Latest SharePoint topics

Bob Mixon has a great list of references. He’s right, there aren’t many formal sites/books out there worth buying… bloggers are the best resource in my mind (many are listed in my SharePoint links). » SharePoint - How Do I Learn?

If you’ve used SharePoint 2003 (either SharePoint or WSS), you’ll know there are way too many places out there to find administration level information about a site, portal, user, server, virtual server, etc. I don’t think it should be so hard to find this info… so, I’m I’ve started a proof of concept for a oober-admin tool. I’m still in the process of defining all the requirements… and I fully expect (and taking the approach) of adding more and more features to this app as I progress.

Great blog article on capacity planning for WSS. » Capacity Planning for Windows SharePoint Services

In this post, I’ll detail the steps & code used to get this working. I used this method to add search capabilities to a site implemented with MCMS 2002.

Recently we needed to implement search functionality into a content web site. This has always been a pain for me, but with SharePoint, it was very simple. I had a hard time working with the full text TSQL query I needed to submit to the SharePoint web service, but I finally got it working. To view the details, with code samples, follow the link below. » Read more: Using SharePoint search in an ASP.

Jan Tielens & Fons Sonnemans have updated their SmartPart for SharePoint library. One of the things I didn’t like about it was that you had to manually enter the user control in a text box. They’ve actually added another method… although it isn’t exactly what I wanted. At any rate, the latest release has other updates as well as a very nice and easy to follow tutorial on how to create your first SmartPart enabled WebPart!

» MSDN: Best Practices for Developing Web Parts for SharePoint Products and Technologies

Very good reference article when planning the infrastructure around a WSS-SPS implementation. This paper provides guidelines for capacity planning for a SharePoint Portal Server 2003 installation. It describes the main issues you face and the decisions you must make when planning your SharePoint deployment. » Capacity Planning for Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003

Great resource explaining it: » What is SharePoint 2003?

Once you start doing SharePoint development… specifically developing your own web parts, you’ll find deployment may not be a straightforward thing. Partick’s blog has a nice post about deployment of web parts. You may also have to deal wth Code Access Secrity (CAS) in .NET… there’s a good article on MSDN about this. » Deploying Web Parts - Possible Scenarios » Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services and Code Access Security

Just got tipped off to a post on Jan Tielens’ blog that details four free web parts he built for SharePoint. There is an MSI that will install into the GAC, or there’s a ZIP that explains how to install it manually for a specific site (I prefer this… esp since I’m in more of a shared environment). The single assembly contains four web parts in Jan’s Leadit.SharePoint.Essentials: What’s New: Shows new items added to a SharePoint site.

An article posted in May 2004 on MSDN was just highlighted on their front page and I just noticed it. As the teaser states: Stephen Toub walks you through customizing native Outlook 2003 integration with the Lists Web service from Windows SharePoint Services to build a Web application that serves up custom data. How will this help with WSS development? Not sure ~yet~… but definitely good code sample. » MSDN: Custom Calendar Providers: Outlook2003 & WSS

Anyone doing Web Part development (currently for SharePoint) knows how much of a PITA it is to code the WP by hand… almost entirely from the code behind. Fons has come up with an incredible SmartPart to save a ton of time!!! Together with Jan Tielens , I have created a improved version of my User Control Container Web Part called the SmartPart for SharePoint. Jan has written an introduction and even created a video demonstrating it in action.

I haven’t spent too much time investigating this as we’ve still been pretty busy about planning our SPS-CMS implementation, but I do plan to dig into it. I have seen it get lots of good press in numerous blogs. From GDN: An extension framework for building SharePoint Web Parts. The initial goals of this framework is to extend the base Web Part class with features needed in most common Web Parts.

Lamont Harrington has compiled a nice set of resources for SharePoint developers.

Chris Sells has a page filled with some nice utilities… I especially like the .NET CollectionGen tool .