Medhat Elmasry

How do you find out the name of a feature from the GUID in SharePoint 2010?

2012-02-01T11:09:00.000-08:00

While trying to import an exported site onto a different SharePoint instance, I encountered the following error:

The site template requires that the Feature {d57f4817-f1f9-42aa-863c-139804c731b0} be installed in the farm or site collection.

Troubleshoot issues with Microsoft SharePoint Foundation.

Correlation ID: 59577f16-fffc-422c-8b16-458cfb62adaf

I needed to figure out what feature was missing on the destination SharePoint 2010 instance. The following Powershell command came in handy:

PS C:\> GET-SPFeature -Identity "d57f4817-f1f9-42aa-863c-139804c731b0"

DisplayName                    Id                                       Scope
-----------                    --                                       -----
FBAManagement                  d57f4817-f1f9-42aa-863c-139804c731b0     Site

It turned out that I had installed a codeplex "Forms Based Authentication Management" feature on the source site that facilitates managing forms-based authentication users with the aspnetdb.mdf database.

Easy way to create a site template in SharePoint 2010

2012-02-01T10:38:00.000-08:00

Even though it is not as obvious as in SharePoint 2007, here's an easy way to create a site template for a site that you would like to reuse:

1) Go to the site that you want to create a site template for. Example: http://sp.abc.com/marketing/default.aspx

2) Add the "_layouts/SaveTmpl.aspx" to the site's URL. Example: http://sp.abc.com/marketing/_layouts/SaveTmpl.aspx

3) This brings you back to the familiar dialog from the SharePoint 2007 days. The site template is saved in the
root site Solutions gallery under: Site Actions >> Galleries >> Solutions

Cannot find "Team Site" on SharePoint 2010

2012-02-01T10:27:00.000-08:00

I installed a SharePoint 2010 web site based on the "Publishing Site" template. When I came to create sub sites I could not find the many templates (including Team Site) that I was accustomed to under SharePoint 2007. It turned out that they included but need to be brought to the surface. Here's how you can make them available:

Site Actions >> Look and Feel >> Page layouts and site templates

All the templates are in the first listbox. Add them then click OK. Voila... you can now create new sites based on this template.

LINQ to SQL not working on SharePoint 2010

2011-08-12T15:18:00.000-07:00

I recently created a user control that was hosted on a SharePoint 2010 server using the Smart Part. This user control contained a simple LINQ to SQL statement that looked like this:

int count = (from address in db.JobsDistribution
where address.Active == true
select address).Count();

I was getting a compile error: Missing ; on line xx.

It turned that the default compiler used by the SharePoint 2010 web application was .NET Framework 2.0. This issue was fixed by adding the following section in the web.config file of the application within the <configuration> section:

<system.codedom>

    <compilers>

      <compiler language="c#;cs;csharp" extension=".cs" type="Microsoft.CSharp.CSharpCodeProvider,System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" warningLevel="4">

        <providerOption name="CompilerVersion" value="v3.5"/>

        <providerOption name="WarnAsError" value="false"/>

      </compiler>

      <compiler language="vb;vbs;visualbasic;vbscript" extension=".vb" type="Microsoft.VisualBasic.VBCodeProvider, System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" warningLevel="4">

        <providerOption name="CompilerVersion" value="v3.5"/>

        <providerOption name="OptionInfer" value="true"/>

        <providerOption name="WarnAsError" value="false"/>

      </compiler>

    </compilers>

  </system.codedom>

Dealing with error "Login failed for user ‘IIS APPPOOL\DefaultAppPool" on Windows 7.

2010-10-05T17:10:00.000-07:00

The cause of this error is that a login is being attempted to a database with the "ApplicationPoolIdentity" account. In a development environment, you would prefer using your credentials to log into a SQL Express database. This can be fixed by doing the following:

Go to IIS Manager
Click on Application Pools
Click on the offending application pool
Click on the "Advanced Settings ..." link on the right-hand-side
Find the "Identity" property and change it from "ApplicationPoolIdentity" to "LocalSystem"

How to display the ID number on edit and display forms in SharePoint 2007?

2010-08-19T13:09:00.000-07:00

We will use the content editor webpart to add Javascript that will display the ID. However, most edit and display forms do not allow you to add a webpart. This can be easily rectified by adding "&ToolPaneView=2" to the URL in the browser address line.
Add a content editor webpart right above the form. Set the "Chome Type" to none in the "Appearance" section of the webpart.
Click on the "Source Editor" button of the webpart.
Add the following HTML/Javascript:

2010-07-24T11:18:00.000-07:00

Are you:

a developer in Greater Vancouver area?
curious about the evolving trend toward "Rich Interactive Applications" (RIA) on the web?
interested or involved in Silverlight development?
looking to take advantage of new opportunities offered by Microsoft's upcoming release of the Windows Phone 7 platform?

The newly formed Vancouver Silverlight User Group is putting out the call for new members and now is a great time to get involved with this powerful and creative technology

DevTeach's Jean-Roy Rene has generously offered a free registration to their "Windows Phone 7 Bootcamp" being held in Vancouver on August 30-31, 2010 as an incentive for new members to join the VanSLUG community.

As an additional incentive for all new members, we will be holding an exclusive presentation by Colin Melia, the Bootcamp trainer) to our registered membership around the time of DevTeach/Bootcamp being held in Vancouver (TBD, sometime near the end of August).

Whether you are looking to improve your professional understanding, a way to express your creative curiosity or to find a place to network with your peers, we look forward to meeting you at our presentations and events.

For more information on VanSLUG, the Vancouver Silverlight User Group, please check out: http://www.vanslug.net/For more information on DevTeach please check out: http://www.devteach.com/For more information on Windows Phone 7 Bootcamp, please check out: http://www.devteach.com/SpecialEvent.aspx

Installing DotNetNuke (DNN) under Windows 7

2010-05-09T22:59:00.000-07:00

Many of my students at BCIT have asked me for help with the installation of DotNetNuke (DNN) under IIS 7 on Windows 7. This is a little bit different from previous Windows operating systems because of the security model and the default application pool account that IIS 7 uses.

The prerequisite is to have SQL Server Express and the IIS feature activated on your Windows 7 environment.

Here are the steps that I recomended to my students:

Download DNN from http://dotnetnuke.codeplex.com/releases/view/44102 and install it in a directory like c:\DotNetNuke
Copy "release.config" to "web.config" in the root directory of DNN
In IIS 7 add a "New Application" under the "Default Web Site" pointing to the location where DNN was installed (like c:\DotNetNuke).
Create a new application pool named "dnn" in IIS 7. Changed "Load user profile" property to "False" by clicking on the "Advanced Settings" link of the "dnn" application pool.
Set the application pool for your "Default Web Site" to "dnn" by clicking on the "Basic Settings" link
Give the physical directory of your site (I.E. c:\DotNetNuke) full access permission to account "IIS AppPool\dnn"
Point your browser to http://localhost/DotNetNuke. If all goes well you will enter the DNN configuration wizard.

Vancouver Silverlight User Group (VanSLUG.NET) Launch

2010-05-09T21:37:00.000-07:00

On May 5, 2010 I launched the Vancouver Silverlight User Group which I named VanSLUG. The group's web site is at http://vanslug.net/. The first meeting was held at BCIT and was co-hosted by VanSPUG, .netBC, and VanSLUG. Habaneros sponsored the snacks. We had attendance of over 80 people.

The speaker was Laurent Duveau, who is a Silverlight MVP from Quebec City. He gave a talk entitled "Silverlight 4 Business Applications". His presentation was very well received and he got many questions from the audience. He has blogged about the event at:

http://weblogs.asp.net/lduveau/archive/2010/05/09/my-talk-at-the-launch-of-the-vancouver-silverlight-user-group.aspx

You can download his presentation and examples from the above site.

Getting FTP to work on Windows 2008 server

2010-05-06T21:32:00.000-07:00

I installed the FTP server feature on a Windows 2008 server. However, when I tried to connect from an FTP client, I consistantly got an error suggesting that the directory could not be listed, even though authentication went through. I checked the Windows Firewall setting and found that "FTP Server" was indeed checked in the exceptions list. A quick google saved my day. You can configure the Windows Firewall to allow non-secure FTP traffic with these two command-line commands:

1) Open port 21 on the firewall
netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="FTP (no SSL)" action=allow protocol=TCP dir=in localport=21
2) Activate firewall application filter for FTP (aka Stateful FTP) that will dynamically open ports for data connections
netsh advfirewall set global StatefulFtp enable

Kudos to this site: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/winserver2008appcompatabilityandcertification/thread/72ea0c7d-1071-4637-a38f-e77195e8a738

Installing "RIA Services" on IIS 7

2010-04-18T12:11:00.000-07:00

To install "RIA Services" in an IS 7.x environment:

1) Download the "RiaServices.msi" file from the Microsoft download page for "WCF RIA Services Release Candidate 2 for Silverlight 4 and Visual Studio 2010".

2) Since you are not expected to have Visual Studio .NET 2010 on the server, it suffices that you only install the assemblies into the GAC. This is done by installing the msi file with these command line swithches:

msiexec /i RiaServices.msi SERVER=TRUE

Cannot uninstall "WCF RIA Services Beta"

2010-04-17T19:01:00.000-07:00

There is a bug in "WCF RIA Services Beta" software that makes it almost impossible to uninstall it from add/remove programs in windows. The side effect is that you cannot install the "Silverlight tooks for Visual Studio 2010" without completely uninstalling "WCF RIA Services Beta".

I found this article that proposes a brute force solution to this problem:

http://forums.silverlight.net/forums/p/149912/334721.aspx

How do you add a list ID to a form?

2009-12-02T14:48:00.000-08:00

Add a calculated field column with formula "=ID".

Building LOB Applications with Silverlight 3

2009-11-23T21:05:00.000-08:00

I had a blast at the TechFest 2009 event held at BCIT in Burnaby, BC on Saturday November 21, 2009. We had about 250 attendees out of 500 registrations. The initial feedback I got from attendees was very positive. My only disappointment is that I lost the camera used to take pictures of the event. It is more to do with the value of the pictures rather than the camera itself. Oh well, shit happens.

I gave a talk at TechFest 2009 on the topic of "Building LOB Applications with Silverlight 3". You can download the powerpoint and demo code from this link:

http://penguin.bcit.ca/medhat/techfest2009/SilverlightLobApps.zip

Vancouver TechFest 2009

2009-10-16T11:19:00.000-07:00

All user group and technology community leaders in Vancouver are working closely together in organizing Techfest-2009. Mark November 21, 2009 on your calendar; it's a Saturday and as usual the sessions will appeal to both Developers and IT Professionals. More details are at http://codecamp.ca/.

The event will be held at three lecture theatres at the BCIT campus in Burnaby, BC. We are oganizing a nerds dinner at the Professor Mugs pub, also at BCIT, a night before the event on Friday November 20, 2009 from 6:30 PM to 9:30 PM. Attendees to the dinner are expected to pay for their own food and drink. Come to the dinner and mingle with your community leaders, fellow nerds, John Bristowe of Microsoft, and speakers.

Registration is now open! Register at: http://vantechfest.eventbrite.com/. This event is filling fast so don't wait.

Get ready for an exciting line up of industry professionals providing you with free training; and be sure to bring your laptops, FREE WiFi will be available for all attendees.

Don't bother to bring lunch, its FREE as well, courtesy of Microsoft!

Although Rob Chartier is spear-heading this event, I am very proud that all user groups leaders in Vancover are actively involved in things like:

- securing the BCIT venue
- securing sponsorship
- finding speakers
- spreading the word
- developing an event website

I should also thanks John Bristowe of Microsoft for being actively involved in planning with us this event and offering valuable ideas. He also organizes a weekly conference call where we all update one another on the status of things pertaining to TechFest 2009. It is shaping up to be a super festival of technology.

Tweaking IIS & web.config connection timeout setting

2009-09-23T12:55:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Internet Information Services

If IIS is timing out when you upload large files, you can change "Connection Timeout" property to ensure that larger files can be uploaded successfully.

Go to Start –> All Programs -> Administrative Tools –> Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
Right-click the virtual server you want to configure, and then choose Properties.
Click the Web Site tab.
In the Connections section, in the Connection timeout box, type the number of seconds you want IIS to wait before timing out.
Click OK to save settings.

Web.config

There are other settings that you can change in the web.config file that also affect connection timeout.

Update maxRequestLength and executionTimeout attributes belonging to the httpRuntime tag.

executionTimeout = <Time in Seconds>

maxRequestLength = <File size in KB> (by default for ASP.NET applications, its set to 4096 (4MB), but because SharePoint supports 50MB so its set to 51200)

Example:


<httpRuntime executionTimeout="999999" maxRequestLength="102400" />

Extending session timeout for SharePoint 2007 instance using forms-based autentication.

2009-09-23T12:36:00.000-07:00

Change the timeout attribute belonging to the forms tag in the web.config file:

<forms loginUrl="Login.aspx" timeout="300"/>

This will force a timeout in 5 minutes of inactivity.

This setting equally applies to any ASP.NET application that uses forms-based authentication.

Using blogger for my blog

2009-09-21T12:45:00.001-07:00

On Sunday September 20, 2009 I moved all my blog postings from my own SharePoint 2007 server located at http://cisa.ca/ to blogger.com. I have nothing against SharePoint 2007 as it served me quite well. I decided to move my blog because I started seriously falling behind on backups of the blog site and felt that sooner or later I may lose everything. I found blogger.com to be easy to use. More importantly, I do not need to worry about backups as I trust google will take care of that.

How do I disable User Account Control (UAC) in Windows Server 2008?

2009-07-22T12:44:00.000-07:00

Control Panel => User Accounts

Click "Turn User Account Control on or off"

Uncheck "Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer"

Click on "OK" button

How to unsubscribe (or remove) yourself from a SharePoint 2007 alert?

2009-06-24T12:42:00.000-07:00

In SharePoint one can subscribe to any document libraray or list to be sent alerts when changes occur such us additions, deletions, and updates. This is done by choosing "Actions" => "Alert Me".

If one wishes not to receive alerts anymore, it is not that apparent how to do it. Well, you would need to go to "Site Actions" => "Site Settings" => "User Alerts". Choose the user in question and subsequently delete him/her from the appropriate list or document library alert.

Presentation to VanSPUG on Enhancing SharePoint with Silverlight 2.0

2009-05-13T12:26:00.000-07:00

VanSPUG (Vancouver SharePoint User Group) is less than one year old. I can proudly say that I was a catalyst in the establishment of this young user group when I helped Peter McFarlane organize the launch event on September 17, 2008 at my BCIT workplace. Since then I have attended most of their meetings. Therefore, it was certainly an honor for me to be a speaker for the first time.

I had a blast when I presented at VanSPUG yesterday evening on the topic of "Enhance SharePoint with Silverlight 2.0". The event started just after 6:30 PM and ended promptly at 8:15 PM becuase we had to vacate the meeting room. Sherman was my host who did a good job introducing me at the start. The event was attended by about 30 people and was held at the Microsoft offices at 1111 West Georgia Street in downtown Vancouver. I would have liked to have questions from those who attended. Actually, I cannot recall even a single question. Oh well ...

For those who are interested in the resources clck here to download my powerpoint presentation + examples.

Enabling Entity Framework (ADO.NET Entity Data Model) in a SharePoint 2007 web.config file

2009-03-06T12:23:00.000-08:00

The Entity Framework is considered to be the modern day successor to "LINQ to SQL". If you wish to use this technology in a SharePoint 2007 web part you will need to tweak your web.config file to accomodate the new assemblies that are associated with the Entity Framework. Here are the changes that you need to apply to your web.config file:

1) Add the following tags to the <compilation><assemblies> section:

<add assembly="System.Data.Entity, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=B77A5C561934E089" />

<add assembly="System.Data.Entity.Design, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=B77A5C561934E089" />

<add assembly="System.Web.Entity, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=B77A5C561934E089" />

2) Add the following tags to the <compilation> section just under the closing </assemblies> tag:

<buildProviders>

<add extension=".edmx" type="System.Data.Entity.Design.AspNet.EntityDesignerBuildProvider" />

</buildProviders>

How can you get the thumbnail for an image in your SharePoint picture library?

2009-03-03T12:21:00.000-08:00

This is much easier than I had imagined. At first I thought I need to do some programming with the SharePoint Object Model APIs. It turned out to be nothing of the sort.

Let us assume that you have a photograph located in your picture library named "pictures" at this URL:

http://www.spserver.com/spsite/pictures/joe_smith.jpg

The thumbnail for the above picture is located at:

http://www.spserver.com/spsite/pictures/_t/joe_smith_jpg.jpg

As you can see, here's what I did:

1) tag a directory "_t" to the the URL just before the filename.

2) tag "_jpg" to the filename just before the extention. This would have been "_gif" if you are dealing with a GIF file.

Voila, if you point your browser to this tweaked URL you will get your thumbnail.

You will get a larger image if you use _w instead of _t.

Painless eh. . .

How to use JavaScript to close an IE7 browser window without seeing the confirmation dialog?

2009-02-18T12:20:00.000-08:00

<a href="javascript: window.open('','_parent','');window.close();">Close this window!</a><br />

What is a quick way to get a .NET assembly's PublicKeyToken?

2008-12-04T12:19:00.000-08:00

The quick and dirty way is to go into the .NET command prompt and type the following:

sn -T MyDotNetAssembly.dll

The above utilizes the strong name utility that comes with the .NET Framework.

Download tracking with WSS 3.0

2008-11-26T12:17:00.000-08:00

WSS 3.0 does not have a mechanism for tracking who downloads which files with authenticated users. When I got confronted with this task, I decided to create a web user control that reads all the files in a document library and subsequently displays the file names using a series of "LinkButton" controls. I then attached this web user control to a SharePoint WSS 3.0 web page. I decided against using a Hyperlink object in favor of a LinkButton ASP.NET control for the following two reasons:

1) With a HyperLink ASP.NET control, users can right-click on the anchor and choose "Save target as" to save the file. This is not desirable because no event is triggered when that happens. On the other hand, a LinkButton control does not produce a right-click popup in a browser leaving the user with no choice but to click on the link.

2) I needed to put some business logic behind the click event of the LinkButton. The business logic essentially saves statistics along the lines of: timestamp, host address, user ID, and filename.

How to programatically delete a SharePoint 2007 field belonging to a list or document library?

2008-10-22T12:16:00.000-07:00

Here's the code for deleting a field named "phone" in list "myList" on a site with URL http://mysite/:

try {

using (SPSite sitecollection = new SPSite("http://mysite/")) {

using (SPWeb web = sitecollection.OpenWeb()) {

web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;

// Delete Sharepoint SPField

web.Lists["myList"].Fields.Delete("phone");

web.Update();

Console.WriteLine("Done deleting column");

}

}

} catch (Exception ex) {

Console.WriteLine(ex.ToString());

}

How do you break up a long SharePoint 2007 survey?

2008-10-21T12:14:00.000-07:00

What do you do if you have a long SharePoint 2007 survey and you want to break it up into separate pages such that the user needs to click the "Next" button?

Solution:

You must use branching on selected questions for this. All branching items would simply point to the next question. That produces a “Next” button.

How to use built-in SharePoint 2007 engine to send email?

2008-07-24T23:34:00.000-07:00

A straightforward way of sending email from within a SharePoint 2007 application is to use the Object Model. Here is some C# code that will do it for you:

bool isAppendHtmlTag = true;
bool isHtmlEncode = false;
string recipient = "whoever@whatever.com";
string title = "This is the title";
string body = "This is the email <strong>body</strong>";

Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.SPUtility.SendEmail(
Microsoft.SharePoint.SPContext.Current.Web,
isAppendHtmlTag,
isHtmlEncode,
recipient,title,
body);

Generating user instances in SQL Server is disabled. Use sp_configure 'user instances enabled' to generate user instances.

2008-07-20T23:30:00.000-07:00

Recently I noticed that many of my ASP.NET applications that work with a SQL Server Express database that resides in the App_Data directory stopped working. The culprit error was "Generating user instances in SQL Server is disabled. Use sp_configure 'user instances enabled' to generate user instances.". I suspect that a SQL Server update went out that disables user instances. I have not been able to substantiate this suspicion yet.

SOLUTION:

The solution is to enable user instances with the following command:

sp_configure 'user instances enabled','1';

Disable user instances with the following command:

sp_configure 'user instances enabled','0';

How to change the connection string name in a .NET 3.5 LINQ to SQL class?

2008-07-18T23:28:00.000-07:00

Here's the scenario:

You developed an application that uses "LINQ to SQL" with a connection string name (say aa-db). In production you want the name to be different (say bb-db). What do you need to do to change the connection string name?

1) Open the *.dbml file in a text editor.

2) Change the "SettingsPropertyName=" property to the new name

3) Open the "*.designer.cs" file that is associated with the LINQ class and change the value of global::System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings[...].

How to edit group on the SharePoint quicklaunch in WSS 3.0 (and MOSS 2007)?

2008-07-18T23:23:00.000-07:00

It is always a good idea to lock down SharePoint sites such that users do not see more information than they need to. At the organization where I work, we have a plethora of SharePoint groups. With any new website that gets created, a user with full rights gets to see a list of all the groups by going to "Site Actions / Site Settings / Advanced Permissions". There is always the danger that a user can inadvertently delete or add a user to the wrong group. One simple solution is to remove unneeded groups from the quicklaunch. Here's what you can do:

Click on Site Actions / Site Settings / Advanced Permissions
Click on any group on the quicklaunch under "Groups"
Click on Settings / Edit Group Quick Launch
On the "Edit Group Quick Launch" page, highlight any group and hit the delete key on your keyboard

What is an easy way to find out the internal name of a SharePoint 2007 list column?

2008-07-02T23:20:00.000-07:00

The internal name of a SharePoint list column can be different from the display name. This could happen if a column name has been renamed to something else. For example, if you rename the "Title" column to, say, "Company Name", the internal name remains as "Title". Also, spaces in the display name are replaced with "_x0020_" in the internal name. The internal name of "Contract_x0020_Type" would be used for display name "Contract Type".

An easy way to discover the internal name without any programming is:

- add the column to a view
- click on the column name to sort the view by that column
- check the URL for the "SortField=" parameter value.

I did this for a column name "Company Name" and got a URL similar to this:

http://www.domain.com/records/Documents/Forms/AllItems.aspx?SortField=Company%5fx0020%5fName&SortDir=Asc&View=%7b0E0FDBDA%2d1BA5%2d4CE1%2dBEE4%2d191B285E1F8A%7d

The above URL suggests that the internal field for "Compnay Name" is "Company_x0020_Name".

Note that the URL encoding for the underscore is "%5f".

.netBC celebrates 5'th birthday and 1500'th member

2008-06-15T23:16:00.000-07:00

The .netBC user group celebrated it's 5'th birthday on March 3, 2008. Soon after the group had it's 1500'th member when Hai Wang joined on April 5, 2008.

The Vice President of .netBC, Brian Pidcock, baked a pie for Hai Wang and presented it to him at our regular meeting on Tuesday May 6, 2008. Here is a picture of both Hai Wai and Brian Pidcock taken by a mobile phone:

Unfortunately, our speaker Dana Epp did not show up at that meeting held at BCIT in Burnaby, BC. When I contacted him the next day he said that he forgot about it. In the five years of the existance of our user group we never experienced a no-show by a speaker. I would like to apologize to those who attended for this unfortunate situation. John Bristowe of Microsoft Canada is sending me consolation gifts for those who came to this no-show meeting. These gifts will be delivered during our July 9, 2008 XNA event.

How to upgrade SharePoint 2007 web.config file from .NET Framework 3.0 to .NET Framework 3.5 support?

2008-05-20T23:13:00.000-07:00

In order to take advantage of some of the great features of .NET Framework 3.5 in your SharePoint 2007, you will need to upgrade the web.config file. Some new features are LINQ, AJAX, and new controls like ListView. Here's a step-by-step task list of what needs to be added. Before we go on, make sure that you have installed the .NET Framework version 3.5 on the server. Also, make a backup copy of your SharePoint 2007 web.config file.
1) Add the following inside of the <configSections> tag block:

<sectionGroup name="system.web.extensions" type="System.Web.Configuration.SystemWebExtensionsSectionGroup, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35">

<sectionGroup name="scripting" type="System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingSectionGroup, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35">

<section name="scriptResourceHandler" type="System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingScriptResourceHandlerSection, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" requirePermission="false" allowDefinition="MachineToApplication"/>

<sectionGroup name="webServices" type="System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingWebServicesSectionGroup, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35">

<section name="jsonSerialization" type="System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingJsonSerializationSection, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" requirePermission="false" allowDefinition="Everywhere"/>

<section name="profileService" type="System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingProfileServiceSection, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" requirePermission="false" allowDefinition="MachineToApplication"/>

<section name="authenticationService" type="System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingAuthenticationServiceSection, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" requirePermission="false" allowDefinition="MachineToApplication"/>

<section name="roleService" type="System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingRoleServiceSection, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" requirePermission="false" allowDefinition="MachineToApplication"/>

</sectionGroup>

</sectionGroup>

</sectionGroup>

2) Add the following inside of the <httpHandlers> tag block:

<remove verb="*" path="*.asmx" />

<add verb="*" path="*.asmx" validate="false" type="System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptHandlerFactory, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />

<add verb="*" path="*_AppService.axd" validate="false" type="System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptHandlerFactory, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />

<add verb="GET,HEAD" path="ScriptResource.axd" validate="false" type="System.Web.Handlers.ScriptResourceHandler, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />

3) Add the following inside of the <httpModules> tag block:

<add name="ScriptModule" type="System.Web.Handlers.ScriptModule, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />

4) Add the following inside of the <assemblies> tag block:

<add assembly="System.Core, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=B77A5C561934E089"/>

<add assembly="System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"/>

<add assembly="System.Data.DataSetExtensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=B77A5C561934E089"/>

<add assembly="System.Xml.Linq, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=B77A5C561934E089"/>

<add assembly="System.Data.Linq, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089"/>

5) Add the following inside of the <pages> tag block:

<controls>

<add tagPrefix="asp" namespace="System.Web.UI" assembly="System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"/>

<add tagPrefix="asp" namespace="System.Web.UI.WebControls" assembly="System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"/>

</controls>

6) Add the following right before </configuration>:

<system.codedom>

<compilers>

<compiler language="c#;cs;csharp" extension=".cs" type="Microsoft.CSharp.CSharpCodeProvider,System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" warningLevel="4">

<providerOption name="CompilerVersion" value="v3.5" />

<providerOption name="WarnAsError" value="false" />

</compiler>

<compiler language="vb;vbs;visualbasic;vbscript" extension=".vb" type="Microsoft.VisualBasic.VBCodeProvider, System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" warningLevel="4">

<providerOption name="CompilerVersion" value="v3.5" />

<providerOption name="OptionInfer" value="true" />

<providerOption name="WarnAsError" value="false" />

</compiler>

</compilers>

</system.codedom>

<system.webServer>

<validation validateIntegratedModeConfiguration="false" />

<modules>

<remove name="ScriptModule" />

<add name="ScriptModule" preCondition="managedHandler" type="System.Web.Handlers.ScriptModule, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />

</modules>

<handlers>

<remove name="WebServiceHandlerFactory-Integrated" />

<remove name="ScriptHandlerFactory" />

<remove name="ScriptHandlerFactoryAppServices" />

<remove name="ScriptResource" />

<add name="ScriptHandlerFactory" verb="*" path="*.asmx" preCondition="integratedMode" type="System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptHandlerFactory, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />

<add name="ScriptHandlerFactoryAppServices" verb="*" path="*_AppService.axd" preCondition="integratedMode" type="System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptHandlerFactory, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />

<add name="ScriptResource" verb="GET,HEAD" path="ScriptResource.axd" preCondition="integratedMode" type="System.Web.Handlers.ScriptResourceHandler, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />

</handlers>

</system.webServer>

How to get the whole announcement to show up in SharePoint 2007?

2008-04-30T23:11:00.000-07:00

Go into the Announcements section by clicking on the title.
Create a new view based on the existing default. I called mine "All items with Body"
Make sure the 'body' column is checked, and select "Newsletter" under Style.
Go back to your main page, and select 'edit shared web part' for the announcements section you're working on.
Change the view to be the new view you just created and click OK.

How to exclude content in a SharePoint 2007 site from being indexed by the search engine?

2008-04-29T23:07:00.000-07:00

There are circumstances whereby content in a specific site needs to be excluded from the SharePoint 2007 search engine indexing process. This can be done at a list level and/or a site level.

List level:

Settings / List Settings
Click on "Advanced Settings"
At the very botton under "Search" set "Allow items from this list to appear in search results?" to "No"
Click "OK" button

Site level:

Site Actions / Site Settings
under "Site Administration" click on "Search visibility"
set "Allow this web to appear in search results?" to "No"
Also choose "Never index any ASPX pages on this site" radio button
Click "OK" button

Remember to reindex search results in central administration so that these new rules immediately take effect. One way to do this is as follows:

On the SharePoint server, get into the "Central Administration" web application
Click on the "Shared Services Administration" link on the left-hand-side
Select "Open Shared Services Admin Site" from the dropdownlist of the default SSP site
Click on "Search settings" link under "Search"
Click on the link beside "Content sources:"
Select "Start Full Crawl" from the dropdownlist of the content source

DevTeach & SQLTeach 2008 conference in Toronto

2008-04-26T23:03:00.000-07:00

We are only two weeks away from this premier Canadaian technology conference which will be held in Toronto from May 12, 2008 to May 15, 2008. If you are a computer techie living on the eastern part of our North American continent, you must seriously consider attending this conferernce. It is well worth your time and money. There are some real well known heavy weight speakers who will be presenting. Check out the list at http://www.devteach.com. And if that is not enough to convince you, here are yet more reasons to be there:

Keynote by Scott Hanselman, Microsoft

Scott Hanselman is one of the most prolific, renowned and respected blogger (http://www.hanselman.com) and podcaster (http://www.hanselminutes.com) about technologies. Scott is a hands-on thinker, a renowned speaker and writer. He has written a few books, most recently with Bill Evjen and Devin Rader on Professional ASP.NET. In July 2007, he joined Microsoft as a Senior Program Manager in the Developer Division. In his new role he'll continue to explore and explain a broad portfolio of technologies, both inside and outside Microsoft. He aims to spread the good word about developing software, most often on the Microsoft stack. Before this he was the Chief Architect at Corillian Corporation, now a part of Checkfree, for 6+ years and before that he was a Principal Consultant at STEP Technology for nearly 7 years.

http://www.devteach.com/keynote.aspx

Silverlight 2.0 workshop

For the first time an independent conference is having a workshop on Building Business Applications with Silverlight 2.0. Join Rod Paddock and Jim Duffy as they give you a head start down the road to developing business-oriented Rich Internet Applications (RIA) with Microsoft Silverlight 2.0. In case you just crawled out from under a rock, Microsoft Silverlight 2.0 is a cross-browser, cross-platform, and cross-device plug-in positioned to revolutionize the way next generation Rich Internet Applications are developed. Microsoft’s commitment to providing an extensive platform for developers and designers to collaborate on creating the next generation of RIAs is very clear and its name is Silverlight 2.0. In this intensive, full-day workshop, Rod and Jim will share their insight and experience building business applications with Silverlight 2.0 including a review of some of the Internet’s more visible Silverlight web applications. This workshop is happening on Friday May 16 at the Hilton Toronto.

http://www.devteach.com/PostConference.aspx#PreSP

Bonus session: .NET Rock host a panel May 14th at 18:00

This year the bonus session (Wednesday May 14 at 18:00) will be a panel of speakers debating the Future of .NET. Where is .NET going? How will new development influence .NET and be influenced by .NET? Join Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell from .NET Rocks as they moderate a discussion on the future directions of .NET. The panellists include individuals who have strong visions of the future of software development and the role that .NET can play in that future. Attend this session and bring your questions to get some insight into the potential future of .NET! This bonus session is free for everyone. Panelists are: Ted Neward,Oren Eini ,Scott Bellware

http://www.devteach.com/BonusSession.aspx

Party with Palermo, DevTeach Toronto Edition

Jeffrey Palermo (MVP) is hosting Monday May 12th in Toronto is acclaimed "Party with Palermo". This is the official social event kicking off DevTeach Toronto. The event is not just for the attendees of Toronto it’s a free event for everyone. It’s a unique chance for the attendees, speakers and locals to meet and talk with a free beer. The event will be held at the Menage club location and you need to RSVP to attend. Get all the details at this link:

http://www.partywithpalermo.com/

My presentations at this conference are:

Wed May 14, 2008 8:00 AM, SharePoint 101, Room: Lismer

Wed May 14, 2008 11:00 AM, Web parts for SharePoint 2007, Room: Lismer

Thu May 15, 2008 3:00 PM, SharePoint 2007 Advanced Development, Room: Lismer

How to hide View: menu on the right-hand-side of the SharePoint 2007 toolbar?

2008-02-29T22:59:00.000-08:00

Display the view in a browser
Open the source in an editor. This is done by "right-click / view source" in IE
Search for "ms-listheaderlabel". It will land on a <td> tag.
Right under that <td> tag you will find another <td> tag with an ID like: ctl00_m_g_672c28cb_9a7b_4898_a26c_22eefe71074d_ctl00_ctl00_toolBarTbl_RightRptControls_ctl00_ctl00_onetViewSelector
Copy the ID into the clipboard.
Create a style in an editor as follows and use the ID that you copied into the clipboard:

#ctl00_m_g_672c28cb_9a7b_4898_a26c_22eefe71074d_ctl00_ctl00_toolBarTbl_RightRptControls_ctl00_ctl00_onetViewSelector{

visibility:hidden;

}

.ms-listheaderlabel {

visibility:hidden;

}

</style>

Click on "Site Actions / Edit Page"
Add "Content Editor Web Part" to the page.
Cick on "open the tool pane"
Click on the "Source Editor ..." button on the far right-hand-side of the page
Copy and paste the <script ...> code from your editor into the "Text Entry -- Webpage Dialog"
Click "Save" button
Click "OK" button
Click "Exit Edit Mode" link.

DevTeach 2008 Toronto

2008-02-19T21:43:00.000-08:00

Yes. I will be delivering three talks on SharePoint at the DevTeach 2008 conference in Toronto May 12-16 2008. I am thrilled to be invited once again after DevTeach Vancouver in November 2007. Check out the conference at http://www.devteach.com/.
My presentations are:

SharePoint 101

SharePoint 2007 Advanced Development

WebParts for SharePoint 2007

How to enable session state in SharePoint WSS 3.0?

2008-02-13T21:41:00.000-08:00

Before you can use sessions you first have to enable the session state module in the web.config file in a WSS 3.0 sharepoint site. Just uncomment the following line:

<!—
<add name="Session" type="System.Web.SessionState.SessionStateModule"/>
-->

After that you can use the session object like you'll normally do with any ASP.NET web applications.

How can a web page go to the bottom end as soon as it is loaded?

2008-01-13T21:39:00.000-08:00

I needed to get a loaded web page to scroll down to the bottom of a long page. I was able to make that happen using some basic JavaScript. Here's my solution:

1) Place the following HTML at the page loaction where you want to go to automatically:

<a id="bottom" name="bottom"></a>

2) Add the following ASP.NET code that triggers some very basic JavaScript:

StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

sb.Append("<script language='javascript' >");

sb.Append("window.location.href = '#bottom';");

sb.Append("</script>");

ClientScript.RegisterStartupScript(typeof(Page), "Focus", sb.ToString());

Although thic technique pertains to ASP.NET 2.0, it really can be implemented in any other server-side technology.

Unable to delete or customize a choice field in WSS 3.0

2008-01-03T21:32:00.000-08:00

I needed to customize the HelpDesk template that is freely downloadable from Microsoft. I discovered that it is not possible to add any choice items or even delete the column. Here's what I experienced when I clicked on:
Service Requests ==> Site Settings ==> List Settings ==> Status

You will notice that the "Delete" button is missing and no choice items can be changed.
I discovered that the choice field is sealed in the feature template itself.

Solution:

1) Open the schema.xml file located in the SharePoint 2007 12-hives directory at:

%ProgramFiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\FEATURES\HelpDeskServiceRequestsList\servicerequest

2) Search for the Status field.

<Field ID="{75AF1E7D-39F1-45db-908A-B7AD3F26531A}"

Type="Choice"

Name="Status"

DisplayName="$Resources:hlpdsk,SRStatus;"

StaticName="Status"

Required="TRUE"

Sealed="TRUE"

Format="Dropdown"

FillInChoice="FALSE"

SourceID="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/v3"

>

<Default>$Resources:hlpdsk,SRStatus_Choice1;</Default>

<CHOICES>

<CHOICE>$Resources:hlpdsk,SRStatus_Choice1;</CHOICE>

<CHOICE>$Resources:hlpdsk,SRStatus_Choice2;</CHOICE>

<CHOICE>$Resources:hlpdsk,SRStatus_Choice3;</CHOICE>

<CHOICE>$Resources:hlpdsk,SRStatus_Choice4;</CHOICE>

</CHOICES>

</Field>

3) Change the Sealed attribute value from TRUE to FALSE

4) Save the schema.xml file

5) Restart IIS

Presentation on SharePoint WebParts to Bellingham .NET Users Group

2007-12-28T21:30:00.000-08:00

Andrew Robinson, the president of the Bellingham .NET Users Group, invited me to give a talk to his group. I will be giving them a talk on "WebParts for SharePoint 2007" on Wednesday January 8, 2007 starting at 6:00 PM. Bellingham is the most visited city accross the border for British Columbians and I look forward to forging closer ties between .netBC and the Bellingham .NET Users Groups.
Here is the extract of my talk:
WebParts for SharePoint 2007

WebParts provide the fundamental building blocks for creating custom applications for SharePoint. This session will show you how to efficiently and quickly use your ASP.NET 2.0 and C# skills to develop WebParts for deployment into SharePoint 2007. Most of the development, testing and debugging will be done in Visual Studio .NET 2007. We shall then deploy the WebPart as a feature into Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS 3.0). We will also look at WebPart communication and modifying WebPart verb menus.

Wednesday January 9, 2008

The files that make up my presentation can be downloaded from here.

Thursday January 10, 2008

I had an enjoyable time at Bellingham. There were 13 people in attendance. Pizza was great and I was glad that they serve water instead of the dreaded pop.

Move SharePoint 2007 paging control from the right to the left of the action bar.

2007-12-19T21:23:00.000-08:00

A user at my workplace has a view that is horizontally very wide. It drives him nuts to have to scroll all the way to the extreme right of the page in order to find the paging control. He pleaded with me to find a way to move this control to the left side of the action bar. After many hours of research, here's what I found:

The default layout of the action bar is defined in a user control file named DefaultTemplates.ascx found in the TEMPLATE\CONTROL TEMPLATES directory of your 12-hives

The default layout can be alterted for a particular type of list be over-riding the "ViewToolBar" for that list.

This is best done by working on a copy of DefaultTemplates.ascx

I moved the paging control for the DocumentLibraryViewToolBar to the left-hand-side by doing the following:

copy DefaultTemplates.ascx to PagingLeftOnDocLibrary.ascx (or any other name you fancy).

open PagingLeftOnDocLibrary.ascx in a text editor

search for DocumentLibraryViewToolBar. Your editor should find this line: <SharePoint:RenderingTemplate ID="DocumentLibraryViewToolBar" runat="server">

delete all <SharePoint:RenderingTemplate>.. </SharePoint:RenderingTemplate> sections before and after the section that you have just found. In other words retain the section <SharePoint:RenderingTemplate ID="DocumentLibraryViewToolBar" runat="server"> .. </SharePoint:RenderingTemplate> and delete all other sections

You will be left with only the following:

<%@ Control Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="false" %>

<%@Assembly Name="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>

<%@Register TagPrefix="SharePoint" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls"%>

<%@Register TagPrefix="SPHttpUtility" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities"%>

<%@ Register TagPrefix="wssuc" TagName="ToolBar" src="~/_controltemplates/ToolBar.ascx" %>

<%@ Register TagPrefix="wssuc" TagName="ToolBarButton" src="~/_controltemplates/ToolBarButton.ascx" %>

<SharePoint:RenderingTemplate ID="DocumentLibraryViewToolBar" runat="server">

<Template>

<wssuc:ToolBar

CssClass="ms-menutoolbar"

EnableViewState="false"

id="toolBarTbl"

ButtonSeparator="<img src='/_layouts/images/blank.gif'

alt=''>" RightButtonSeparator=" "

runat="server">

<Template_Buttons>

<SharePoint:NewMenu AccessKey="<%$Resources:wss,tb_NewMenu_AK%>" runat="server"/>

<SharePoint:UploadMenu AccessKey="<%$Resources:wss,tb_UploadMenu_AK%>" runat="server"/>

<SharePoint:ActionsMenu AccessKey="<%$Resources:wss,tb_ActionsMenu_AK%>" runat="server"/>

<SharePoint:SettingsMenu AccessKey="<%$Resources:wss,tb_SettingsMenu_AK%>" runat="server"/>

</Template_Buttons>

<Template_RightButtons>

<SharePoint:PagingButton runat="server"/>

<SharePoint:ListViewSelector runat="server"/>

</Template_RightButtons>

</wssuc:ToolBar>

</Template>

</SharePoint:RenderingTemplate>

The PagingButton section (shown in red above) needs to be moved to the Template_Buttons section. I simply cut <SharePoint:PagingButton runat="server"/> and pasted it right before </Template_Buttons>

If you restart IIS (IISRESET from the command line) you should see the paging control on the left-hand-side of the document library action bar as shown below.

The final version of my PagingLeftOnDocLibrary.ascx is:

<%@ Control Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="false" %>

<%@Assembly Name="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>

<%@Register TagPrefix="SharePoint" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls"%>

<%@Register TagPrefix="SPHttpUtility" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities"%>

<%@ Register TagPrefix="wssuc" TagName="ToolBar" src="~/_controltemplates/ToolBar.ascx" %>

<%@ Register TagPrefix="wssuc" TagName="ToolBarButton" src="~/_controltemplates/ToolBarButton.ascx" %>

<SharePoint:RenderingTemplate ID="DocumentLibraryViewToolBar" runat="server">

<Template>

<wssuc:ToolBar

CssClass="ms-menutoolbar"

EnableViewState="false"

id="toolBarTbl"

ButtonSeparator="<img src='/_layouts/images/blank.gif'

alt=''>" RightButtonSeparator=" "

runat="server">

<Template_Buttons>

<SharePoint:NewMenu AccessKey="<%$Resources:wss,tb_NewMenu_AK%>" runat="server"/>

<SharePoint:UploadMenu AccessKey="<%$Resources:wss,tb_UploadMenu_AK%>" runat="server"/>

<SharePoint:ActionsMenu AccessKey="<%$Resources:wss,tb_ActionsMenu_AK%>" runat="server"/>

<SharePoint:SettingsMenu AccessKey="<%$Resources:wss,tb_SettingsMenu_AK%>" runat="server"/>

<SharePoint:PagingButton runat="server"/>

</Template_Buttons>

<Template_RightButtons>

<SharePoint:ListViewSelector runat="server"/>

</Template_RightButtons>

</wssuc:ToolBar>

</Template>

</SharePoint:RenderingTemplate>

DevTeach & SqlTeach conference held in Vancouver from 26nov07 to 30nov07

2007-11-30T21:21:00.000-08:00

The highlight for me was the open ended bar night named "Party with Palermo" held on Monday night (26nov07) at the Steamworks brewery. It was a blast and happiness was being propelled by the alcohol level flowing through our veins. Unfortunately, I left early around 9:45 PM because I had to teach at BCIT very early the next morning. I know of a few who were there until midnight. Thanks Jeffrey Palermo.
The other highlight was the Mad Mexican's second appearance at DevTeach. He barged into Beth Massi's presentation to emphasize how great she is. Check out this blog entry.
I spoke on Wednesday 28nov07 on the topic of "SharePoint 2007 Advanced Development". Attendance was about 40 people. All went well except for the last part involving installation of the SharePoint workflow. After the simple workflow was deployed and activated it did not work. I did not bother trouble-shooting the problem because I was already about 15 minutes overtime. However, I later discovered that I had failed to set one of the dreaded GUIDs in the Manifest.XML. Oh well, as the saying goes "Shit Happens".
All in all it was a lot of fun and I am very happy for Jean-Rene that his first-time conference in Vancouver was indeed a success.

How do I enable more detailed error messages in SharePoint 2007 for debugging purposes?

2007-11-24T21:19:00.000-08:00

The error messages generated by SharePoint 2007 are not very useful. If you are doing some serious development work in SharePoint you will need to temporarily enable error messages. This is done by making the following changes to your web.config file:
1) Change the "CallStack" attribute in the <SafeMode> element from "false" to "true".
<SafeMode MaxControls="200" CallStack="true"

DirectFileDependencies="10"

TotalFileDependencies="50"

AllowPageLevelTrace="false">

2) Change the "mode" attribute in the <customErrors> element from "On" to "Off".
<customErrors mode="Off" />

Simulate Parent / Child relationship in SharePoint 2007 with Folders & Content Types

2007-10-30T21:06:00.000-07:00

One can create Parent / Child (A.K.A. Master / Detail) relationships in SharePoint 2007 by using lookups to reference a parent list from a child list. I will discuss another way of creating a Parent / Child relationship by adding a content type inside a folder.
We will create a parent / child relationship between company and employees. Here are our sample entities:

Company Parent (CompanyId, CompanyName)

Employee Child (Name, EmployeeId, Branch)
The strategy will be to make the "Company Parent" entity a folder which contains "Employee Child" items. To accomplish this we will create two new content types for each entity.

The "Company Parent" content type:

1) Site Actions ==> Site Settings ==> Site Content Types
2) Create

• Name: Company Parent

• Select parent content type from: Folder Content Types

• Parent Content Type: Folder

• Existing group: Custom Content Types

• Click OK
3) Click on "Add from new site column" on the "Site Content Type: …" page under column.
• Column name: CompanyId of type Number

• Click OK

NOTE: We will reuse the "Title" field to be the CompanyName.

The "Employee Child" content type:

1) Site Actions ==> Site Settings ==> Site Content Types

2) Create
• Name: Employee Child

• Select parent content type from: List Content Types

• Parent Content Type: Item

• Existing group: Custom Content Types

• Click OK
3) Click on "Add from new site column" on the "Site Content Type: …" page under column.
• Column name: EmployeeId of type Number

• Click OK
4) Click on "Add from new site column" on the "Site Content Type: …" page under column.

• Column name: Branch of type "Single line of text"

• Click OK

NOTE: We will reuse the "Title" field to be the EmployeeName.
Now we can go about our normal business of creating a custom list and using our two newly created content types "Company Parent" and "Employee Child".
1) Site Settings ==> Create

2) Click on "Custom List" under the "Custom Lists" column.
• Name: CompanyEmployees

• Click OK
3) Settings ==-> List Settings

4) Click on "Advanced Settings" under the "General Settings" column

5) At the very top, change Allow management of content types?" to Yes.

6) Click on OK

7) Under "Content Types" click on "Add from existing site content types".

8) On the "Add Content Types:" page
• Select site content types from: Custom Content Types

• Add "Company Parent" and "Employee Child" content types.

• Click on OK
Let’s add some dummy data.

1. Click on the "CompanyEmployees" list

2. Click on the little arrow beside New. You should see this:

3. Select "Company Parent"

4. Add the following bogus company data:
• Name: ACME Corporation; CompanyId: 123

• Name: Bogus Enterprises: CompanyId: 456
5. Add bogus company employees to "ACME Corporation"
• Click on "ACME Corporation". This causes the folder to open.

• Add the following employees to the ACME Corporation by clicking on New ==-> Employee Child:

• Title: Jane Doe; EmployeeId: 111; Branch: Downtown

• Title: James White; EmployeeId: 222; Branch: Airport

• Click on "Bogus Enterprises". This causes the folder to open.

• Add the following employees to Bogus Enterprises by clicking on New ==-> Employee Child:

• Title: Judy Black; EmployeeId: 333; Branch: Main Street

• Title: Brandon Wiley; EmployeeId: 333; Branch: Riverside

• Add another employee to ACME:

This concludes configuration and data entry. Let us now use the SharePoint 2007 Object Model to get at this data.
using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Text;

using Microsoft.SharePoint;

public class CompanyEmployees {

static void Main(string[] args) {

SPSite site = new SPSite("http://srvr/");

SPWeb web = site.AllWebs["/"];

SPList list = web.Lists["CompanyEmployees"];

foreach (SPListItem order in list.Folders) {

Console.WriteLine("Company ID : {0}", order["CompanyId"]);

Console.WriteLine("Company Name : {0}", order["Title"]);

SPQuery empItemsQuery = new SPQuery();

empItemsQuery.Folder = order.Folder;

SPListItemCollection empItems = list.GetItems(empItemsQuery);

foreach (SPListItem empItem in empItems) {

Console.WriteLine("\tEmployee ID {0}: {1} {2}",

empItem["EmployeeId"],

empItem["Title"],

empItem["Branch"]);

}

}

}

}

The above application will produce the following result:
Company ID : 123

Company Name : ACME Corporation

Employee ID 111: Jane Doe Downtown

Employee ID 222: James White Airport

Company ID : 456

Company Name : Bogus Enterprises

Employee ID 333: Judy Black Main Street

Employee ID 444: Brandon Wiley Riverside

COMP-1536 & ACIT-1620 Fall 2007 week 09

2007-10-27T21:03:00.000-07:00

Medhat Elmasry will be away attending a training course in downtown Vancouver. Here are some important notes on week 09:

Notes for COMP-1536 students

Jason Harrison will be delivering the lectures on Tuesday October 30, 2007 at 10:30 AM and Friday November 2, 2007 at 12:30 PM. He will be introducing you to PHP.
Medhat will not be present at the SET 1A lab on Monday October 29, 2007 at 1:30 PM. Students are expected to come to the lab session and use the time to work on assignment 3.
Sets 1B, 1C, 1D, and 1E must attend labs with Jason Harrison as usual.
You can post any questions as comments on my blog.

Notes for ACIT-1620 students

There will be no lecture on Monday October 29, 2007 at 10:30 AM. Instead, Medhat will makeup this lecture in the labs during the following week.
Brian Pidcock will be delivering the lecture on Friday November 2, 2007 at 1:30 PM on the topic of JavaScript functions.
Medhat will not be present at SET 1A and SET 1B labs on Monday October 29, 2007 at 3:30 PM and Tuesday October 30, 2007 at 8:30 AM respectively. Students are expected to come to the lab session and use the time to work on assignment 3.
You can post any questions as comments on my blog

Creating "Calculated Field" columns in SharePoint 2007

2007-10-18T21:01:00.000-07:00

You can pretty much use the same VBA syntax for calculated fields as in Excel. Here is a site that provides many examples of common formulas that can be used in SharePoint when defining "Calculated Field" columns.
Here is a formula that I created at work:
=IF(YEAR([Due Date])=1899,"No Due Date",TEXT([Due Date],"MM/dd/yyyy"))
Blank dates in SharePoint are assigned a date in year 1899. The above formula displays a message "No Due Date" for invalid dates or the valid date using format MM/dd/yyyy.

Speaking at DevTeach in late November 2007

2007-10-14T20:59:00.000-07:00

I am scheduled to speak at the DevTeach conference in Vancouver on Wednesday, November 28, 2007 from 11:00 AM to 12:15 PM. The topic I will be presenting is the same topic I gave to the .netBC group on Wednesday September 12, 2007. That presention took 2 hours. Therefore, I must shave off about 45 minutes from that presentation.

The DevTeach conference is moving outside of Montreal for the first time. I attended it twice in spring 2005 and spring 2007. It is definately a very worthwhile conference. If you want to be on top of current and up-coming technologies in our very fast moving profession, it is a good use of three days.
Jean-Rene Roy, who is the owner of the DevTeach & SQLTeach shows, is organizing a very different type of conference in Vancouver. New to Vancouver will be an XNA track, a Halo-3 competition, and a free beer party with Palermo. It looks like it is going to be a lot of fun. Here is more on the various activities:
XNA contest: http://www.devteach.com/contest.aspx
Party with Palermo! Free beer: http://www.partywithpalermo.com/
For the first time a XNA track at a independent conference: http://www.devteach.com/Session.aspx#79
Three very good Pre-con Post-Con:

http://www.devteach.com/PreConference.aspx

http://www.devteach.com/PostConference.aspx
Key note by Ken Levy on VSX: http://www.devteach.com/Keynote.aspx

How to hide "View All Site Content" link for anonymous users in SharePoint WSS 3.0?

2007-10-14T20:54:00.000-07:00

This solution requires you to install Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer.

Go to "Site Actions" ==> "Site Settings"
Under Galleries, click on "Master Pages"
Select default.master and select "Edit in Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer".
In "Design" view locate "View All Site Content" on the left-hand-site navigation bar and click on it.
Go to "Code" view. You will see the following code highlighted:

<Sharepoint:SPSecurityTrimmedControl runat="server" PermissionsString="ViewFormPages">

<div class="ms-quicklaunchheader">

<SharePoint:SPLinkButton id="idNavLinkViewAll" runat="server" NavigateUrl="~site/_layouts/viewlsts.aspx" Text="<%$Resources:wss,quiklnch_allcontent%>" AccessKey="<%$Resources:wss,quiklnch_allcontent_AK%>"/>

</div>

</SharePoint:SPSecurityTrimmedControl>

Change the PermissionString attribute value of the Sharepoint:SPSecurityTrimmedControl XML element from ViewFormPages to BrowseDirectories.
Save the default.master. If you login as an anonymous user you will not see the "View All Site Content" link. However when authenticated you will see this option.

NOTE: The "BrowseDirectories" permission is common to both the "Members" and "Owners" group permission levels, but is not set for the "Limited Access" (anonymous users) permission level. See a complete list of the SPBasePermissions Enumeration here.

Adding command prompt option to Windows Explorer in Windows 2003 server

2007-10-09T20:49:00.000-07:00

1. Navigate in your Registry to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Classes/Folder/Shell and create a key called "Command Prompt" without the quotes.
2. Set the default string to whatever text you want to appear in the right-click menu
3. Create a new key within your newly created command prompt named "command" and set the default string to:
Cmd.exe /k pushd %L
4. The changes should take place immediately. Right click a folder and your new menu item should appear.

Making a SharePoint custom column visible in an edit list form

2007-10-05T20:43:00.000-07:00

Go to the list you are interested in
Click Settings --> List Settings
Under General Settings --> Click Advance Settings
Click "Yes" for "Allow management of content types?"
Click "OK"
Click the list you are interested in under "Content Types"
Now Click "Add from existing site or list columns"
Click "Add >" to select the columns you want
Click "OK"
Go to the list you are interested in
Click Settings --> List Settings
Under General Settings --> Click Advance Settings
Click "No" for "Allow management of content types?"

How to get list and view GUIDs in WSS 3.0 or MOSS 2007?

2007-10-04T20:39:00.000-07:00

List GUID

Access the list with your browser
Go to Settings->List Settings
Copy the URL from your browser address line into a text editor. It should look something like this: http://something.com/_layouts/listedit.aspx?List=%7BB2FD569F%2D89B3%2D4150%2DA9BA%2D1D7F5F9437AA%7D
Delete everything upto (and including) List=
Replace %7B with {
Replace %7D with }
Replace %2D with -
In the above example, the GUID would be {B2FD569F-89B3-4150-A9BA-1D7F5F9437AA}

View GUID

Access the list with your browser
Go to Settings->List Settings
Copy the URL from your browser address line into a text editor. It should look something like this: http://something.com/_layouts/ViewEdit.aspx?List=%7BB2FD569F%2D89B3%2D4150%2DA9BA%2D1D7F5F9437AA%7D&View=%7B6E1DB03C%2D9083%2D45FD%2D9487%2DDCF420E4F245%7D&Source=%252Foperations%252Fskutracker%252F%255Flayouts%252Flistedit%252Easpx%253FList%253D%25257BB2FD569F%25252D89B3%25252D4150%25252DA9BA%25252D1D7F5F9437AA%25257D
Copy the data between View= and &Source
Perform the same replacements as explained for List GUIDs above

Finding out the SharePoint list ID (ListTemplateId)

2007-10-03T20:28:00.000-07:00

SharePoint 2007 offers an enhanced ability to catch certain user events such as ItemDeleting (before the fact) and ItemDeleted (after the fact). The API targets specific lists identified by list IDs. Example:

List template type	Template ID
Custom List	100
Document Library	101
Survey	102
Links List	103
Announcement List	104
Contacts List	105
Events List	106
Task List	107
Discussion Board	108
Picture Library	109

You can find out the list ID of any other list as follows:

Go to your 12 hives FEATURES folder C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\FEATURES
Find the folder for the list you are interested in and open it.
Open the ListTemplates folder
Open the XML file and read the value of the Type attribute.
This information can also be found in the ONET.XML file in the appropriate site template directory under C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\SiteTemplates

ASP.NET 2.0 part-time courses at BCIT

2007-09-29T20:27:00.000-07:00

I started teaching COMP-2870 (Basic ASP.NET with C#) in January 2003 at BCIT. I have averaged about four sections a year. In most cases the classes were full because it turned out to be quite a popular course. I estimate over 400 students have so far taken COMP-2870.

I started the advanced version of this course (COMP-3870) in April 2005. Although not as popular as the basic course, it has been quite successful. Unfortunately I stopped teaching the advanced course in June 2006.

Many students who did the basic course have asked me to give the advanced course. Therefore, I have decided to not do the basic course in January 2008 in favour of doing the advanced course instead. All you interested students out there sign up for COMP-3870 at BCIT during the Winter 2008 term. We will learn these topics:
caching
personalization
web parts
ajax
setup & deployment
programming SQL Server 2005
testing & debugging
programming for mobile applications
globalization
legacy & unmanaged code
database transaction processing
stored procedures

Presentation to VanQ user group in Vancouver

2007-09-28T20:25:00.000-07:00

Brian Pidcock, who is one of the VanQ leaders, asked me to be their September 2007 speaker on SharePoint 2007. My presentation to VanQ was on September 27, 2007 at 6:45 PM. Since my audience were not necessarily developers, I decided to give a non-technical presentation.

For more details about this VanQ event, click here.

The event was very well attended. I saw a lot of friends, former students, and members of .netBC in the crowd. On the whole, I enjoyed presenting on the basics of SharePoint and would consider coming up with another more advanced talk with a possible title of "Sharepoint 201". I was told later that the attendance at this event was the largest that VanQ has seen. This was very encouraging news.

Click here to download my presentation.

Blog Launch

2007-09-24T20:22:00.000-07:00

I launched this blog on Monday September 24, 2007. This is my second crack at the can. I started a blog about two years ago but it died a natural death because I did not spend enough time updating it. I am determined to make this one last much longer.

Presentation to the .netBC user group in Vancouver

2007-09-24T20:18:00.000-07:00

I was very happy with the attendance at the .netBC event held on September 12, 2007. There were more than 70 people, which normally happens when there is a well known speaker. That kind of attendance for me was rather unexpected.

I established this user group on March 3, 2003. I made the first presentation on "XML Processing in .NET". This is the first time I presented again to my group since its inception. We started with 100 members and we have now grown to almost 1400.

The title of the presentation was: SharePoint 2007 Advanced Development. Click here to download the presentation.

I plan to give the same presentation to DevTeach Vancouver 2007 on Wednesday November 28, 2007.