12-02T03:33:00.000-08:00

On 18th Nov Winners League'09 held in HCL,Noida.
I have selected as a SharePoint Knowledge Champion and am HCL T2ID SharePoint Trainer also.

I’m really pleased to get the award, as it’s nice to be recognized by HCL T2ID for what I’ve done. I find it useful (to me anyway!) to have a bit of reflection on what I’ve been up to for the last year.

Importance of PortalSiteMapProvider in WCM?

2009-11-20T05:26:00.000-08:00

PortalSiteMapProvider provides a nice automatic caching infrastructure for retrieving list data. The class includes a method called GetCachedListItemsByQuery that was used in this test. This method first retrieves data from a list based on an SPQuery object that is provided as a parameter to the method call. The method then looks in its cache to see if the items already exist. If they do, the method returns the cached results, and if not, it queries the list, stores the results in cache and returns them from the method call.
SPQuery strQuery = new SPQuery();
strQuery.RowLimit = 1;
//Retrieve the items for the specified Target location from the Target list
strQuery.Query = "CAML query...";
PortalSiteMapProvider ps = PortalSiteMapProvider.WebSiteMapProvider;
PortalWebSiteMapNode pNode = ps.FindSiteMapNode(web.ServerRelativeUrl) as PortalWebSiteMapNode;
SiteMapNodeCollection pItems = new SiteMapNodeCollection();
pItems = ps.GetCachedListItemsByQuery(pNode, "targetListName", strQuery, web);
//Check if there are items for the specified target location
if (pItems.Count != 0)
{
try
{
//Retrieve the most recently created item for the specified Target location from the list
foreach (PortalListItemSiteMapNode pItem in pItems)
{//TODO}
catch (Exception ex)
{}
}

How to install Visual Studio 2010?

2009-11-09T19:59:00.000-08:00

If you are a MSDN subscriber, you can download Visual Studio 2010 from here.
If you want to know how to download and install Visual Studio 2010 watch Channel9 video.
To get you started, head over to MSDN and read some of the walkthroughs on SharePoint Development in Visual Studio 2010.

How to Display SAP Preferred Welcome Name?

2009-11-03T05:42:00.000-08:00

I got the requirement that based on preferred name the welcome name should come.
Go to Shared Services Administration: SSP1 > User Profile and Properties > View User Profiles
Modify ur preferred name as per screenshot

Refer How to modify profile properites
Go to My site click on details link and modify ur name filed with ur prefer name.

Run the below cmd

After the sync has been performed the User Info table will be updated with the values from the My Profile details.

The site collection could not be restored!!!

2009-10-30T05:31:00.000-07:00

I have been doing base line of my application in my VM.I have two site collection in my web application. Each has its own database…
I got the following error while doing restore site collection.

Resolution:
Delete the corresponding DB ,next recreate new DB for your site collection and try to restore again.
It should work

Creating Custom Page Layouts notes?

2009-10-22T21:19:00.000-07:00

Overview of Page Layouts?
Combined with master page to define the rendering of a content page
􀂃 Obtains master page from SPWeb.CustomMasterUrl
• Hosts field controls and Web Part zones
• Complies to the Page Layout content type
• Has an associated content type
􀂃 Dictates which content type the page layout is used for rendering
• Can bind multiple page layouts to content type
• Associated with exactly one content type
Page layouts live within the Master Page Gallery
􀂃 http://servername/_catalogs/masterpage
􀂃 Exists only in the top-level site within a site collection
• Upon site provisioning, page layout added to Master Page Gallery as GhostableInLibrary
􀂃 While living in the Master Page Gallery as uncustomized the page layout on the file system is used
Site Columns & Content Types In Publishing Sites
Site columns & content types play a key role in Publishing sites
• Both are used to define schema for content pages
• Content types must inherit from the Page content type (which inherits from System Page)
􀂃 Go to the following location for basic information
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\FEATURES\PublishingResources\PublishingContentTypes.xml
􀂃 The article page layout with the following content type

• Page layouts must be associated with content types
Why site Column?
Reusable column template for use within lists and content types
• Specify:
􀂃 Name & description
􀂃 Data type
􀂃 Site column group
• Scoped at the site level
􀂃 Available to child sites
• Adding to a list / content type creates a copy.
Create / manage many ways:
􀂃 Browser-based user interface
􀂃 SharePoint object model
􀂃 Feature XML
• Features & object model provide most control
􀂃 Easy to version in virtually all source control systems
􀂃 Highest level of reuse
Creating Site Columns with Features

Wt is the Content Types?
Enable storage of different types of content in
same list or library
• Specify:
􀂃 Name & description
􀂃 Site columns, workflows, event receivers, policies, etc.
􀂃 Content type group
• Scoped at the site level
􀂃 Available to child sites
• Adding to a list creates a copy
Create / manage many ways:
􀂃 Browser-based user interface
􀂃 SharePoint object model
􀂃 Feature XML
Creating Content Types with Features

Activate our feature..

After activation site columns and content types would appear like the below.

How to create a page layout using SPD2007?

Now you need to add some structure to this page. Cheat a bit by copying the contents of the ArticleLeft.aspx page layout and paste them into CusomPageLayout.aspx.
Drag and drop our site columns in a structured maner.Here I just drag n droping….

Wt are the difference b/w Field controls and WebParts?

I will try to explain how to deploy page layout through studio in future posts.
Thanks my WCM guru and Ian for giving support.

Error: The path specified cannot be used at this time. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070094)

2009-10-21T08:03:00.000-07:00

While creating a web application on MOSS2007 environment i have been getting this error.
I didn't find out any errors related to this in Logs file.
Finally i did two steps
1)Restart the SharePoint Timer Services
2)IIS RESET.
Still i am getting this error...
Finally restart the server...
I know the last one is actually ridiculous but it helped.(My box RAM is 1GB,2 users are using this through remotely and N/W IP is slow and etc)
Trust me it should work!!

How to get value from resource file and set into a control in a ASPX page?

2009-10-07T09:32:00.000-07:00

I have been struggling from past 2 days to fix this issue.
Luckly I got information from
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\TEMPLATE\ADMIN\CMSIncrementalMigration.aspx at 64 line.

<
It should work.Tx WSS Team...

Building Multilingual Solutions by Using SharePoint Products and Technologies

2009-09-13T00:29:00.000-07:00

Hot to use Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007 in scenarios where content is managed across different languages. It details most of the functionality provided by Office SharePoint Server 2007 and suggests how to use it to manage multilingual scenarios. It also provides examples for creating custom Web Parts by using Microsoft Visual Studio® 2005 and how to configure and manage them by using Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007, the next generation of Web designer tools specifically designed for SharePoint sites. Microsoft Windows® SharePoint Services 3.0 features and functionality, and how they add value to the end-user experience, are also described.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262942.aspx

Some of the key areas should know as a MOSS admin

2009-09-01T03:37:00.000-07:00

I am giving some of the key points about the daily activities of a MOSS dev.
Reusing Sites
•Save site as template
•Works for all sites except publishing sites
•Default template limit 10 MB
▫Change via command line
▫Change to max of 500 MB
Stsadm.exe –o setproperty–pnmax-template-document-size –pv524288000
•Does not save security

Site Templates Usage
•Save Site as template
•Saved to Site Template Gallery
▫1 per Site Collection
Use Template Globally
•Deploy via command line
•Add Template
Stsadm–o addttemplate–filename YourFile.stp –title YourTitle–description YourDesc
•Delete Template
Stsadm–o deletetemplate–title YourTitle
•List Templates
Stsadm–o enumtemplates
•After running Add/Delete IISResetrequired
List Templates
•No option for deploying globally
Feature deactivation
▫Removes functionality
▫Does not remove data created by feature
Setting trust level
•Options
▫WSS_Minimal(default)
▫WSS_Medium
▫Full (built in .NET Policy)
Code Access Security in SharePoint 2007 for Administrators
SharePoint Web Parts run with a Trust Level which is set in the Web.Config file for the entire Web Application allowing not just one Web Part, but all Web Parts to run with that trust.
The default trust level that the Web Application runs with is WSS_Minimal. Developers will normally request that this is set to WSS_Medium or Full which are the only other configurations possible unless the developer creates a custom configuration file.
Code Access Security – The Architecture
In the Web.Config file for the web application you will see two Trust Level Elements in the Security Policy Element pointing to the two configuration files stored in 12\CONFIG (localdrive:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\12).
Each configuration file configures a number of classes by setting its properties. The classes are illustrated below.

The default Trust is WSS_Minimal which allows most code to run but would block your code from accessing SQL, The SharePoint Object Model, Environment Variables such as Machine Name and DNS etc. To allow these permission you would need to up the trust level to WSS_Medium, Full or to a Custom Policy. However, increasing the Trust Level for the Web Application would allow all Web Parts within that Web Application to run with more permissions. Best practice would be to create a custom policy and listing your web part in the file to run with the permissions it needs.
To create a new set of permissions you need to create a new file such as Custom_WSS_Medium.config and then make SharePoint aware of the file by pointing to it in the Web.Config for the Web Application. You can merge the settings in WSS_Minimal and WSS_Medium in your new Custom File to create your own permission set. It is advised not to change the original files as Microsoft may alter these files during the application of a Service Pack.

Each custom Web Part should be Strongly Named by the Developer which provides the DLL file for the Web Part with a Public Key. You can extract the Public Key using the SN tool provided by Visual Studio.NET: sn –Tp filename.dll
This will return the Public Key BLOB and the Public Key Token for the dll. Normally this would be a developer role as it requires Visual Studio.NET.

The Public Key Token is used in the Safe Controls entry in the Web.Config for the Web Part (Assembly) to register it as a Safe Control within the Web Application. The Public Key can also be used in the custom Trust Level Configuration File to give one particular Web Part or a group of Web Parts Full Trust whilst still leaving the Trust Level set to a minimal set of permissions.
To list a Web Part with Full Permissions within your Web Application whilst still retaining a WSS_Minimal permission set for all other Web Parts follow these steps:
1. Make a copy of the WSS_Minimal.Config file from the 12\Config folder and paste it into the same folder renaming it to Custom_WSS_Minimal.Config.
2. Edit the Custom_WSS_Minimal.Config file with an XML editor such as Visual Studio.NET or NotePad.
3. Obtain the Public Key Token and Public Key Blob for the Web Part assembly that you want to deploy using the following command: sn –Tp filename.dll.
4. Create a new entry in your Custom_WSS_Minimal.Config file for your Web Part:
class="UnionCodeGroup"
version="1"
PermissionSetName="FullTrust"
Name="My custom Strong name"
Description="This code group grants code signed with the “My Custom
Strong Name” strong name full trust.">
PublicKeyBlob="00240000048000009400000006020000002400005253413100040000010001009BC5B83BBD16C6ABB44BAB156CF9C55D1D67078CE98CE7B423C72EE91647BD73241BFC700192ED32481CA7CF06C205BD4C7BEDA3D4FA5ED5689AA23BC1C2118EBFA6018238AD5B4DA420FB335E6BECA9EDE5E3F53C4BFFF266411445AE7B1DDD14FB0F01C075589770EABD4B1D1A70F731C098F22EDE9838CC9783C73451B5"/>

5. Create a new TrustLevel element for your config file in the Web.Config called Custom_WSS_Minimal that points to your custom file in the 12\config folder.
6. Set the Trust Level of the Web.Config to Custom_WSS_Minimal
7. Recycle the Application Pool or run IISReset
8. Deploy & Test your Web Part.

Installation of Sharepoint2010

2009-07-29T22:59:00.001-07:00

Today i installed new version of Sharepoint in my testing box.
I am trying to get the new architectural changes in 2010.

SharePoint 2010 SneakPeek!

2009-07-15T06:49:00.000-07:00

Now SharePoint 2010 Era has Began!
SharePoint 2010 Products and Technologies developer documentation dropped and is available for download here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=94afe886-3b20-4bc9-9a0d-acd8cd232c24
SharePoint 2010 sneak peaks are now available here:
http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/2010/Sneak_Peek/Pages/default.aspx

How to enable including content checkbox in Issue Tracking template?

2009-06-18T00:13:00.000-07:00

I created a issue tracker list called Krishna

I am able to click “Include Content ” check box .
Now I am going to create a list with “Naveed” list template.

Solution:
Go to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\FEATURES\IssuesList\ListTemplates\Issues.xml
Replace DontSaveInTemplate="TRUE" like the below and do iisreset.

Have a nice day...

How to resolve "Report Server has encountered a SharePoint error. (rsSharePointError)"

2009-06-12T03:55:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately i have faced this error while integrating SSRS2005 with MOSS2007.
I googling a lot n finally i configured all the options once againg through RSCongfiguration Manager.

I have the issue with email settings.

U need to configure email setting properly.Other wise u would get the following error.

"An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host at System.Net.Sockets.Socket.Receive(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size, SocketFlags socketFlags) at System.Net.Sockets.NetworkStream.Read(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size) "

Once u did every thing properly u should Subscription through email.

Creating the SharePoint Silverlight Slideshow

2009-05-12T22:42:00.000-07:00

I have the requirement like provide the training for new joinees in our organization.After finishing the slides the user need to attend the test.Bcz due to Microsoft network access permission associate should finished 3 exams.
For this requirement i suggest to choose the following ways.
The following link is outofbox feature by WSS3.0.

The following has developed using Silverlight.

For more details use the following link
http://www.wssdemo.com/Blog/archive/2009/01/10/Creating-the-SharePoint-Silverlight-Slideshow.aspx

Patterns and Practices -> SharePoint Guidance

2009-05-07T03:49:00.000-07:00

A well documented guidance around SharePoint Products and Technologies.
You can read more on the guidance here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd203468.aspx
This guidance discusses the following:
-Architectural decisions about patterns, feature factoring, and packaging.
-Design tradeoffs for common decisions many developers encounter, such as when to use SharePoint lists or a database to store information.
-Implementation examples that are demonstrated in the Training Management application and in the QuickStarts.
-How to design for testability, create unit tests, and run continuous integration.
-How to set up different environments including the development, build, test, staging, and production environments.
-How to manage the application life cycle through development, test, deployment, and upgrading.
-Team-based intranet application development.

How to write Custom Audit Entries in WSS3.0?

2009-04-30T09:04:00.000-07:00

Last year i attend Ted's training on WSS3.0. He given all Lab and whitepapers which are published by him.I am reading one by one.
One article on Audit logging is awasome.
I would like to post the summary of the article.
Audit logs detailing events that track data such as which users viewed and updated records and documents, and when these events occurred.
Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS 3.0) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) provide support for auditing user access to pages, content, and documents, and includes auditable events such as viewing and updating.
While WSS provides the basic auditing mechanisms, MOSS adds value by supplying an administrative user interface that allows auditing at the site collection level. MOSS goes even further and enables auditing at the list or document library level, and control over what types of events should be recorded in the audit log. MOSS also provides a reporting function that uses Microsoft® Office Excel® workbooks to display and keep records of audit logs. Therefore, MOSS allows you to take advantage of the WSS auditing support without having to write any custom code.
// turn on auditing flags to a list
SPSite siteCollection = new SPSite("http://LitwareServer1");
SPWeb site = siteCollection.OpenWeb();
SPList list = site.Lists["Proposals"];
list.Audit.AuditFlags = SPAuditMaskType.View
SPAuditMaskType.Update
SPAuditMaskType.Delete;
list.Audit.Update();
The code is written to read the audit log of the current site collection by creating an SPAuditQuery object.
SPAuditQuery wssQuery = new SPAuditQuery(siteColl);
SPAuditEntryCollection auditCol = siteColl.Audit.GetEntries(wssQuery);
As you examine the implementation of the code that reads information from the WSS audit log, observe how it retrieves user names. The WSS audit log tracks user IDs but not user names. After you have obtained a user ID, you can retrieve the associated user name using the GetByID method on the SiteUser collection, which is exposed as a property of the top-level site. Make sure you use the SiteUsers collection; do not confuse this with the User collection, which does not provide the same results.
string GetUserNameById(int UserId, SPWeb site) {
return site.SiteUsers.GetByID(UserId).Name;
//return site.Users.GetByID(UserId).Name; - YOU CANNOT USE SPWeb.Users collection here

}
Writing custom audit entry
item.Audit.WriteAuditEvent(SPAuditEventType.Custom, "CustomViewAuditEvent", "");

How to create your own custom STSADM Command?

2009-04-24T03:36:00.000-07:00

I have the requirement like to extend STSADM command.
My ECM guru has posted excellent piece about this topic.
There are two steps:
1) Implement the ISPStsadmCommand interface
2) Create an XML file in the 12\CONFIG folder that describes your commands
ISPStsadmCommand interface consists following 2 methods .

The full story was written by Holiday

WITH (NOLOCK) directive in SQL

2009-04-23T00:15:00.000-07:00

I am poor at DataBase level. luckly i have a requirement to work on SSRS2005. I used to see the existing reports , queries n i found new directive called WITH(NOLOCK) .
I had discussed with my RM n has cleared my doubts and explained senario(s) n Tips.
I would like to explain the summary .
"Same kind of reports r accessing multiple users in the bussiness hours.If i lock the records while retiving reports the remaining users should wait untill the task completion.Insted of that we r prefering WITH(NOLOCK) directive before a table in a query"
The following link is very useful for me.
http://blogs.neudesic.com/blogs/phil_scott/archive/2005/12/05/11.aspx

CAML.NET IntelliSense for SharePoint

2009-04-22T00:15:00.000-07:00

As a MOSS Hunter i know the CAML very well. But still i have been facing littile bit trouble on CAML usage.
But last week i have attended ECM training from Tedpattison. John has Announced the CAML.NET IntelliSense project.
Using this installation in our box our daily task will be easy.

SharePoint Designer 2007 - It's FREE!

2009-04-21T22:29:00.000-07:00

In case you haven't heard, Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 is now available as a FREE download.
Check it out from Asif.

Longitude for sharepoint

2009-04-21T00:32:00.000-07:00

My best friend Sanjay has been working on Longitude. I go through his blog and find some cool stuff on MOSS Development.

How to increase the bandwidth of the Web-enabled forms?

2009-04-14T04:03:00.000-07:00

Ans: Set Form Session State to Form view
Goto Central Administration > Application Management > Configure InfoPath Forms Services at the bottom sharepoint given the follwoing option

How to ensure the data from web services is accessible into InfoPath 2007 Browser Forms

2009-04-14T03:41:00.000-07:00

I am searching that how to enable the web service proxy for user forms. I got the idea once i red the following post.
http://blogs.msdn.com/infopath/archive/2006/10/02/Data-Connections-in-Browser-Forms.aspx

How to migrate of a MCMS 2002 to our MOSS 2007 environment?

2009-04-14T02:55:00.000-07:00

As per my MCTS prepartion for Configuration i go through some of migration tool.
We need to migration tasks that need to be completed. For this purpose in CodePlex some tools r avilable. And one fine article on MSDN. Go through the following link.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa480227.aspx

How to deploy SSRS report into MOSS environment?

2009-04-10T00:10:00.000-07:00

I got the chance to work on SSRS.I developed Emp Details Page Template and Leave Tracking details for one of my stakeholder. The data is storing in a Data Base Table. Using these data I am going to generate various reports. So as per my first attempt I did one sample report and I would like to explain how to deploy into Sharepoint environment.

Once i deploy the report it has show like the following shot.

Random Question using Survay's in WSS3.0?

2009-04-09T22:49:00.000-07:00

For my Quiz application my requirement is getting random question from a survay list in WSS3.O. I google lot and met few MVPs. But i didn't get a +ve reply.I would like to give one of the MVP Mr SS.Ahmed's reply.

RenderPattern Element in WSS3.0

2009-04-09T22:15:00.000-07:00

My Stakeholder has one of the tricky requirement on DisplayPattern .
I created a Quiz application . In that I have been tracking the results in a list. The list contains the following datails.
1) Who attend the exam.
2) Wt is percentage he/she got.
3) Wt time.
4) Result.
The issue is once the user got failed the value should be in red color.

I dig a lot and i found one sample from Ted Pattison's code. I am giving a sample which i did in my previous app. But that is a custom field.

WCM Training

2009-04-02T22:27:00.000-07:00

I got the chance to attend WCM Traning from Andrew Connell.This was Awesome.I learned lot from this cource.

Understanding Field Controls and Web Parts in SharePoint Server 2007 Publishing Sites

2009-04-02T22:10:00.000-07:00

I red a new article which was Published by Andrew Connell
I prepared a small notes on this article....
The CEWP doesn't store version history, it doesn't participate in any publishing approval workflow and it does store absolute URLs rather than relative URLs. Even if you enter a relative URL into the editor, it will be converted to an absolute URL. The rich text editor that the Publishing HTML field type is tied to does not convert relative URLs to absolute URLs.
What are the differences between Web Parts & Field Controls and when to use them?
Field controls differ from Web Parts in two fundamental ways: who has control over the layout and structure of the page, who has control over the content on the page, and where the content is stored.
Web Parts
Beginning with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Office SharePoint Server 2007, the ASP.NET 2.0 Web Part framework manages all of this on behalf of Windows SharePoint Services. This means that Windows SharePoint Services no longer controls which Web Parts are on the page or their locations on the page, and does not manage the content stored in the Web Parts. The content and configuration data for Web Parts, known as personalization data, is stored in the ASP.NET 2.0 personalization data store. In Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 sites, this personalization data store is kept in the SharePoint content database.
It is important to understand how Web Parts work within ASP.NET 2.0 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 sites. When a Web Part is added to a page in a SharePoint site, ASP.NET 2.0 inserts a block of XML into the Web Part zone that notifies ASP.NET 2.0 about which Web Part to load and what data to assign to all of the Web Part's public properties. When the page is requested, the ASP.NET 2.0 Web Part framework examines this XML to find the Web Part to load (by assembly and class), loads the control, and sets the values of all the public properties. Finally, the page rendering process renders the Web Part.
This XML data is stored in the ASP.NET 2.0 personalization data store—not with the page itself. This means the personalization data is tied to the page's URL and user context, not to the page or version of the current page (as in a SharePoint Server publishing site).
The advantage to using Web Parts for content is that you can personalize the content on a user-by-user basis if the publishing site has a way to uniquely identify users, such as by requiring a logon.
Field Controls
A field control pulls data (in display mode) from a particular column in a list item and writes back to that column in edit mode. Pages in a Publishing site are stored as items in a list; the Pages list. Because they are in a list, they can leverage all the benefits a list has to provide, but visioning & history is the most important here. When a developer places a field control on a page layout, they have the ultimate control of where it is placed on the page.
Field controls provide developers and designers a higher level of control over content pages than Web Parts do. Content owners can only add and manage content within field controls. They cannot move field controls on the page or override the settings set by developers.
What is the significance?
• Consistent lookand feel (A corporate brand)
• Structured organization of contentand a versioned and/or historical record of the content.
If structure and history is important on your site, you should ONLY consider field controls for your content. If you want to have a more relaxed authoring environment where structure & history isn't important, Web Parts are better.
To summarize: the content in Web Parts is not versioned and there is no history, but the content in field controls is versioned & a history is retained
And My Guru explained how to add Safecontrol entries into Web.config file ….

Renaming a SharePoint 2007 server

2009-03-26T05:25:00.000-07:00

Hi today i configured my MOSS Server with 4GB RAM.But unfortunately i found the mistake that the formate of my system name.I have expected prob may occure.I renamed my system name.... Fuck....

Now i am unable to acess my CA site.

My face is blank.....

After Googling i found one wonderful aricle.

http://blog.sqlauthority.com/2008/09/09/sql-server-error-fix-sharepoint-stop-working-after-changing-server-computer-name/

Finally got it.
Tx Pinalkumar

Info Path Interview Questions

2009-03-24T23:09:00.000-07:00

Some Info Path Interview Questions writen By Wong-A-Ton
She is InfoPath MVP.
http://www.bizsupportonline.net/infopath2007/infopath-2007-frequently-asked-questions-faq.htm

How to Create a quiz application using Survey template in SharePoint 2007?

2009-03-20T10:12:00.000-07:00

Using "Survey" list template, I recently created a quizzing application. In my application I have a list with Question s, choices and answers. Using some object model I was able to make use of the SharePoint survey list template to organize a quiz within our organization.
I inherit some of the functionality from the following link. Sridhar has gave a start up idea for my requirement.
http://blogs.msdn.com/sridhara/archive/2008/12/15/howto-create-a-quizzing-application-with-sharepoint-2007.aspx
Using his tool I am able to create a Demo Exam to attend the employee. I am imitating the permissions to the lists from Sridhar.
Well, in the code, the Read/Write Securities for the survey list are set to 2, which means "Users have Read access only to items that they create" and "Write only my items" respectively. However, once a user answers all questions and submits the quiz, he/she can ‘t attend the test again.
Here the results are declare immediately.
The results are storing in a separate list . In that I am maintaining Employee Name, Date of attempt, Score. For this I am using ItemAdded Event handler.
I am creating a feature for this.

How to add People picker control into Sharepoint Page Template?

2009-03-17T06:11:00.000-07:00

I have a requirement that add a people picker control into on page template.Why means my input values will be store in DB Custom Table.Once get all details i can get reports using SSRS.

For adding People picker control u have to register the following dlls in my aspx page template.

How to check the authorization to load a page ?

2009-03-09T00:29:00.000-07:00

I achived to check the authrization of user follwoing way.

public static bool IsUserExistsInGroup(string aGroupName, SPWeb aWeb, string aUserName)
{
SPGroup userGroup;
SPUser user;
bool userExists = false;
try
{
userGroup = aWeb.Site.RootWeb.SiteGroups[aGroupName];
try
{
user = userGroup.Users[aUserName];

if (user != null)
{
userExists = true;
}
}
catch
{

}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
throw ex;
}
return userExists;
}

How to develope Page Templates in MOSS?

2009-03-08T23:41:00.000-07:00

I got the chance to work on few Page Template like EmployeeEntryForm.aspx,CertifaicationDetails.aspx etc.I would like to attach a sample screenshot.

I am ataching a screen shot How to attach .cs with my aspx page.

How ASP.NET drop down controls Filter the Data View in SharePoint Designer?

2009-01-28T04:42:00.000-08:00

To begin, create two lists in the browser: Categories with a field of CategoryName and Products with a field of CategoryName as well (I use a Lookup field type for simplicity, but it doesn't have to be - this code does a simple string compare). Then fill out the lists so you have more than one item in each.

This tip also assumes you already know how to open your Site in SPD and you have created a new page. I realize it is a lot of steps, but I believe they are pretty straight forward as you perform them...

Place your page into design view
Click Task panes :: Data Source Library
Click the data source called Categories
Click to Insert Data Source Control
If prompted, click “Yes” to display the control
Place insertion point below this control
Click Insert :: ASP.NET Controls > Drop Down List
Click the Smart Panel :: Choose Data Source...
Choose the Data Source (for example, SPListDataSource1)
Tell it to display "CategoryName" (or the field that contains your category name)
Make its value "CategoryName"
Click OK
Click to select the dropdownlist control
Click the Smart Panel :: AutoPostBack == True

For getting a default value like "Please select a item..." ?
1. Select the control
2. click on Task Panes > Tag Properties
3. change the AppendDataBoundItem to be True
4. Click the Smart Panel > Edit Items
5. click "Add"
6. type "Please select a item..." for the Text property
7. Click "OK"

Drag and drop the Products list onto a page to create a Data View
Clck the Smart Panel :: Edit Columns to add and remove the columns you want to display
Click Data View :: Filter
Create the following filter:
Field: CategoryName (or the field that contains your category name)
Comparison: Equals
Value: [Create a new Parameter]
Param Name: Param1
Source: Control
Control ID: DropDownList1
Default: Beverages
Click OK
Click OK again
Save the page
Preview in the browser
Make a change to the DropDownList control

How to add a new choice field using WSS Object Model?

2009-01-26T21:42:00.000-08:00

SPList list = site.Lists["Demo"];
StringCollection choices = new StringCollection();
choices.Add("AP");
choices.Add("MP");
choices.Add("HP");
list.Fields.Add("State", SPFieldType.Choice, false, false, choices);
SPFieldChoice fldChoice = (SPFieldChoice)list.Fields["State"];
fldChoice.EditFormat = SPChoiceFormatType.Dropdown;
fldChoice.Update();
list.Update();

Determine the accounts you will need to install and configure MOSS 2007 Enterprise Edition?

2008-12-22T04:01:00.000-08:00

Below you will find the list of accounts you will need and a suggested account name followed by a brief explanation of anything special about this account. You will be creating the accounts in AD.
1) Setup Account – SP_Admin – This is the account that you will log into the MOSS server to do the install and when you wish to administer the server. This account will need to be a local administrator on the MOSS server and be given the securityadmin and dbcreator roles from within SQL Server.

2) Farm Account – SP_Farm – This is the account that your farm will connect to the SQL Server as. It should only be a domain user. When you tell MOSS to use this account it will automatically set the account up as a dbcreator, securityadmin, and db_owner for all SharePoint databases.

3) WSS Search Service – SP_WSSSearch – This account is a domain user. SharePoint will automatically assign it read access to the configuration database and the content database for central administration.

4) WSS Search Crawl – SP_WSSCrawl – This account is a domain user. SharePoint will automatically grant this account Full read to the farm.

5) MOSS Search – SP_MossSearch – This account is a domain user. SharePoint will grant access to read the configuration database and read access to all content databases hosted in the farm. This will become you default content access account for crawling.

6) SSP App Pool – SP_SSPAppPool – This account is a domain user. SharePoint automatically gives this account db_owner for the SSP content database, read & write to all content databases associated with its SSP, read access to the configuration database, and read access to the central administration database.

7) SSP Service – SP_SSPService – This account is a domain user. Same permissions as the SSP App Pool

8) MY App Pool – SP_MyAppPool – This account is a domain user. This account will be used as the identity for the My Sites application pool. It will be granted db_owner to that content database, read access to the config and central administration databases, and read access to the associated SSP database.

9) Portal App Pool – SP_PortalAppPool – This account is a domain user. This account will be used as the identity for the portal application pool in the Module 3 lab. It will be granted db_owner to that content database, read access to the config and central administration databases, and read access to the associated SSP database.

Web Part Maintenance Page

2008-10-09T23:42:00.000-07:00

In some cases we need some way to close the offending web parts.In that case we go to the Web Part Maintenance Page.
For the Web Part Maintenance Page is to append "?contents=1" to the end of your web part page's URL and loading that page.
For example:
/sites/foo.aspx
/sites/foo.aspx?contents=1.

How to add Audience Targeting to a link at QuickLaunchBar?

2008-10-06T19:28:00.000-07:00

I strugle a lot for setting a group to a link.So that the group users only can see the link at quicklaunchbar.
I would like to share a few lines...
if (userGroup == "Publisher")
{
node.Properties.Add("Audience", ";;;;" + groupName1);
node.Update();
}
else if (userGroup == "Certifier")
{
node.Properties.Add("Audience", ";;;;" + groupName2);
node.Update();
}

Sharepoint Interview questions

2008-10-06T19:06:00.000-07:00

1-Question: can you create page layout templates in Visual Studio?Answer: Yes, but longer answer in the Page Layout module
2-Question: When using SharePoint designer for Page Layout Templates can you add code behind or reference an ascx file with a dll?Answer: You can... unfortunately it's not wired together as easily as you have when bulding ASPX pages in Visual Studio 2005. So what you do is create a class library and then specify which class the page inherits from in the Inherits attribute within the page's directive.
3-Question: Can we get the code for the "Minimal "publishing site template?Answer: Sure... just change the WSP file extension to CAB and you can easily extract it and see the contents. WSP's are just CAB files renamed as WSP's.
4-Question: I missed the extra step you did in extending the existing web app? did you just change the port?
5-Question: So the customized pages need to be placed under MPG(Master page gallary) & is ASP.Net master page same as MOSS master page?Answer: (1) If they are created using SPD, all masters and page layouts must be in the MPG... they can't be anywhere else. Once you open them and edit them, when you save them, they stay in the MPG as customised. (2) yes, you just have to have the sharepoint placeholder controls in your master page.
6-Question: is it possible to customize TOC for Press Releases by showing first couple of lines per press release?Answer: Yes... you'd just use the same technique you use for the Content Query Web Part by modifing the XSLT files or creating your own custom XSLT.
7-Question: I use createchildcontrols but find that sometimes it does not have values on post back so I have had to use oninitAnswer: At times you do need to add things to OnInit to register event handlers and such, yes that's correct.
8-Question: 1- How do you debug webparts? 2 - Is it performance consuming to have 3 content query webpart on a page (for the welcome page for an internet site)?Answer: (1) you manually attach the debugger to the w3wp.exe process...
9-Question: What are the best scenarios to use 1)Web Parts, User Controls, Application Pages please compare and contrast.Answer: Web Parts are good as "little applications", such as aggregation controls. In SharePoint we typically don't build many user controls, but you can do it. However, there's nothing special about SharePoint in deciding when to build user controls vs. Web Parts... it's the same decision process you'd have in an ASP.NET 2.0 site. As for application pages (which are deployed to the _layouts directory), these are good for pages you want to be avaialble to ALL sites in your farm as all sites share the same _layouts path.
10-Question: If I have an asp/net application (ie. showing mortgage rates), how do I install this in MOSS? Do I use WebParts or is there another technique?
11-Question: How can we better link lists together, we have primary keys in DBMS.. what about SharePoint lists/DocLibs?Answer: there's no relationship between sharepoint lists... but you can enforce this with event receivers.
12-Question: Is it possible to use infopath and aspx pages in the same workflow?Answer: Hmm... If you can use InfoPath forms, then you should beacuse they do so much heavy lifting for you!
13-Question: How can we deal with cases in which the approver did not respond in a timely manner?Answer: There are activities in the base activity library in WF that you can use to wake up your activity after a specified time... within this activity you can check how long it's been pending and either give them a reminder slap via email or you can change the approver and reroute it. But you'd have to this using custom workflows.

Break the permissions inheritance of a site

2008-08-29T09:15:00.000-07:00

This code allows you to break the permissions inheritance of a site

string siteGroupNamePublisher = "SampleReadOnly";
string desc = "A group to manage read only user for root site";
siteCol = (SPSite)properties.Feature.Parent;
site = siteCol.RootWeb;
try {
SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(delegate() {
//Start--Creating SampleGroup which has read permissions n Break Inheritense
logFile.WriteInfo(CLASS, "FeatureActivated", "Creating SampleGroup which has read permissions n Break Inheritence", debugInfo);
SPGroup secGroup1;
SPRoleAssignment roleAssignment1;
SPRoleDefinition roleDefinition1;
site.SiteGroups.Add(siteGroupNamePublisher, site.CurrentUser, site.CurrentUser, desc);
secGroup1 = site.SiteGroups[siteGroupNamePublisher];
roleAssignment1 = new SPRoleAssignment(secGroup1);
roleDefinition1 = site.RoleDefinitions["Read"]; roleAssignment1.RoleDefinitionBindings.Add(roleDefinition1); site.RoleAssignments.Add(roleAssignment1);
//End--Creating SampleGroup which has read permissions n Break Inheritense
});

Update() Vs SystemUpdate()

2008-08-29T09:03:00.000-07:00

Many of you might noticed that share point ListItem has Update() method as well as SystemUpdate().
What is the difference between these two methods and why MOSS has two different APIs for updating an ListItem ?
ListItem.Update() will....
Creates new version automatically for each and every update
Updates the Modifer field details with SystemAccount
ListItem.SystemUpdate()
Don't create new version for updates
Updates the Modifer field details with the user details who updates the ListItem

sharepoint e-books.

2008-07-08T02:42:00.000-07:00

Beginners
Beginning.SharePoint.2007.Building.Team.Solutions.with.MOSS.2007.Jun.2007
This book is very good for beginners, One who wants to start of with sharepoint can go ahead and read this book.
Download this book
Lets move on with Professional Development
The book that really of interest and provides a deep into WSS 3.0 is
Microsoft.Press.Inside.Microsoft.Windows.SharePoint.Services.3.0.Apr.2007
To know tits and bits of how wss works from inside, i suggest you to read this bookAfter all, its from Microsoft Press :)
Download this book

How to set access permission to a Sharepoint List

2008-07-02T07:56:00.000-07:00

My list called "WorkFlowTempDocLib" has Read permission for group called
siteGroupNamePublisher="Publisher";

SPList yourList = site.Lists["WorkFlowTempDocLib"];
SPGroup secGroupCertifier = site.SiteGroups[siteGroupNameCertifier];
yourList.BreakRoleInheritance(true);
SPRoleAssignment roleAssignment3 = new SPRoleAssignment(secGroupCertifier);
SPRoleDefinition roleDefinition3 = site.RoleDefinitions.GetByType(SPRoleType.Contributor);
roleAssignment3.RoleDefinitionBindings.Add(roleDefinition3);
yourList.RoleAssignments.Add(roleAssignment3);
yourList.Update();

Adding Links to QuickLaunchBar....

2008-07-01T00:29:00.000-07:00

Sample Lists.xml

public override void FeatureActivated(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties)
{
//Begin--Adding a Link to QuickLaunchBar....
ABCConfig config = new ABCConfig();
SPWeb site = (SPWeb)properties.Feature.Parent;
SPWeb rootsite = site.Site.RootWeb;
SPNavigationNodeCollection navColl = site.Navigation.QuickLaunch;
SPNavigationNode navNode = new SPNavigationNode("Submissions", "");
navColl.AddAsFirst(navNode);

//Read name and urls from the xml file
XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();

string ListOperationXMLPath = config.GetConfigValue(rootsite, "ABCLinks");
doc.Load(ListOperationXMLPath);
XmlNodeList lists = doc.GetElementsByTagName("Link");
foreach (XmlNode node1 in lists)
{
XmlElement fieldElement = (XmlElement)node1;
string FieldNameTitle = "";
string xmlUrl = "";
string siteUrl = "";
if (fieldElement.HasAttributes)
{
FieldNameTitle = fieldElement.Attributes["Title"].InnerText;
xmlUrl = fieldElement.Attributes["Url"].InnerText;
siteUrl = "/" + site.Title + "/"+xmlUrl;
SPNavigationNode node = new SPNavigationNode(FieldNameTitle, siteUrl);
foreach (SPNavigationNode nodes in site.Navigation.QuickLaunch)
{
if (nodes.Title.Equals("Submissions", StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase))
{
nodes.Children.AddAsLast(node);
break;
}
}
}
}

How to Creating a Custom Site Definition in Sharepoint

2008-06-10T00:09:00.000-07:00

Site Definition project is a class library project.

All components that you want to be automatically provisioned within sites created from the site definition should be referenced from this ONET.xml file. The base structure of the ONET site definition schema is shown below.

NavBars
If you’d like to simply use the default navigation scheme in your site definition, copy the contents of this node from the STS site definition. If you are building custom navigation controls and want to bypass the SharePoint navigation user interface entirely, you can skip this node. Note that navigation bars included in this node also define the Quick Launch sidebar within the Team Site, which can also be accessed by code through the object model. To add a navigation element to the Quick Launch sidebar, add an additional NavBar element to the NavBars node. Following is an example QuickNav bar that you can add through CAML in the site definition. Note that the HTML within the Prefix, Body, and Suffix attributes is XML encoded. The name of the NavBar specifies the heading of the navigation section, and each NavBarLink node represents a hyperlink. NavBar Name="Site Pages"Prefix="<table border=0 cellpadding=4 cellspacing=0>"Body="<tr><td><table border=0 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td><img src='/_layouts/images/blank.gif' ID='100' alt='' border=0> </td><td valign=top><a ID=onetleftnavbar#LABEL_ID# href='#URL#'>#LABEL#</td></tr></table></td></tr>" Suffix="</table>"ID="1028" >NavBarLink Name="Web Page 1" Url="SitePages/Page01.aspx" />NavBarLink Name="Web Page 2" Url="SitePages/Page02.aspx" />NavBarLink Name="Web Page 4" Url="SitePages/Page04.aspx" />/NavBar>One more example

DocumentTemplates
The DocumentTemplates node documents are used as document library default documentswithin the site. If you do not provide document templates, the site is still created, but the user is not able to create new documents by using the New button in Document Libraries.
Configurations
The site definition can also have multiple configurations, but each configuration reuses the same modules,feature references, and lists. These named configurations must also be referenced in another configuration file, WEBTEMP.*.xml, to be available to Windows SharePoint Services.For example, the following List nodes specify that the Litware Customer Listand Litware Vendor List be created on site creation at the site-relative Lists/Vendors andLists/Customers URLs.

Within the configuration, you can also specify which features should be a part of this site collection or site. The SiteFeatures node lets you define features to be enabled for the site collection if the site is created as the site collection’s top-level site. For site features, you want to include common infrastructure such as the BasicWebParts feature, as well as any additional infrastructure such as a feature that installs your company’s custom .webpart Web Part entries in the Web Part gallery.SiteFeatures>Feature ID="00BFEA71-1C5E-4A24-B310-BA51C3EB7A57" />/SiteFeatures>WebFeatures>Feature ID="00BFEA71-4EA5-48D4-A4AD-7EA5C011ABE5" />/WebFeatures>
Modules
Module element is a defined file set with nested File elements that are used to provision pageinstances from page templates.

Web Template Files
The last component of the site definition is the WEBTEMP file. The WEBTEMP file referencesconfigurations in the site definition’s ONET.xml file. Each site definition solution youcreate should have its own WEBTEMP file, with the following naming convention:WEBTEMP.[solution].xml The WEBTEMP file has one Template node per site definitionand a Configuration node for each configuration.

Solutions and Deployment

2008-06-09T23:42:00.000-07:00

“Where do SharePoint sites come from?”
In a WSS environment, each and every site is created from a site definition. Therefore, we must first explain what a site definition is and show you how to create and deploy one.
Site Definitions
A site definition is the top-level component in WSS that aggregates smaller, more modular definitions to create a complete site template that can be used to provision sites. For example,a site definition usually includes a custom page template for the site’s home page and can additionally reference external features to add support for other types of site-specific elements such as custom lists, secondary pages, and Web Parts.
In WSS, every site is provisioned from a specific site definition. This is true for all top-level sites as well as child sites nested within a site collection. Once a site is provisioned from a particular site definition, it picks up a dependency on that site definition that remains in effect for the lifetime of the site. A site’s dependency on its underlying site definition can never be removed or changed.
Let’s now move on to a discussion of how site definitions are structured and deployed. Similar
to a WSS feature, a site definition is defined with a set of Collaborative Application Markup Language (CAML)-based files that are deployed within a named directory on the file system of each front-end Web server in the farm. Site definitions are deployed within the 12\TEMPLATE\SiteTemplates directory and are referenced in the 12\TEMPLATE\\XML directory in WEBTEMP.XML files, where the folder is the locale identifier (12\TEMPLATE\1033\XML for US English).
A site definition named STS provides familiar site templates such as Team Site, Blank Site, and Document Workspace. You can always back up a site created from one of these site templates and restore it on another farm because the STS site definition is guaranteed to be pre-installed in any farm running WSS 3.0.
A site definition contains one or more configurations, and these configurations are what appear to users as creatable site templates. Therefore, the STS site definition contains three different configurations: Team Site, Blank Site, and Document Workspace.
Tip When creating a new site by using the STSADM.EXE command-line utility or through custom code, you are often required to reference a site definition and one of its configurations by name. This is done by specifying the name of the site definition followed by the pound sign and the integer identifier of the configuration. For example, you can use STS#0 to reference the site template titled Team Site and STS#1 to reference the site template titled Blank Site. The following example uses one of these site template references when creating a new
top-level site by using the STS command-line utility.
STSADM.EXE -o createsite -url http://litwareinc.com
-ownerlogin LITWAREINC\Administrator
-owneremail administrator@Litwareinc.com
-sitetemplate STS#1
A site definition named MPS contains five different configurations for the various Meeting Workspace site templates.Two site definitions are named Blog and Wiki, and each contains a single configuration for creating blog sites and wiki sites. Finally, a site definition named CENTRALADMIN provides the site template used to create the top-level site used in the WSS Central Administration Web application.
The Global Site Definition
WSS 3.0 introduces the Global site definition, which provides a common repository for site provision instructions required by every site definition. This new approach significantly improves the structuring of site definitions over the way things were previously structured in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 2.0, in which common provision instructions had to be included as redundant XML in each site definition. The Global site definition refactors more than 2,600 lines of required common components, such as Base Types and required Galleries, which were previously required in the ONET.XML file of every site definition.
The Global site definition is located at the 12\TEMPLATES\GLOBAL path. It contains the standard default.master page template along with instructions to provision an instance of default.master page into the Master Page gallery of every new site. The Global site definition also contains provisioning logic to create the following four site collection–scoped lists in every new top-level site:
■ Web Parts gallery
■ List Template gallery
■ Site Template gallery
■ User Information Profile list

Designing Site Pages by Using Controls

2008-06-09T22:20:00.000-07:00

Custom controls are more lightweight and must be compiled into an assembly DLL before being deployed to the front-end Web server.
Constructing Pages with Custom Controls
developers often choose to create custom controls by deriving from a richer class named WebControl, which inherits from the Control class.
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using Microsoft.SharePoint;
namespace CustomSitePages {
public class CustomControl1 : WebControl {
protected override void RenderContents(HtmlTextWriter output) {
SPWeb site = SPContext.Current.Web;
output.Write("Current Site: " + site.Title);
output.Write("
");
output.Write("Current Site ID: " + site.ID.ToString());
} } }
You have two choices as to where to deploy an assembly DLL that contains a custom control when you want to use it in a site page. First, you can compile the assembly DLL with a strong name and install it in the Global Assembly Cache. Alternatively, you can deploy the assembly DLL by placing it inside the root directory of the hosting Web application inside a nested directory named bin. Note that when you plan to deploy the assembly DLL with custom controls in the bin directory, you have the option of compiling it with or without a strong name.Once the assembly DLL with the custom control is properly deployed, you can then reference it within a page template by using the ASP.NET Register directive. The following code example
displays a page template that uses the custom control shown previously.
%@ Page MasterPageFile="~masterurl/default.master"
meta:progid="SharePoint.WebPartPage.Document" %>
%@ Register Assembly="CustomSitePages, ... "
Namespace="CustomSitePages" TagPrefix="CustomSitePages" %>
asp:Content ID="main"
ContentPlaceHolderId="PlaceHolderMain"
runat="server">
h3>A custom control example/h3>
CustomSitePages:CustomControl1 ID="cc1" runat="server" />
/asp:Content>
This TagPrefix value is then used to instantiate instances of the control within the page.
CustomSitePages:CustomControl1 ID="cc1" runat="server" />

When you navigate to .aspx, you should see that the page renders the output of the
control so that it is visible to the user. However, this works only while the hosting page remains in a ghosted state. Remember that customized pages allow only for controls that are registered as safe controls. If a user customizes Page02.aspx with the SharePoint Designer, the page begins to execute in safe mode, and the presence of a control that is not registered as a safe control results in the error message.
To fix this problem, you must add a custom SafeControl entry to the hosting Web
application’s web.config file. You can accomplish this by adding a SafeControl entry that looks like the following:
SafeControl
Assembly="CustomSitePages, ..."
Namespace="CustomSitePages"
TypeName="CustomControl1"
/>
Constructing Pages with User Controls
The ASP.NET runtime provides the functionality to parse these .ascx files at run time and compile them into assembly DLLs just as it does for .aspx files.
Let’s examine the source file for a simple user control. The following example of an .ascx file creates a simple user interface with a command button and a label and adds in an event handler to provide the classic “Hello World” functionality.
%@ Control Language="C#" %>
script runat="server">
protected void cmdButton1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {
lblStatus.Text = "Hello, World";
}
/script>
asp:Button ID="cmdAddCustomer" runat="server" Text="Add Customer"
OnClick="cmdAddCustomer_Click" />
br/>
asp:label id="lblStatus" runat="server" text="">
User controls are always loaded from the file system of the front-end Web server and
compiled into assembly DLLs. Furthermore, user controls can be copied to the front-end Web server only by someone with farm-level administrative privileges. For these reasons, you can assume that you can always write in-line code in an .ascx file.
In Chapter 2, you were introduced to the virtual _layouts directory and learned that this was the proper place to deploy application pages. WSS provides a similar virtual directory for deploying user controls. Inside the TEMPLATE directory resides a nested directory named CONTROLTEMPLATES.
Fortunately, you don’t have to worry about this if you deploy your custom user controls inside the virtual _controltemplates directory because the standard web.config file for a Web application already contains the following SafeControl entry:
SafeControl
Src="~/_controltemplates/*"
IncludeSubFolders="True"
Safe="True"
AllowRemoteDesigner="True"
/>
Now that you have seen how to create and properly deploy a user control, the final step is constructing a page template that references the .ascx file and creates an instance. However, the process is different with user controls because the Register
directive requires an src attribute that points to the virtual path of the target .ascx file.
%@ Page MasterPageFile="~masterurl/default.master"
meta:progid="SharePoint.WebPartPage.Document" %>
%@ Register TagPrefix="luc" TagName="UserControl1"
src="~/_controltemplates/Litware/UserControl1.ascx" %>
asp:content runat="server" contentplaceholderid="PlaceHolderMain">
luc:usercontrol1 id="id1" runat="server">
/asp:Content>
Designing Web Part Pages
Web Parts go even further to allow individual users to add personalization changes that are seen only by them.WSS provides the underlying mechanisms to track all of this customization and personalization inside the content database along with all of the other site-related data.
All of the data for tracking Web Part instances and their customization and personalization data are kept in separate tables inside the content database.This means that a Web Part page can remain in a ghosted state even though users are continually adding, customizing, and personalizing the Web Parts within its zone.
To create a Web Part page in an ASP.NET 2.0 application, you must create an .aspx page that contains exactly one instance of a control named WebPartManager and one or more WebPartZone controls. The WebPartManager is responsible for managing the lifetime of Web Part instances as well as serializing Web Part–related data so that they can be stored and retrieved from the tables in the ASP.NET services database.
WSS relies on a specialized control named SPWebPartManager that derives from the ASP.NET 2.0 WebPartManager control. The SPWebPartManager control overrides the standard behavior of the WebPartManager control to persist Web Part data inside the WSS content database instead of inside the ASP.NET services database.
Two things must be done when creating a page template for a Web Part page. The first is to inherit from the WebPartPage class that is defined inside the Microsoft.SharePoint.dll assembly. The second is to add one or more WebPartZone controls.To add WebPartZone controls to a page template, you must add a Register directive that imports all of the controls from the Microsoft.SharePoint.dll assembly defined in the Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages namespace as shown in the following page template definition.
%@ Page Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~masterurl/default.master"
Inherits="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPartPage,Microsoft.SharePoint,Version=12.0.0.0,Culture=neutral,PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c"
meta:progid="SharePoint.WebPartPage.Document" %>

%@ Register Tagprefix="WebPartPages"
Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages"
Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>

asp:content id="main" runat="server" contentplaceholderid="PlaceHolderMain">

h3>Custom Web Part Page/h3>

table width="100%">
tr>
td valign="top" style="width:50%">

/td>
td valign="top" style="width:50%">
WebPartPages:WebPartZone ID="Right" runat="server"
FrameType="TitleBarOnly"
Title="Right Web Part Zone" />
/td>
/tr>
/table>
/asp:Content>

There are two common techniques for adding a Web Part instance to a Web Part zone. The first technique involves a declarative approach used inside a feature in which you define an AllUsersWebPart element inside a File element. The following example demonstrates the File element that is used in the CustomSitePages project to provision the Web Part page named WebPartPage02.aspx.
Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
Module Path="PageTemplates" Url="SitePages" >

File Url="WebPartPage.aspx" Name="WebPartPage03.aspx" Type="Ghostable" >

AllUsersWebPart WebPartZoneID="Left" WebPartOrder="0">

Assembly>Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c
TypeName>Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.ContentEditorWebPart
Title>Yet Another Web Part is Born/Title>
FrameType>TitleBarOnly
cewp:Content>
This Web Part was added through declarative logic
/cewp:Content>
/WebPart>
]]>
/AllUsersWebPart>

AllUsersWebPart WebPartZoneID="Right" WebPartOrder="0">

Assembly>Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c
TypeName>Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.ImageWebPart
FrameType>None
Title>Watch My Gears Run/Title>
iwp:ImageLink>/_layouts/images/GEARS_AN.GIF
/WebPart>
]]>
/AllUsersWebPart>
/File>
/Module>
/Elements>
The second technique for adding a Web Part instance to a Web Part page involves writing code against the WSS object model. An example of this type of code is supplied in the FeatureActivated event handler for the CustomSitePages project. The code obtains a reference to the SPFile object associated with WebPartPage03.aspx and uses an SPLimitedWebPart-Manager object to add a new Web Part instance to a particular target zone.
public override void FeatureActivated(
SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties) {
// acquire objects for site, page and limited Web Part Manager
SPWeb site = (SPWeb)properties.Feature.Parent;
SPFile page = site.GetFile("SitePages/WebPartPage03.aspx");
SPLimitedWebPartManager mgr;
mgr = page.GetLimitedWebPartManager(PersonalizationScope.Shared);
// add Web Part to Right Zone
ImageWebPart wp1 = new ImageWebPart();
wp1.ChromeType = PartChromeType.None;
wp1.ImageLink = @"/_layouts/images/IPVW.GIF";
mgr.AddWebPart(wp1, "RightZone", 0);
}
Master Pages
The pages that link to a master page are known as content pages. Standard master page is deployed during the standard WSS installation on the file system of the front-end Web server at the following path (there is a line break in the file path to make it more readable).
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared
\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\GLOBAL\default.master
Whenever you create a new site, WSS provides provisioning instructions to create the Master Page gallery and provision an instance of default.master within the site by using a standard site-relative path.
/_catalogs/masterpage/default.master
The default.master page contains the basic layout for a site page including elements such as HTML, HEAD, BODY, and FORM. Within these standard HTML elements, you will find three important types of components:
■ Controls for links, menus, icons, and navigation components
■ Named placeholders
■ Delegate controls
The top link bar is defined by using a WSS-specific control of type AspMenu along with a SiteMapDataSource control that is configured to point to the standard SPNavigationProvider component. The Quick Launch menu is defined in the same way. The major difference between the two is that the SiteMapDataSource for the top link bar is configured with a StartingNodeUrl attribute with a value of sid:1002, whereas the Quick Launch menu is configured with a StartingNodeUrl attribute with a value of sid:1025.
The next question you should be asking is what the significance is between 1002 and 1025. It has to do with the data stored in the content database for tracking navigation nodes. The top node for the top link bar has an ID of 1002, and the top node to the Quick Launch menu has an ID of 1025.
The CustomSitePages feature provides code in the FeatureActivated event handler to add navigation nodes to construct a custom drop-down menu in a fashion that is not possible to replicate through the user interface. Examine the following code and observe how it creates SPNavigationNode objects and adds them to the collection of nodes that define the structure for the top link bar.
public override void FeatureActivated(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties) {
// get a hold of current site in context of feature activation
SPWeb site = (SPWeb)properties.Feature.Parent;
SPNavigationNodeCollection topNav = site.Navigation.TopNavigationBar;
// create dropdown menu for custom site pages
SPNavigationNode DropDownMenu1;
DropDownMenu1 = new SPNavigationNode("Site Pages", "", false);
topNav[0].Children.AddAsLast(DropDownMenu1);
// add navigation nodes to create menu items
DropDownMenu1.Children.AddAsLast(
new SPNavigationNode( "Site Page 1",
"SitePages/Page01.aspx"));
DropDownMenu1.Children.AddAsLast(
new SPNavigationNode("Site Page 2",
"SitePages/Page02.aspx"));
}
Delegate Controls
Like a placeholder, a delegate control can optionally supply default content that is used until a substitution is performed.
One major difference when compared to placeholders is that the substitution mechanism for replacing the contents of a delegate control is driven through feature activation. Therefore, you can replace what’s defined inside a delegate control in default.master without requiring any changes to default.master or the site pages that link to it. All you need to do is define a Control element within a feature and then activate that feature.
SmallSearchInputBox delegate control by referencing a built-in user control with the standard WSS search area content.
control
Id="SmallSearchInputBox"
Sequence="100"
ControlSrc="~/_controltemplates/searcharea.ascx"
/>
Assume that you want to get rid of the standard search area content and replace it with your own custom content for a particular business solution. That’s what delegate controls were designed for.
If you want to replace a delegate control, such as the WSS search area, with your own customized version, you start by adding a Control element to a feature. The Control element should have an ID value of SmallSearchInputBox. The Control element should also have a Sequence number smaller than any other active Control element pointing to the same ID. The following code demonstrates how the Control element is defined inside the elements.xml file of the CustomBranding feature.

Note that this Control element has a sequence number of 10, which is smaller than the Control element defined in ContentLightup with a Sequence number of 100. Once the CustomBranding feature is activated within a site collection, all of the site pages that link to default.master replace the standard WSS search area with whatever content you have defined inside the custom user control named LitwareSearchArea.ascx. The following code defines a starting point for creating a custom user control that supplies custom search behavior.
%@ Control Language="C#" %>
script runat="server">
protected void cmdRunSearch_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {
// add customer search here
txtSearchText.Text = "Hello";
}
/script>

table>
tr>
td>
td>
/tr>
/table>
Creating a Custom Master Page Template
Creating a custom master page template involves several steps. First, you must create the master page template itself. Second, you must create a custom feature that provisions an instance of this master page template inside the Master Page gallery for a specific site. Finally, you need to add some code to redirect site pages to use your custom master page instead of using default.master. The Visual Studio project named CustomBranding provides a working sample that demonstrates how all of the pieces fit together.
You can create a custom template by using two different approaches. First, you can make a copy of default.master and then modify it according to taste. A second approach involves starting from scratch so that you can design the exact HTML layout you’re looking for. The custom master page template used in the CustomBranding project is named Litware.master. The Litware.master template is a variation on the default.master template with changes to allow for fly-out menus on both the top link bar and Quick Launch menu. The CustomBranding feature includes a Module element that has been designed to provision an instance of the Litware.master page template into the Master Page gallery of the top-level site.
Module Name="MasterPages" List="116" Url="_catalogs/masterpage">
File Url="Litware.master" Type="GhostableInLibrary" />
/Module>
However, this Module targets the Master Page gallery, which is a special type of document library. Therefore, the Module is defined with a List attribute of 116, which is the list type identifier for the Master Page gallery. The Url attribute for this Module is defined with a value of _catalogs/masterpage,
which is the standard site-relative path to the Master Page gallery.
We have reviewed the steps involved in creating a master page template and provisioning an instance of it in the Master Page gallery of the top-level site. The next step involves redirecting all site pages within a site to link to this provisioned instance of our custom master page template. To understand the technique for accomplishing this, take a closer look at the MasterPageFile attribute defined within a Page directive. Examine the following page template, which is defined to link to a target master page by using a special syntax in the form of ~masterurl/default.master.
%@ Page MasterPageFile="~masterurl/default.master" %>
asp:Content ContentPlaceHolderId="PlaceHolderMain" runat="server">
Custom content goes here
/asp:Content>
You can redirect any site page that uses this token by acquiring an SPWeb reference to the current site and then updating the MasterUrl property.
SPWeb site = SPContext.Current.Web;
string MasterUrlPath = site.ServerRelativeUrl;
if (!MasterUrlPath.EndsWith(@"/"))
MasterUrlPath += @"/";
MasterUrlPath += @"_catalogs/masterpage/Litware.master";
site.MasterUrl = MasterUrlPath;
site.Update();
Once you
activate the CustomBranding feature, you can navigate to the application page named
CustomBrand.aspx by using a custom menu item that is added to the Site Settings menu. This application page provides a command button that allows the user to execute the following code.
protected void cmdApplyCustomBrand_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {
SPWeb site = SPContext.Current.Site.RootWeb
string MasterUrlPath = site.ServerRelativeUrl;
if (!MasterUrlPath.EndsWith(@"/"))
MasterUrlPath += @"/";
MasterUrlPath += @"_catalogs/masterpage/Litware.master";
ApplyCustomBrand(MasterUrlPath, site);
}
protected void ApplyCustomBrand(string MasterUrlPath, SPWeb site) {
site.MasterUrl = MasterUrlPath;
site.Update();
// use recusion to update all child sites in site collection
foreach (SPWeb child in site.Webs) {
ApplyCustomBrand(MasterUrlPath, child);
}
}
The file that defines the majority of the standard CSS classes used by pages in WSS is named core.css.
SPWeb site = SPContext.Current.Web;
site.ApplyTheme("");
site.AlternateCssUrl = "/_layouts/1033/STYLES/Litware/LitwareBrand.css";
site.Update();

Working with Page Templates

2008-06-09T22:11:00.000-07:00

When the CustomSitePages feature is activated, it contains declarative logic in elements.xml to provision site page instances from its page templates. The code in the FeatureActivated event extends the navigation components of a WSS site by adding two new drop-down menus to the top link bar with menu items to navigate to the newly provisioned site page instance.

Let’s start with a simple definition for a page template. Examine the following definition for the page template named Page01.aspx.
%@ Page MasterPageFile="~masterurl/default.master"
meta:progid="SharePoint.WebPartPage.Document" %>
asp:Content runat="server" ContentPlaceHolderID="PlaceHolderMain">
h3>Hello World
A simple page template used to create site pages
/asp:Content>
meta:progid attribute is included to make that page compatible with the SharePoint Designer, and is also available in the SPFile object’s ProgID property. Once site page instances have been provisioned by using this page template, users can open these pages with the SharePoint Designer and customize their content.
Keep in mind that a page template, such as Page01.aspx, serves no purpose until you begin using it to provision site page instances. This can be done by creating a feature that contains a special type of element known as a Module.
When you create a Module, you add one or more inner File elements. The key point is that each File element is used to provision an instance of a file from a file template. Remember that the file template exists on the file system of the front-end Web server.
elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
/u>
file url="Page01.aspx" type="Ghostable">
/module>
/elements>
Note that the File element within this example is created with a Url attribute that points to the source file for the page template. When you activate a feature that contains this Module element, WSS provisions a site page instance within the target site at the following relative path.SitePages/Page01.aspx
Note that the File element in the previous example contains a Type attribute with a value of Ghostable. When a site page instance, such as Page01.aspx, is provisioned, it initially exists in an uncustomized state and benefits from the principles of page ghosting. This means that you can activate this feature in a thousand different sites within a Web application and that all sites use a single compiled version of the page. Page ghosting also makes it possible to make changes to the page template on the file system of the front-end Web server and have those changes affect all of the sites that have pages provisioned from this page template.
Only two possible settings exist for the Type attribute: Ghostable and GhostableInLibrary.These two settings are used to differentiate between files that are provisioned inside a document library and those that are not. In this case, the site page instance has a Type of Ghostable because it is not being provisioned inside a document library. Later in the chapter, you will encounter an example of a File element whose Type attribute value will be defined as GhostableInLibrary.
Safe Mode Processing
It’s important to understand that all customized site pages are parsed and processed in a
special mode known as safe mode. The primary motivation for safe mode involves the
fact that standard users can modify the contents of site pages. In other words, a user (such
as a site owner) possessing no administrator privileges within the farm can make any
modifications to a page within a site. Consider a scenario in a large farm in which a site
administrator attempts to mount an attack on the Web server by writing C# code within a
customized site page inside an in-line script block. Safe mode prevents this type of attack by
disallowing in-line script in any customized source.
Examine the code in the page template named Page02.aspx. It contains a simple in-line script
to write a message back to the browser.
%@ Page Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~masterurl/default.master"
meta:progid="SharePoint.WebPartPage.Document" %>
asp:Content ID="main" runat="server"
ContentPlaceHolderID="PlaceHolderMain">
h3>Page 2

% Response.Write("Hello world from server-side script!"); %>
/asp:Content>
Note that this page and the in-line script run just fine as long as the page remains uncustomized in a ghosted state. Remember that WSS compiles a ghosted page into an assembly DLL for processing. However, as soon as a user modifies any aspect of this page with the SharePoint Designer and moves the site page into an unghosted state, WSS then begins to use safe mode to process it. Because the page contains in-line script, WSS refuses to process it in safe mode and generates the error message. For this reason, you should avoid adding in-line script to page templates.
For example, assume that you want to allow in-line scripts for site pages inside the SitePages folder in a site at the path of /sites/Sales. You can accomplish this by adding the following PageParserPath element
within the SharePoint section of the web.config file.
SharePoint>
SafeMode ... >
PageParserPaths>
PageParserPath
VirtualPath="/sites/Sales/SitePages/*"
IncludeSubFolders="true"
CompilationMode="Always"
AllowServerSideScript="true" />
/PageParserPaths>
/SafeMode>
/SharePoint>
If you examine the PageParserPath element, you see that the VirtualPath attribute has a Web application relative path followed by an asterisk, which includes every site page in that particular folder. Also note that the CompilationMode attribute has a value of Always and the AllowServerSideScript attribute has a value of true. This instructs the safe mode parser to compile all site pages into assembly DLLs and allow in-line script.
At the very least, you should prefer a Compilation-Mode setting of Auto instead of Always so that only pages that actually contain script are compiled into assembly DLLs, whereas those pages that do not contain script continue to be parsed and processed in no-compile mode.
Safe Controls
Tells what controls a user might place on a customized page. Safe mode allows the farm administrator to determine which controls can be used in pages that are processed in safe mode.
Customized pages can only contain server-side controls that are explicitly registered as safe controls. Registering a control as a safe control is accomplished by adding a SafeControl entry into the web.config file for the hosting Web application.
SafeControls>
SafeControl
Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, …"
Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls"
TypeName="*"
AllowRemoteDesigner="True" />
/SafeControls>

Pages and Design

2008-06-09T21:59:00.000-07:00

Application pages have an advantage over site pages in that they perform better and provide a developer with the ability to add in-line code. You also learned that site pages have some key advantages over application pages because they can be created dynamically and can also be customized by users on a site-by-site basis.
Page ghosting is an optimization used with site pages in which a single page template can be used to process multiple page instances across many different sites. For example, the home page for every team site in a Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) farm is based on an underlying page template named default.aspx that resides on the file system of the front-end Web server. A page template, such as default.aspx, is compiled into an assembly dynamic-link library (DLL) and loaded into memory just once per Web application. However, this page template and its efficient usage of memory can still be used to serve up pages for thousands of sites. This is an obvious advantage toward scalability.

When a user customizes a site page by using the SharePoint Designer and then saves those changes, a customized version of the page definition is stored in the content database. While this provides flexibility from a customization standpoint, it also can have a negative impact on performance and scalability. When the customized page is requested, its page definition must be retrieved from the Backend database server by the SPVirtualPathProvider component and then fed to the ASP.NET compiler, where it is parsed and loaded into memory. You can imagine that a Web application with thousands of customized pages requires more memory
because each customized page definition must be separately parsed and loaded into memory within the application pool that is hosting the current Web application. You should note that customized pages are not processed by using the standard ASP.NET model in which a page is compiled into an assembly DLL. Instead, customized pages are parsed by the ASP.NET page parser(parsing means reading once again…) and then processed using the no-compile mode feature that was introduced with ASP.NET 2.0.
No-compile pages can be loaded into memory and then unloaded in a manner that is not
possible for compiled pages because the .NET Framework doesn’t really support the concept of unloading an assembly DLL from memory. The closest equivalent would be to recycle the current Windows process or the current .NET AppDomain. However, this type of recycling involves unloading all assembly DLLs from memory, not just those assembly DLLs that haven’t been used recently. Furthermore, the .NET Framework places an upper limit on the number of assembly DLLs that can be loaded into a .NET AppDomain.
No-compile pages provide higher levels of scalability because they do not require loading new assembly DLLs or managed classes into memory. Instead, the processing of no-compile pages involves loading control trees into memory. WSS can manage the memory usage for the control trees associated with customized pages more efficiently because they are not compiled into assembly DLLs. For example, once WSS has finished processing a customized page, it can unload the page’s control tree to free up memory for other purposes. Furthermore, nocompile pages eliminate the need to go through the compilation process, which actually provides faster response times for pages upon first access.
In ASP.NET2.0 dynamic compilation means –asp.net parser take .aspx &.cs file then parse and compiled it.There is no dll files.

Programming with SPFile Objects
WSS tracks each site page as a file within the content database. You can access a site page through the WSS object model by using the SPFile object. For example, assume that you want to program against the home page for a site. You can obtain a reference to the required SPFile object by using the GetFile method of a SPWeb object.
SPWeb site = SPContext.Current.Web;
SPFile homePage = site.GetFile("default.aspx");
The SPFile class makes it possible to read and write to the contents of a site page. For example,the OpenBinary method of an SPFile object returns a binary array containing the page contents. The OpenBinaryStream method returns a System.IO.Stream object. Each of these methods provides an approach for reading the contents of a site page. An SPFile object also provides a SaveBinary method that allows you to update the contents of a site page as well.Note that updating the contents of a site page by using this method customizes the page and moves it into an customized or unghosted state.
Tip Ghosted and uncustomized are terms used to describe site pages served up using file system templates. Unghosted and customized both refer to pages that exist entirely in the database, which no longer depend on a file system template.
// write out new page in memory stream
MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream();
StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter(stream);
writer.WriteLine("");
writer.WriteLine("Hello, World");
writer.WriteLine("");
writer.Flush();
// add new page to site
SPWeb site = SPContext.Current.Web;
site.Files.Add("hello.htm", stream);
The SPFile class provides a CustomizedPageStatus property that makes it possible to determine whether a site page has been customized and placed in an unghosted state. The SPFile object also provides a method named RevertContentStream that removes any customizations and returns an unghosted page to its initial ghosted state.

SPFolder Objects
Each SPFolder object contains a Files property that allows you to enumerate through its files. If you want to enumerate through all of the files at the root folder of a site, you can access the RootFolder property of a SPWeb object and then use a foreach loop to enumerate through all of its files.
SPWeb site = SPContext.Current.Web;
SPFolder rootFolder = site.RootFolder;
foreach (SPFile file in rootFolder.Files){
// process each file
}
The following code displays an example of custom
code that starts at the root folder of a site and uses recursion to populate an ASP.NET
TreeView control.
const string SITE_IMG = @"\_layouts\images\FPWEB16.GIF";
const string FOLDER_IMG = @"\_layouts\images\FOLDER16.GIF";
const string GHOSTED_FILE_IMG = @"\_layouts\images\NEWDOC.GIF";
const string UNGHOSTED_FILE_IMG = @"\_layouts\images\RAT16.GIF";
protected override void OnLoad(EventArgs e) {
SPWeb site = SPContext.Current.Web;
SPFolder rootFolder = site.RootFolder;
TreeNode rootNode = new TreeNode(site.Url, site.Url, SITE_IMG);
LoadFolderNodes(rootFolder, rootNode);
treeSiteFiles.Nodes.Add(rootNode);
treeSiteFiles.ExpandDepth = 1;
}
protected void LoadFolderNodes(SPFolder folder, TreeNode folderNode) {
foreach (SPFolder childFolder in folder.SubFolders) {
TreeNode childFolderNode = new TreeNode(childFolder.Name,
childFolder.Name,
FOLDER_IMG);
LoadFolderNodes(childFolder, childFolderNode);
folderNode.ChildNodes.Add(childFolderNode);
}
foreach (SPFile file in folder.Files) {
TreeNode fileNode;
if (file.CustomizedPageStatus == SPCustomizedPageStatus.Uncustomized) {
fileNode = new TreeNode(file.Name, file.Name, GHOSTED_FILE_IMG);
}
else {
fileNode = new TreeNode(file.Name, file.Name, UNGHOSTED_FILE_IMG);
}
folderNode.ChildNodes.Add(fileNode);
}
}

Site Pages versus Application Pages

2008-06-09T21:26:00.000-07:00

Pages that support user customization are known as site pages. Every one of these site pages would become unghosted. This would negatively impact scalability by forcing the front-end Web server to retrieve each page separately from the content database. Each page would also have to be individually parsed and loaded into memory.

There is only one version of an application page scoped at the farm level, it can be
compiled into a single DLL and loaded into memory once for each Web application. You
never have to worry about the existence of different versions of an application page for different sites. Furthermore, application pages are not subject to attack from users who have permissions to customize site pages. Therefore, WSS does not prohibit them from containing in-line code.
There is only one version of an application page scoped at the farm level, it can be
compiled into a single DLL and loaded into memory once for each Web application.
Let us now summarize the difference between site pages and application pages. Site pages support page customization. Examples of site pages include the home page (default.aspx) for a site as well as the pages associated with lists and document libraries, such as AllItems.aspx, NewForm.aspx, and EditForm.aspx. The fact that site pages support customization provides flexibility but can also impact performance and scalability.Application pages do not support customization, which gives them two distinct advantages over site pages. First, each application page is always compiled into a single DLL so that it performs and scales better than a site page. Second, application pages are allowed to have in-line code.
Creating Custom Application Pages
As a rule, application pages should derive from a base class in the Microsoft.SharePoint assembly named LayoutsPageBase.

ApplicationPage1.aspx
%@ Assembly Name="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" % >
%@ Assembly Name="CustomApplicationPages, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=d4e5777b16a5749f" % >

%@ Page Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/_layouts/application.master"
Inherits="CustomApplicationPages.ApplicationPage1"
EnableViewState="false" EnableViewStateMac="false" %>

asp:content id="Main" contentplaceholderid="PlaceHolderMain" runat="server">
table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:12">
tr>
td>Site Title:
td>
/tr>
tr>
td>Site ID:
td>
/tr>
/table>
/asp:Content>
asp:Content ID="PageTitle" runat="server"
contentplaceholderid="PlaceHolderPageTitle" >
Hello World
/asp:Content>
asp:Content ID="PageTitleInTitleArea" runat="server"
contentplaceholderid="PlaceHolderPageTitleInTitleArea" >
Application Page 1: 'Hello World' with code behind
/asp:Content>
ApplicationPage1.cs
using System;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using Microsoft.SharePoint;
using Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls;

namespace CustomApplicationPages {

public class ApplicationPage1 : LayoutsPageBase {

// add control fields to match controls tags on .aspx page
protected Label lblSiteTitle;
protected Label lblSiteID;

protected override void OnLoad(EventArgs e) {

// get current site and web
SPSite siteCollection = this.Site;
SPWeb site = this.Web;

// program against controls on .aspx page
lblSiteTitle.Text = site.Title;
lblSiteID.Text = site.ID.ToString().ToUpper();
}

}
}
Creating an Application Page with the SPGridView Control
You can see that the class named ApplicationPage2 works together with a custom helper class named PropertyCollectionBinder to create an ADO.NET DataTable object filled with information about the current site and site collection. The DataTable object is being used in this example because its contents can be used to populate SPGridView by using standard ASP.NET data binding techniques.
protected override void OnLoad(EventArgs e)
{
SPSite siteCollection = this.Site;
SPWeb site = this.Web;
// PropertyCollectionBinder pcb = new PropertyCollectionBinder();
PropertyCollectionBinder pcb = new PropertyCollectionBinder();
pcb.AddProperty("Site Title", site.Title);
pcb.AddProperty("Site ID", site.ID.ToString().ToUpper());
pcb.AddProperty("Site Master Page Url", site.MasterUrl);
pcb.AddProperty("Site URL", site.Url);
pcb.AddProperty("Site Collection URL", siteCollection.Url);
pcb.AddProperty("Site Collection ID", siteCollection.ID.ToString().ToUpper());
pcb.AddProperty("Current User Name", site.CurrentUser.Name);
pcb.AddProperty("Is User Site Collection Admin", site.UserIsSiteAdmin.ToString());
pcb.AddProperty("Is User Site Admin", site.UserIsWebAdmin.ToString());
pcb.AddProperty("Site User Count", site.SiteUsers.Count.ToString());
pcb.AddProperty("Host Name", siteCollection.HostName);
pcb.AddProperty("Zone", siteCollection.Zone.ToString());
pcb.AddProperty("Site Collection System Account", siteCollection.SystemAccount.Name);
pcb.BindGrid(grdPropertyValues);
}
%@ Assembly Name="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>
%@ Assembly Name="CustomApplicationPages, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=d4e5777b16a5749f" %>

%@ Page Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/_layouts/application.master"
Inherits="CustomApplicationPages.ApplicationPage2"
EnableViewState="false" EnableViewStateMac="false" %>

%@ Register Tagprefix="SharePoint"
Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls"
Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>

asp:content id="Main" contentplaceholderid="PlaceHolderMain" runat="server">

SharePoint:SPGridView runat="server"
ID="grdPropertyValues"
AutoGenerateColumns="false"
RowStyle-BackColor="#DDDDDD"
AlternatingRowStyle-BackColor="#EEEEEE" />

/asp:Content>
PropertyCollectionBinder.cs
{

protected DataTable PropertyCollection = new DataTable();

public PropertyCollectionBinder() {
PropertyCollection.Columns.Add("PropertyName", typeof(string));
PropertyCollection.Columns.Add("PropertyValue", typeof(string));
}

public void AddProperty(string PropertyName, string PropertyValue) {
DataRow newRow = PropertyCollection.Rows.Add();
newRow["PropertyName"] = PropertyName;
newRow["PropertyValue"] = PropertyValue;
}

public void BindGrid(SPGridView grid) {

SPBoundField fldPropertyName = new SPBoundField();
fldPropertyName.HeaderText = "Property Name";
fldPropertyName.DataField = "PropertyName";
grid.Columns.Add(fldPropertyName);

SPBoundField fldPropertyValue = new SPBoundField();
fldPropertyValue.HeaderText = "Value";
fldPropertyValue.DataField = "PropertyValue";
grid.Columns.Add(fldPropertyValue);

grid.Width = new Unit(400);

grid.AutoGenerateColumns = false;
grid.DataSource = PropertyCollection.DefaultView;
grid.DataBind();

}
}
Restricting Application Pages to Site Administrators
Application pages are often designed to provide information and functionality
that should only be accessible to site administrators.
Let’s start by revisiting the creation of a CustomAction element within a feature. You can add an attribute named RequireSiteAdministrator and assign it a value of true so that the menu item only displays to those users who are also site administrators.
RequireSiteAdministrator="True"
While this provides a good start by hiding the menu item from users who are not site
administrators, it doesn’t provide a truly secure solution. The application page itself will still be accessible to any user who knows the URL. When you want to lock down an application page in a secure manner, you can accomplish this by overriding the RequireSiteAdministrator property of the LayoutsPageBase base class as shown in the following code.
public class ApplicationPage3 : LayoutsPageBase {
protected override bool RequireSiteAdministrator {
get { return true; }
}
protected override void OnLoad(EventArgs e) {
// your code goes here
} }
{
// get current site and web
SPSite siteCollection = this.Site;
SPWeb site = this.Web;

lblSiteTitle.Text = site.Title;
lblSiteUrl.Text = site.Url.ToLower();
lblSiteCollectionUrl.Text = siteCollection.Url.ToLower();
lstLists.Items.Clear();
foreach (SPList list in site.Lists) {
lstLists.Items.Add(list.Title);
}
lstLists.Rows = lstLists.Items.Count;
lstSiteUsers.Items.Clear();
foreach (SPUser user in site.SiteUsers) {
lstSiteUsers.Items.Add(user.Name);
}
lstSiteUsers.Rows = lstSiteUsers.Items.Count;

}
Adding a Custom Menu Item to the ECB (EditControlBlock)Menu

CustomAction Id="CustomApplicationPage4"
RegistrationType="List"
RegistrationId="101"
ImageUrl="/_layouts/images/GORTL.GIF"
Location="EditControlBlock"
Sequence="240"
Title="Application Page 4" >
urlaction url="~site/_layouts/CustomApplicationPages/ApplicationPage4.aspx?ItemId={ItemId}&ListId={ListId}">
/customaction>
Note that 101 is a list type identifier that applies to all document libraries. WSS dynamically replaces the {ListId} token with the identifying GUID for the current list or document library.
WSS dynamically replaces the {ItemId} token with the integer identifier for the current list item or document.
You can assume that you are dealing with a document library and not simply a standard list type. In these situations, you can add code that converts the SPList object into a SPDocumentLibrary object. You can also access the document in question directly by creating an SPFile object as shown in the following sample.
{

// get current site and web
SPSite siteCollection = this.Site;
SPWeb site = this.Web;

lblSiteTitle.Text = site.Title;
lblSiteUrl.Text = site.Url.ToLower();
string ListId = Request.QueryString["ListId"];
lblListID.Text = ListId;
SPList list = site.Lists[new Guid(ListId)];
lblListTile.Text = list.Title;
lblRootFolderUrl.Text = list.RootFolder.Url;
string ItemId = Request.QueryString["ItemId"];
lblDocumentID.Text = ItemId;
SPListItem item = list.Items.GetItemById(Convert.ToInt32(ItemId));
lblDocumentName.Text = item.Name;
lblDocumentUrl.Text = item.Url;

if (list is SPDocumentLibrary) {
SPDocumentLibrary documentLibrary = (SPDocumentLibrary)list;
lblDocumentTemplateUrl.Text = documentLibrary.DocumentTemplateUrl;

SPFile file = site.GetFile(item.Url);
lblFileAuthor.Text = file.Author.Name;
lblFileSize.Text = file.TotalLength.ToString("0,###") + " bits";
lblFileLastModified.Text = "By " + file.ModifiedBy.Name +
" on " + file.TimeLastModified.ToLocalTime().ToString();
lblFileCheckOutStatus.Text = file.CheckOutStatus.ToString();
}
}
Imp Points
1-If in IIS website has 10 ASP.NET app u have to create explicitly 10 virtual directories.But in WebApp u no need to go Mgr to create Virtual Dir.It is a single process for creaing n no of SiteCollections.
2-For each Asp.net APP u have to maintain 1 web.config.But in MOSS only one web.config for a WEB APP.In this u can maintain n no of site collections.

SharePoint Architecture

2008-06-08T21:36:00.000-07:00

Both ASP.NET and WSS rely on IIS 6.0 to supply the underlying listening mechanism to process incoming HTTP requests and supply a management infrastructure for launching and running worker processes on the Web server.
An IIS Web site provides an entry point into the IIS Web server infrastructure. Each IIS Web site is configured to listen for and process incoming HTTP requests that meet certain criteria.For example, an IIS Web site can be configured to handle requests coming in over a specific IP address or port number or can be routed to the Web server by using a specific host header,such as http://Extranet.Litwareinc.com.
IIS automatically creates and configures an IIS Web site named Default Web Site that listens for HTTP requests coming in over port 80 on any of the IP addresses supported on the local Web server.
Each IIS Web site is configured to map to a root directory, which is a physical directory on the file system of the hosting Web server. For example, standard configuration for IIS maps the Default Web Site to a root directory located at C:\Inetpub\wwwroot. In the most straightforward routing scenarios, IIS maps incoming HTTP requests to physical files inside the root directory.For example, IIS will respond to a request for http://www.Litwareinc.com/page1.htm by simply loading the contents of the file located at c:\Inetpub\wwwroot\page1.htm into memory and streaming it back to the client.
A virtual directory is an entity that defines a child URL space nested within the URL space of its parent IIS Web site. Like an IIS Web site, a virtual directory is configured with a root directory on the file system of the hosting Web server.
Note that IIS tracks configuration information about its IIS Web sites and virtual directories in a repository known as the IIS metabase. The IIS metabase lives on the file system of each front-end Web server running IIS. For example, when you create and configure an IIS Web site using the IIS administration utility, IIS tracks these changes by writing entries to the local IIS metabase.
ISAPI Extensions and ISAPI Filters
In the most straightforward routing scenarios, IIS simply maps an incoming request to a physical file within the root directory of an IIS Web site or virtual directory. However, IIS also supports the Internet Server Application Programming Interface (ISAPI) programming model, which provides the opportunity for more sophisticated routing scenarios. In particular, the ISAPI programming model allows you to configure an IIS Web site or virtual directory so that incoming requests trigger the execution of custom code on the Web server.The ISAPI programming model consists of two primary component types: ISAPI extensions and ISAPI filters.
An ISAPI extension is a component DLL that plays the role of an endpoint for an incoming request. The fundamental concept is that IIS can map incoming requests to a set of endpoints that trigger the execution of code within an ISAPI extension DLL. An ISAPI extension DLL must be installed on the Web server and configured at the level of either an IIS Web site or virtual directory. Configuration commonly involves associating specific file extensions with the ISAPI extensions by using an IIS application map.
While an ISAPI extension serves as an endpoint, an ISAPI filter plays the role of an interceptor(interrupt/stop).An ISAPI filter is installed and configured at the level of the IIS Web site. Once installed, an ISAPI filter intercepts all incoming requests targeting that IIS Web site. The fundamental concept is that an ISAPI filter can provide pre-processing and post-processing for each and every incoming request. ISAPI filters are typically created to provide low-level functionality for an IIS Web site, such as custom authentication and request logging.
Application Pools and the IIS Worker Process
IIS provides a flexible infrastructure for managing worker processes by using application pools. An application pool is a configurable entity that allows you to control how IIS maps IIS Web sites and virtual directories to instances of the IIS worker process. Note that instances of the IIS worker process are launched using an executable named w3wp.exe, as shown in Figure 2-2.

The routing architecture of IIS is controlled by a kernel-level device driver named http.sys.This device driver listens for incoming HTTP requests and uses information in the IIS metabase to route them to whatever instance of w3wp.exe is associated with the target application pool. If http.sys determines that the target application pool doesn’t have a running instance of w3wp.exe, it launches a new instance on demand to process the request.
Every application pool has an important setting known as the application pool identity. The application pool identity is configured with a specific Windows user account that is either a local account on the Web server or a domain account within an Active Directory directory service domain. When http.sys launches a new instance of w3wp.exe for a specific application pool,it uses the application pool identity to initialize a Windows security token that serves as the process token.
ASP.NET 2.0 Framework
The ASP.NET Framework is implemented as an ISAPI extension named aspnet_isapi.dll. The basic configuration for ASP.NET involves registering application maps for common ASP.NET file extensions including .aspx, .ascx, .ashx, and .asmx at the level of an IIS Web site or virtual directory. When IIS sees an incoming request targeting a file with one of these extensions, it forwards the request to aspnet_isapi.dll, which effectively passes control over to the ASP.NET Framework.
Once the ASP.NET page parser builds the source file for an .aspx page, it can then compile it into a DLL. This compilation occurs automatically the first time the .aspx file is requested.Once the ASP.NET runtime has compiled an .aspx file into a DLL, that copy of the DLL can be used for all subsequent requests that target the same .aspx file. However, the ASP.NET runtime monitors the datetime stamp on the .aspx file and retriggers the compilation process to rebuild the DLL if it sees that the associated .aspx file has been updated.A page that links to a master page is known as a content page.
HTTP Request Pipeline
Figure 2-4 displays a picture of the HTTP Request Pipeline and its three replaceable component types: HttpHandler, HttpApplication, and HttpModule. As requests come in, they are queued up and assigned to a worker thread that then processes the request by interacting with each of these component types.

The ultimate destination of any request is the endpoint, which is modeled in the HTTP
Request Pipeline by using an HttpHandler class, which implements the IHttpHandler
interface. As a developer, you can create a custom HttpHandler component and plug it into the HTTP Request Pipeline by adding configuration elements to the web.config file.The HTTP Request Pipeline places an HttpApplication component in front of the HttpHandler.
On an application-wide basis, incoming requests are always routed through the HttpApplication before they reach the target HttpHandler, thus giving the HttpApplication the ability to preprocess any request no matter which HttpHandler it is being routed to. This preprocessing stage is handled through a series of events that are defined inside the HttpApplication class
such as BeginRequest, AuthenticateRequest, and AuthorizeRequest.
However, you can replace this standard component by creating a file named global.asax and placing it in the root directory of the hosting ASP.NET application. For example, you can create a global.asax that looks like the following:

protected void Application_AuthenticateRequest(object sender, EventArgs e) {
// your code goes here for request authentication
}
protected void Application_AuthorizeRequest(object sender, EventArgs e) {
// your code goes here for request authorization
}
The third replaceable component type in the HTTP Request Pipeline is the HttpModule. The HttpModule is similar to the HttpApplication component in that it is designed to handle events defined by the HttpApplication class and is processed before control is passed to any HttpHandler classes. For example, you can create a custom HttpModule component to handle request-level events such as BeginRequest, AuthenticateRequest, and AuthorizeRequest. As with the HttpHandler, an HttpModule class is defined with an interface. You can create a class that implements the IHttpModule interface and plug it into the HTTP Request Pipeline by adding configuration elements to the web.config file.
Whereas custom HttpApplication components can be defined as simple text files with an
.asax extension, custom HttpModule components are always compiled as classes within
assembly DLLs. To add a custom HttpModule component into the HTTP Request Pipeline,
you then add entries into a web.config file.
HttpModule components can be configured at the machine level. In fact, the ASP.NET
Framework ships with several different HttpModule components that are automatically
configured at the machine level to provide ASP.NET functionality for things such as Windows authentication, Forms authentication, and output caching.
The final component that we want to discuss with respect to the HTTP Request Pipeline is HttpContext. As ASP.NET initializes a request to send to the HTTP Request Pipeline, it creates an object from the HttpContext class and initializes it with important contextual information.The Object contains such as Request, User, and Response.
HttpContext currentContext = HttpContext.Current;
string incomingUrl = currentContext.Request.Url;
string currentUser = currentContext.User.Identity.Name;
currentContext.Response.Write("Hello world");
WSS Integration with ASP.NET
WSS integrates with ASP.NET at the level of the IIS Web site. Each IIS Web site in which you intend to host WSS sites must go through a one-time transformation process in which it is configured to become what WSS terminology refers to as a Web application. This transformation process involves adding IIS metabase entries and a WSS-specific web.config file to the root directory of the hosting IIS Web site. Once the transformation is completed, WSS extends the routing architecture of IIS and ASP.NET to properly route all incoming requests through the WSS runtime.
Creating a Web application requires a significant number of changes to the file system and the IIS metabase on each front-end Web server. In a Web farm environment, these changes are automatically mirrored across each front-end Web server in the farm by the WSS runtime.
Once a Web application is created, it is no longer necessary to touch the file system or IIS metabase of the front-end Web server when creating, updating, and deleting sites or site collections. The WSS architecture makes it possible to provision new sites and site collections simply by adding entries to the configuration database and a content database. It is this aspect of the WSS architecture that gives it significant management and provisioning advantages
over ASP.NET.
Web Applications
Two primary ways exist to create a Web application by using either the WSS Central Administration Application or the stsadm.exe command-line utility. First, you can create a Web application by converting an existing IIS Web site. Alternatively, you can create a new Web application from scratch and let WSS create the new IIS Web site for you behind the scenes. In either case, WSS configures the resulting IIS Web site by adding an IIS application map and creating several virtual directories. WSS also copies a global.asax file and web.config file to the root directory of the hosting IIS Web site.
WSS must add an IIS application map to each Web application to ensure that each and every incoming request is initially routed to the ASP.NET runtime. Remember that the default configuration for ASP.NET only registers application maps for requests with well-known ASP.NET file extensions such as .aspx, ascx, .ashx, and .asmx. Therefore, WSS configures the hosting IIS Web site with a wildcard application map to route all incoming requests to aspnet_isapi.dll, including those requests with non-ASP.NET extensions such as .doc, .docx, and .pdf.
Because every request targeting a Web application is routed through aspnet_isapi.dll, the request gets fully initialized with ASP.NET context. Furthermore, its processing behavior can be controlled by using a custom HttpApplication object and adding configuration elements to the web.config file. The WSS team uses standard ASP.NET techniques to extend the HTTP Request Pipeline by using several custom components, as shown in Figure 2-5.
First, you can see that WSS configures each Web application with a custom HttpApplication object by using the SPHttpApplication class. Note that this class is deployed in the WSS system assembly Microsoft.SharePoint.dll. WSS integrates this custom application class by creating a custom global.asax file at the root of the Web application that inherits from SPHttpApplication.

You can see that the standard WSS web.config file configures SPRequestModule so that it is the first HttpModule to respond to application-level events in the HTTP Request Pipeline of ASP.NET. If you examine the web.config file for a WSS Web application, you will see that WSS adds back in several of the standard HttpModule components from the ASP.NET Framework that deal with things such as output caching and various types of authentication.
SPVirtualPathProvider
One of the strengths of WSS over ASP.NET is its ability to provision and customize pages
within a site without having to make any changes to the local file system of the front-end Web
server. This capability of WSS to provision and customize pages is made possible by storing
customized versions of .aspx files and .master files inside the content database and retrieving
them on demand when they are needed to process an incoming page request.
when the same page is requested, WSS must retrieve the contents of this customized page definition from the content database and pass it along to the ASP.NET runtime for parsing. We will now explain the architectural details that make this possible.
ASP.NET 2.0 introduced a new pluggable component type known as a virtual path provider. The idea behind a virtual path provider is that it abstracts the details of where page files are stored away from the ASP.NET runtime. By creating a custom virtual path provider, a developer can write a custom component that retrieves ASP.NET file types, such as .aspx and .master files, from a remote location, such as a Microsoft SQL Server database. Once a virtual path provider retrieves the contents of an .aspx page, it can pass it along to the ASP.NET runtime for parsing.
SPVirtualPathProvider is able to retrieve an ASP.NET page file from the content database, such as default.aspx, and then pass it along to the ASP.NET page parser. The SPVirtualPathProvider class works together with another class named the SPPageParserFilter to supply processing instructions to the ASP.NET page parser. For example, the SPPageParserFilter component controls whether the ASP.NET page parser compiles the ASP.NET page into an assembly DLL or whether it processes the page in a no-compile mode that is introduced with ASP.NET 2.0.

Imagine that you have just created 100 new WSS sites from the Blank Site template. If none of these sites requires a customized version of its home page (default.aspx), would it still make sense to copy the exact same page definition file into the content database 100 times? The answer to this question is obviously no. Fortunately, pages within a WSS site such as default.aspx are based on page templates that live on the file system of the front-end Web server. Page templates are used to provision page instances within the context of a site, such as the page that is accessible through a specific URL like http://litwareinc.com/default.aspx.
When a page instance is initially provisioned from a page template, WSS doesn’t need to store a copy of it in the content database because WSS can load the page template from the file system of the Web server and use it to process any request for an uncustomized page instance.
Therefore, you can say that page ghosting describes the act of processing a request for an uncustomized page instance by using a page template loaded into memory from the file system of the front-end Web server.
Page ghosting is valuable because it eliminates the need to transfer the contents of a page definition file from the SQL Server computer with the content database to the front-end Web server computer. Page ghosting also makes it possible to process the home pages for thousands of different sites by using a single page template that is compiled into an assembly DLL and loaded into memory in the IIS worker process just once per Web application. Both of these optimizations are key factors in the scalability of WSS in high-traffic environments running thousands or tens of thousands of sites.
Customized pages are sometimes referred to as unghosted pages.
SPVirtualPathProvider that determines whether the page being requested has been
customized. The SPVirtualPathProvider makes the decision whether to process a page as a ghosted or an unghosted page.
The new architecture introduced in WSS 3.0, which includes the SPVirtualPathProvider and the ASP.Net page parser, should be seen as one of the more significant architectural enhancements over WSS 2.0.
When WSS converts an IIS Web site into a Web application, it creates several virtual directories. These virtual directories, including the _controltemplates directory, the _layouts directory, the _vti_bin directory, and the _wpresources directory, are used by various aspects of the WSS runtime. The _wpresources virtual directory provides a repository for resource files that are deployed along with Web Parts.
Application pages are served up from the _layouts directory.

Introduction to Features in Sharepoint-Part2-Chapter1

2008-06-05T07:15:00.000-07:00

Features provide a mechanism for defining site elements and adding them
to a target site or site collection through a process known as feature activation. The element types that can be defined by a feature include menu commands, link commands, page templates, page instances, list definitions, list instances, event handlers, and workflows.
At a physical level, a feature consists of a directory created within a special WSS system directory located within the file system of each front-end Web server. The directory for a feature contains one or more XML-based files that contain Collaborative Application Markup Language (CAML). By convention, each feature directory contains a manifest file named feature.xml that defines the high-level attributes of the feature, such as its ID and its userfriendly Title.
Programming Against the WSS Object Model
static void Main() {
string sitePath = "http://litwareinc.com";
// enter object model through site collection.
SPSite siteCollection = new SPSite(sitePath);
// obtain reference to top-level site.
SPWeb site = siteCollection.RootWeb;
// enumerate through lists of site
foreach (SPList list in site.Lists) {
if(!list.Hidden)
Console.WriteLine(list.Title);
}
// clean up by calling Dispose.
site.Dispose();
siteCollection.Dispose();
}

Future.xml
feature id="B2CB42E2-4F0A-4380-AABA-1EF9CD526F20" title="A Sample Feature: Hello World" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/" description="This demoware was created by NaveedShare-LicenseToPlay " scope="Web" hidden="FALSE" imageurl="TPG\WhitePithHelmet.gif" receiverassembly="HelloWorld, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b38a04419cc857d9" receiverclass="HelloWorld.FeatureReceiver">

elementmanifests>
elementmanifest location="elements.xml">
/elementmanifests>

/feature>
elements.xml
elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">

customaction id="SiteActionsToolbar" title="Hello World" description="A custom menu item added using a feature" imageurl="_layouts/images/crtsite.gif" location="Microsoft.SharePoint.StandardMenu" groupid="SiteActions" sequence="100">
urlaction url="http://msdn.microsoft.com">
/customaction>

/elements>
FeatureReceiver.cs
using System;
using Microsoft.SharePoint;

namespace HelloWorld {

public class FeatureReceiver : SPFeatureReceiver {

// no functionality required for install/uninstall events
public override void FeatureInstalled(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties) { }
public override void FeatureUninstalling(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties) { }

public override void FeatureActivated(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties) {
SPWeb site = (SPWeb)properties.Feature.Parent;
// track original site Title using SPWeb property bag
site.Properties["OriginalTitle"] = site.Title;
site.Properties.Update();
// update site title
site.Title = "Hello World";
site.Update();
}

public override void FeatureDeactivating(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties) {
// reset site Title back to its original value
SPWeb site = (SPWeb)properties.Feature.Parent;
site.Title = site.Properties["OriginalTitle"];
site.Update();
}
}
}
Install.bat
@SET TEMPLATEDIR="c:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\Template"
@SET STSADM="c:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\bin\stsadm"
@SET GACUTIL="c:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\Bin\gacutil.exe"

Echo Installing HelloWorld.dll in GAC
%GACUTIL% -if bin\debug\HelloWorld.dll

Echo Copying files to TEMPLATE directory
xcopy /e /y TEMPLATE\* %TEMPLATEDIR%

Echo Installing feature
%STSADM% -o installfeature -filename HelloWorld\feature.xml -force

IISRESET

REM cscript c:\windows\system32\iisapp.vbs /a "SharePointDefaultAppPool" /r
Once you have added the install.bat file, you can configure Visual Studio to run it each time you rebuild the HelloWorld project by going to the Build Events tab within the Project Properties and adding the following post-build event command line instructions.
cd $(ProjectDir)
Install.bat
The properties parameter is based on the SPFeatureReceiverProperties class that exposes a Feature property that, in turn, exposes a Parent property that holds a reference to the current site.

Introduction to Sharepoint 2007-part1

2008-06-05T05:10:00.000-07:00

After a long time i come back to my home site.While this around last one year lot of things happend.
k...mum...
from now onwords i have been blogging...
From this blog on words i posted my learning MOSS stuff step -by-step.This is Categerized Chapters N Parts.
I hope MOSS hunters will Enjoy through my posts and my Chapters will stop digging MOSS...
Start Machiiiiii...start
Chapter 1
Getting Started
SharePoint technologies provide an effective solution for creating team sites to facilitate collaboration in a LAN-based environment and make it easier to manage content in an Internet-facing site that can scale to accommodate thousands of users in a Web farm environment.
Windows SharePoint Services as a development platform.
Our goal is to teach you how to create, debug, and deploy the fundamental building blocks such as Features, Site Definitions, Page Templates,Web Parts, List Schemas, Content Types, Event Handlers, and Workflow Templates.
Site Provisioning
WSS is a site provisioning engine.
The act of provisioning (a fancy word for creating) a site in WSS can be accomplished by any member of the IT department in less than a minute by filling in the required information in a browser-based form and clicking the OK button. There’s no need for a database administrator to create a new database or any new tables. There’s no need
for an ASP.NET developer to create a new ASP.NET Web site. There’s no need for a system administrator to copy any files or configure any IIS settings on the front-end Web server.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
WSS is included as a part of the Windows Server 2003 operating system while MOSS is a separate product . You should think of WSS as the underlying platform and think of MOSS as a value-added set of components and services that has been built on top of this platform.
WSS does not have its own licensing model. Instead, the use of WSS is controlled through Windows Server 2003 licenses. MOSS, on the other hand, has its own licensing model.

farm is a set of one or more server computers working together to provide WSS functionality to clients. Each WSS farm runs a single SQL Server database known as the configuration database. The configuration database tracks important farm-wide information. For example, the configuration database tracks which front-end Web servers are associated with the farm as well as which users have been assigned administrative permissions within WSS at the farm level.
WSS is built on top of Internet Information Services 6.0 (IIS). In particular, WSS relies on IIS Web sites to handle incoming HTTP requests. Therefore, you need to understand exactly what an IIS Web site really is. An IIS Web site provides an entry point into the IIS Web server infrastructure. For example, the Default Web Site created automatically by IIS listens for incoming HTTP requests on port 80. You can create additional IIS Web sites to provide additional entry points using different port numbers, different IP addresses, or different host headers.
An IIS Web site must be specially configured when it is used to serve up WSS sites.
An IIS Web site that has been specially configured to run WSS sites is known as a Web application.Every WSS site runs in the context of a specific Web application.
The installation of WSS creates and configures a Web application named the WSS 3.0 Central Administration application. The WSS 3.0 Central Administration application provides pages that allow you to perform administrative chores such as converting a standard IIS Web site into a WSS Web application. The WSS Central Administration application also provides the option to create a new IIS Web site and automatically configure it to be a WSS Web application as well, all without having to use any of the IIS administration tools directly.

Default Web Site can be configured as a WSS Web application to make WSS sites available through the standard HTTP port 80. You might decide to create additional Web applications within the farm such as an intranet Web application on port 1000. WSS configuration data is stored on a farm-wide basis in the configuration database, and the data associated with WSS sites is tracked in another type of database known as a content database. When you create a new Web application with the WSS 3.0 Central Administration application, WSS creates a new content database. If you stick with a simple deployment model, your farm will include one content database for each Web application,as shown in Figure 1-2.

Sites and Site Collections
What is a WSS site? First, a WSS site is a storage container for content. Site content is primarily stored in the form of lists, document libraries, and child sites. Second, a site is a securable entity whose content is accessible to a configurable set of users.
Note that WSS doesn’t actually perform user authentication. Instead, WSS relies on the underlying layers within IIS and the ASP.NET authentication provider infrastructure to accomplish that. However, WSS does take charge when it comes to authorization. WSS provides user interface elements and supporting code that allows privileged users to configure authorization to various elements within their sites.
Every WSS site must be provisioned within the scope of an existing Web application. Instead, every WSS site must also be created inside the scope of a site collection. A site collection is a container of WSS sites. Each site collection requires a top-level site. In addition to the required top-level site, a site collection can contain a hierarchy of child sites. Figure 1-3 shows several possible site collections.

WSS architecture sees each site collection as an island with respect to security configuration.
The STSADM.EXE Command Line Utility
Here’s an example of a command line instruction to create a new site collection at a specific URL.
STSADM.EXE –o CreateSite –url http://localhost/sites/Sales
-ownerlogin LitwareServer\BrianC
-owneremail brianc@litwareinc.com
-sitetemplate STS#0
c:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\12 called as system directory.
Users can also create several types of custom site elements for reuse across all the sites within a site collection. For example, if you create a site column within a top-level site, then this site column is reusable in all the child sites down below. This allows you to define the column characteristics such as formatting, validation, or a choice list one time and then to use this reusable column type across many lists within the site collection.
The standard Site Settings page for a top-level site is shown in Figure 1-8.

The Site Actions menu also provides the Create menu command, which takes you to the Create Page, as shown in Figure 1-9.

Customization changes are seen by all users. Personalization changes are seen by only the user who made them.
A site customization never requires touching the front-end Web server. WSS development, on the other hand, involves working with files that must be deployed to the file system of the front-end Web server. WSS development includes creating page templates and list definitions, as well as creating components deployed in compiled assemblies such as custom Web Parts, event handlers, and workflow templates. WSS development at this level is also referred to as developing provisioning components.
A site column is a reusable column definition that can be used across multiple lists. A site column defines the name for a column, its underlying field type, and other characteristics such as the default value, formatting, and validation.
A content type is a flexible and reusable WSS type definition that defines the columns
and behavior for an item in a list or a document in a document library. For example, you can create a content type for a customer presentation document with a unique set of columns, an event handler, and its own document template. You can create a second content type for a customer proposal document with a different set of columns, a workflow, and a different document template. A content type deal with heterogeneous types of content in lists and document libraries.
WSS is built on top of Microsoft’s new Windows Workflow Foundation that is part of the .NET Framework 3.0.WSS adds an extra dimension on top of the Windows Workflow Foundation to provide a foundation for attaching business logic to list items and documents in a WSS site.
Both WSS and MOSS ship with workflows that are installed and ready to use. WSS includes a simple routing workflow for things such as moderation and approval.

how to create a sharepoint site,pages,edit the page and page templates in MOSS207

2007-07-06T03:18:00.000-07:00

Administration Guide For a Internet Site

Office SharePoint server 2007 Internet portal site
My portal site is a Windows SharePoint services site collection containing a top level site and several child sites (aka sub sites) underneath it.
My Site Architecture looks like the following diagram

Creating a portal site using the Windows Sharepoint services central Administration application
If we want to create a portal site from the scratch then first of all we need to create a new web application. Creating a new web application and creating site collections, top level sites can be done from the SharePoint central administration application.

Let's open the SharePoint 3.0 central administration application from the start menu and Navigate to the application management page (a link is there at the top of the page) and here we will see a link like create/extend web application-which is basically used to create or extend a web application.

Clicking on this link will bring a page where we can create a new web application.
On the Application Management page, in the SharePoint Web Application Management section, click Create or extend Web application.
On the Create or Extend Web Application page, in the Adding a SharePoint Web Application section, click Create a new Web Application.
On the Create New Web Application page, in the IIS Web Site section, select one of the following:
• In the Description box, accept the given description or type a new description for the Web application.
In the Port box, accept the given value or type a new value for the port the Web application will use.
Leave Host header as Blank.
In the Path box, accept the given path
. In the Security Configuration section, under Authentication provider, select NTLM (which is by default checked)
Under Allow Anonymous, select Yes.
Under Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), select No (which is by default checked)
In the Load Balanced URL section accept the URL provided.
In the Application Pool section go with default values, and provide username and password in Configurable section.
In the Database Name and Authentication section give a meaningful name as Database Name.

Leave any other sections as Default and click OK.
Now a web Application will be Created. [Note: This process will take few minutes]

After filling up the data that are required to create a new web application we will have a link called site collection. This is the link that will create a site collection inside this newly created web application. So we have a top level site here. Now we can start developing on this top level site or even we can create sub sites/child sites underneath of this site.

In Create Site Collection Page Title and Description spacify your Toplevel site Tile you would like (For Example “Start”) and fill Description.
Most Important Section is Selection of Template Section .In our contest we are selecting Publishing Portal (In “Select a template” section click on Publishing button, in this collaboration, publishing portal template has come).
In Primary Site Collection Administrator section spacify the administrator for this website collection. Click OK. [Note: This process will take few minutes]

Click on http://servername:port/ .
How to create a sub-site
I would like to create a subsite. OK [See the Architecture diagram for better clarification]
Goto SiteActions->Click on Create Site

In Title section Spacify your site Name and Description.
In Web Site Address section spacify your name what u wish.
In Template Section select your template what u want.(You can add more templates in Template Section).See How to save a site as a template section in this documentation
Other sections are default.
Click OK.
How to Delete a site
Here HR,Press Releases are two sites.
Click on site name you wish to delete (For example: Press Releases)
Click on Modify All Site Sections

Click on Delete the site in the Site Administration section in the following page. You can delete your site(and all the sub-sites in the underneath of your selected site).

How to create a New Page
First choose under which site u would like to create a new page.Click on that Site,Next Goto SiteActions ->Click on Create Page.

In the above page Page Title and Despcripion section spacify your page name and in Page layout section select proper page layout.Next click on Create.
In the above diagram you can edit content, you can add webparts wherever you want. Next you check in your page. At last you have to publish your page.
How to Edit a page
From Site Actions->Click Edit Page
Suppose I would like to add a webpart to my page.On the above diagram Click at “Add a Web Part” where you want to add your webpart.

One separate window will come.In this a collection of web parts are available from various sections like List and libraries,All web parts etc…
Select proper webpart click Add button.
Suppose I added a Content Query Web Part it looks like the following

If you would like to edit the properties of a webpart
Click on edit on pop-up manu will appear->Click on Modify Shared Web Part.One properties window will come.From here you can change .Show below window.
How to save a site as a template
On browser use this http://servername:portno/site/_layouts/savetmpl.aspx click enter.
Click OK Button.

If u want to check the site template goto SiteSettings in Look and Feel Section click on Pagelayouts and Site Templates.
In the above diagram Select our “ementor_template” click add .Next click OK button.
If u want to create a new site using your ementor_template.When you create a new site select your template from Template Section .

Dedicated to Sharepoint Stuff

2007-07-04T22:20:00.000-07:00

This blog is dedicated to SharePoint N other MS Technologies.
It will be only WSS 3.O and MOSS2007.
The following posts will be a series of articales of each bussiness problem i faced in my real time with solutions.
Enjoy!

Hi Good Mornig to All

2007-07-04T21:36:00.000-07:00

This is Naveed.
From today onwords i am ready to post my views N opinions on my blogs.I hope all r enjoy.I wellcome to all for ur suggesions N guidence.