Sometimes a custom property on a Web Part needs to derive its value from a set of values e.g. (CREATE, EDIT, DELETE or NONE). What I have seen some developers do is have web page designers type in these values in a String\Textbox field and then write conditions in code that then executes based on these values. This approach is error prone and not very user friendly.  Instead you can use enumeration\enumerated properties, read code snippets below.

Example of String Property implementation

String _MyAction; 

public String MyAction {get {return _MyAction;} set {_MyAction=value;}}

 

if (_MyAction == "CREATE") { /*Code Executes for CREATE*/ }

else if (_MyAction == "EDIT") { /*Code Executes for EDIT*/ }

Issues with this code: #1 Typing string is error prone #2 End user is not given a clean choice of selection e.g. presenting choices in a combo box.

INSTEAD – USE ENUMERABLE PROPERTIES

Advantages: #1 Error Free Selection of Values in a Combo Box #2 No typing or guessing what value the web part property expects. #3 Easier writing code against the property using the SWITCH statement

Implementation

//Declare enumeration in the web part class

public enum ControlMode: int { None = 0, Create = 1, Edit = 2, Delete = 3 }           

//Declare variable for storage

ControlMode _Action;

//Declare property

public ControlMode Action {get {return _Action;} set {_Action = value;}}

//Code Execution in web part based on properties

protected override void RenderContents(HtmlTextWriter writer)

switch (_Action){ //Note ease of use for developer

case ControlMode.Create:

   writer.Write("<p>Create Mode</p>");

   break;

case ControlMode.Edit:

   writer.Write("<p>Edit Mode</p>");

 

Note: Enum should be defined in the web part class otherwise the web part will not load

ASP.NET MVC 2 RC – EDIT controller bug related to UpdateModel and ValueProvider

We are currently using the jQuery library as part of providing a SharePoint solution. We are using the library to provide the client with a rich interface in the browser. 

We had included the references to the jQuery library in our Master Page for the site. We had had developed several Sharepoint web parts which in some cases needed the jQuery library.

 

Since we started using it we have seen our SharePoint pages get 'stuck' very often - mostly we have had to kill our browser sessions. The behavior is inconsistent and there is not specific way to trigger it off - just loading a page does it. The first pointer to us that it it had to do with something related to loading the jQuery libraries was when our browser in some instances started throwing the error below - we were using Internet Explorer 7.

 

Error: 'jQuery' us undefined

Code:0

 

Current Solution: We copied all the jQuery to the local web server and everything seems to be working properly now. I will find a long term solution, but for now this will do.

I recently was faced with a situation that needed to update a field in a table with a NUMERIC RANK based on values in certain column(s).

Traditionally we would have written scripts that were either PL\SQL to sort data etc. using cursors etc. and then update the field or write a program (in case of huge datasets) that sorted the data in a temporary dataset and then write update statements. Well….I did not want to do that, I wanted to write something short and sweet that could be reused and could scale in large datasets.

 

I started thinking about using a combination of the newer SQL Server features COMMON TABLE EXPRESSION, RANK( ) and UPDATE sql. I rank into a couple of roadblocks initially e.g. when I tried writing a common table expression in a scalar function – it did not allow that. In the end, I did get it working.  I have also attached a demo SQL script use_cte_rank_toupdate.sql (1.4 KB) that is a self reliant script that demo's the idea.

 

VISUALISATION

 

Here are the steps – you can essentially replace each step with specific SQL’s that correspond to your business needs – but the high level steps\concepts can be followed.

 

STEP 1: Write a SQL Statement that first sorts your data using the RANK() function

STEP 2: Wrap the SQL Statement from Step 1 in a COMMON TABLE EXPRESSION WITH syntax

STEP 3: Write an UPDATE statement to update the original TABLE  that joins the COMMON TABLE EXPRESSION with the ORIGINAL TABLE to update the NUMERIC RANK column

 

Essentially the idea is to use these new features to make development simpler - I hope this article spawns different ideas in your minds of leveraging your SQL features.

Using Excel to create an intermediate XML file to help export SharePoint list data to SQL Server

When adding a web part to a Web Page in DESIGN MODE OR implicitly RUNNING a web part when you load a page,you might face issues like the page not loading due to recent code changes in the web part code.

 

Here are some basic steps to troubleshoot and Debug the code in your SharePoint web part.

 

** IMPORTANT NOTE: The steps should ONLY be really used in your DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT. Once you are done with your debugging\troubleshooting – please REVERT your edits. If these changes get into your production site they could cause security\performance issues. To make it simple make a copy of your web.config before you start.

 

Viewing the CALL STACK on your web page – Open your SharePoint Web Site’s web.config

1. Find the tag <SafeMode MaxControls="200" CallStack="false". Change the CallStack value to true
2. Find the tag <customErrors, set the mode=”RemoteOnly”
3. Run your web page

DEBUGGING CODE in your Web Part using Visual Studio 2005\2008

1. Set the debug flag to true in web.config < compilation batch="false" debug="true">
2. Open your Web Part Code Solution in Visual Studio
   • Go to Project properties, in the Debug tab make sure your “Start browser with URL” points to your SharePoint site where your web part is hosted
   • Make sure your break points are set. Click F5.

Just got a request from someone that they could only see only certain Custom Web Parts not all (developed in Visual Studio 2008) for selection in SharePoint . They were trying to add the web part to a web zone on a page. They created a new solution and were deploying their web part using VSeWSS 1.3. The ‘Deploy’ option in Visual Studio option did not error out so there was not issue there.

The first thing we checked was did the SharePoint DLL get copied in the appropriate folder in our case C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\<portnumber>\bin. It did. The date time stamps were also reasonably in sync.

Next we checked if the DLL contained web part definitions, we did this by using StartàAll ProgramsàMicrosoft Visual Studio 2008àVisual Studio ToolsàVisual Studio Command Prompt. Type in ILDASM, this will open the .NET Framework Disassembler à Open the SharePoint WebPart DLL from the bin directory mentioned above. The WebPart Definitions were not there!

That meant that deploy was not copying the files to the right location. Next thing was to check the location where the files were being deployed Open the solution in Visual Studio 2008à Project Properties à Debug tab. The start browser was set to http://localhost/ which was not the SharePoint site where the web part was support to be deployed it was supposed to be deployed at http://localhost:<portnumber>. We changed the URL and the web parts were now visible!

So the question was why did the Web Part DLL exist in the wrong directory in the first place, the answer turned out to be there were older versions of the Web Part project which had their URL’s set correctly which were still being compiled by developers currently hence the confusion.

Moral of the story: Check your URL First, then the contents of the DLL to check if the Web Parts are being deployed correctly. Off course you could have a host of other issues that could prevent your web parts from being shown, but this is what happend in this case.

When creating\editing a SharePoint BDC metadata xml file using, Visual Studio you should set the schemaLocation value to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\12.0\Bin\bdcmetadata.xsd. It can be represented in the LobSystem tag as shown below. If you open the XML file generated by certain tools like simego in Visual Studio, you will get warnings such as schema contains errors or file not found, modify the XML file as shown below to get intelliSense.

<LobSystem xmlns:xsi=http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance

 xsi:schemaLocation ="BusinessDataCatalog file:///C:/Program%20Files/Microsoft%20Office%20Servers/12.0/Bin/bdcmetadata.xsd"

Warnings shown in Visual Studio if value is not specified properly: The schema referenced from this location in your document contains errors.

I was trying to add some basic and custom web parts to a SharePoint web part page and realized that although I could scroll through all the web parts in the gallery, I could not find the “Add” button at the bottom of the page. In I could not see any of the usual buttons or links at the bottom of the page either.

What happened was that we had created a custom theme that would apply to all web pages in the site; in the process we had modified some CSS files with some additional styles. The styles also apply to the dialog page that comes up when you click “Add a Web Part”.  The specific style that caused the dialog not to show the buttons due to its width element is shown below. Please note the buttons are actually created but are not fully visible due to the style below.

#aspnetForm {margin:20px auto;width:960px;background-color:white;border:2px solid #435380;}

In my case, if you remove the WIDTH element the buttons show up properly. I talked to my SharePoint designer Phil Foss (http://philfoss.com ) who then modified the styles which then made the button visible again.

NOTE:The “Add Web Parts” page (webpartgallerypickerpage.aspx) is a page that exists in the layouts folder to which styles are applied as well.  You can find a link to the web part gallery page if you look at the source of the page that you are editing in your browser (Search for "Add a Web Part").

If you are trying to swap out the home page of a SharePoint site (Default.aspx) file with another file by renaming it in SharePoint, the default\ welcome page will not change.

 

Steps to reproduce

1. Let’s say you have 2 files in the Pages folder Default.aspx (which is the default) and NewPage.aspx which you want to introduce as the default.
2. Using SharePoint you rename the Default.aspx page to DefaultOrig.aspx.
3. Using SharePoint you rename the NewPage.aspx file to Default.aspx
4. When you navigate to the site, you will see the default page as DefaultOrig.aspx. This is because internally SharePoint will changed the Welcome Page URL to DefaultOrig.aspx. You can verify this using the ‘Welcome Page’ option in Site Settings.

The best way to swap out the Welcome Page is to use the Site Settings à Welcome Page option instead.

Notepad++ is an excellent tool if you are a developer that wants to have free form text editing in one spot. Of course it does not give you intellisense (Microsoft TM) but it gives you the formatting etc. to view and make minor changes. E.g. you can use it to edit SQL files or VB files all in one spot. Defintely a must have for all developers.

URL http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm

If you create a web part using Visual Studio 2008 extensions for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, v1.3 you may not be able to Deploy your Web Part to your SharePoint web site (WSS\MOSS).  Your first step off course should be to read the release notes posted by Microsoft as suggested by the error message. In my case the issue turned out to the security account that was linked to the VSeWSS WCF Service did not have administrator permissions.

 

Steps that caused the error

1.       Create new web part project and solution, choose deployment to bin directory.

2.       Choose the Deploy option by right clicking on the solution in the Solution Explorer.

 

Solution that worked for me à Added the ‘Network Service’ account to the Administrators group.

 

Finding Root Cause and Solving it (if it was similar to mine)

1.       Open IIS and navigate to the Web Sites folder. Select VSeWSS.

2.       Open the properties window for VSeWSS. Note the Application Pool value under the Home Directory tab.

3.       Under IIS go to the Application Pools folder, locate the Application Pool for VSeWSS.

4.       Open the properties window for the Application Pool. Note the Security Account value under the Identity tab.

5.       Open Computer Management. Locate the Administrators Group under Local Users and Groups.

6.       Make sure the Security Account is added to the Administrators group.

·          If the security account is not under the Administrators group your root cause should be similar to mine.

·          Helpful Note: If you are working on a Virtual\Local Server you may not be able to find your security account e.g. you may not be able to find your Network Service account, make sure you are searching for the account in the right spot by choosing the right Location (Network or local machine) when the Add Users… dialog comes up.

7.       Restart IIS if you had to add the security account and try deploying your web part again.

 

My Error Description (When trying to Deploy the web part)

“Error       1              VSeWSS Service Error: Assembly C:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\MyWebPartsOne\bin\Debug\MyWebParts.dll not found. This may occur because the VSeWSS WCF Service does not have local administrator permissions. Please review the release notes.

VSeWSS Service Logging Error: Access to the path 'C:\Documents and Settings\Default User\Application Data\Microsoft\VSeWSS 1.3' is denied.

Logging failed attempting to write to C:\Documents and Settings\Default User\Application Data\Microsoft\VSeWSS 1.3\VSeWSS1.3 service.log. This may occur because the VSeWSS WCF Service does not have local administrator permissions. Please review the release notes. “

 

URL for Visual Studio 2008 extensions for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, v1.3

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=B2C0B628-5CAB-48C1-8CAE-C34C1CCBDC0A&displaylang=en

The ‘IE (Internet Explorer) Developer Toolbar’ is a tool that allows web developers and designers to inspect elements on a web page i.e. the DOM model. For example, if you are a SharePoint designer\developer who wants to create\edit a theme, you can use this tool to click on screen areas\elements to figure out what image files in the theme actually correspond to screen areas\elements. The toolset shows you HTML object class names, id’s, link paths and a host of other information as well. This toolset is also great for debuggin stylesheet problems. Read more about the toolset at the URL below.

 

To download this toolset go to http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=e59c3964-672d-4511-bb3e-2d5e1db91038&displaylang=en

 

Quick Start à Download and Install Toolset à Open a new instance of internet Explorer à Open a SharePoint site à From the top level IE menu Choose View->Explorer Bar -> IE Developer Toolbar. You should not see a high level summary of your site in the IE toolbar pane that is open at the bottom. In the pane below choose Find-> Select Element by Click, this is an easy way to point + click and identify individual HTML elements.

If you are using Mozilla's FireFox a better toolset is the Firebug available at http://getfirebug.com/

 

It is possible that even though you think you have followed all the steps to create a new Page Layout, it is not available for selection in the Page Layout section of the ‘Create Page’ options.

Here are some reasons

•  You may have forgotten to Check In your file or Publish it (using major version) in SharePoint Designer.
•  You may have forgotten to Approve the layout. To do this follow these steps
  • Under Site Settings Select ‘Master pages and page layouts’ (under Galleries)
  • Check if you layout is listed here for Pending approval. If it is approve it. (Off course if you do not see your layout here you may have not saved it or checked it in, in the first place!!!
• You may need to add your newly created Page Layout to the Preferred Page Layout section.
  • Under Site Settings Select ‘Page layouts and site templates’ (under Look and Feel)
  • Check out the Page Layouts section if the option ‘Pages in this site can only use the following layouts’ is selected then you do have to add your Page Layout to the available list (on the right hand side).

May answer the following questions.

• Cannot use newly created SharePoint Page Layout

I came across a good article for guidance regarding turning on SharePoint's publishing infrastructure, here is the link http://mindsharpblogs.com/penny/archive/2007/09/28/2973.aspx.

Notes for turning on the Publishing feature

• If you want to turn on the publishing feature you must do so at the Site Collection level first. Follow these steps...
  • Navigate to the Site Collection's top level Site then go to Site Settings.
  • Choose ‘Site Collection Features’ link.
  • Activate the ‘Office SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure’ feature.
• To turn on the publishing feature at the Site level. Follow these steps…
• Go the Site Settings page of the particular site.
• Choose to the ‘Site Features’ link
• Activate the ‘Office SharePoint Server Publishing’ feature
• You will notice you will now have access to Site Setting links such as ‘Navigation’  (under Look and Feel) that give you greater control over fine tuning your Site navigation.

This article may answer questions like….

•  How to start using web content management features of MOSS (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server
•  I cannot see the ‘Navigation’ link under Look and Feel for my Site.
• Where is my Navigation link under Look and Feel

I have used events in the past extensively when developing windows applications. I just discovered a new feature recently when developing a windows workflow application. The ability to execute Code when Host Programs Add\Remove\Raise Events in your custom control\object.

I have developed a sample project to demonstrate the custom event feature. When you run the solution click on the "Add Handler" and "Remove Handler" buttons, you will see custom code getting invoked. One needs to be familiar with the base windows event\delegate model before your understand what is happening here to appreciate it fully. 

Download CustomEvents.zip, unzip it and run the solution.

CustomEvents.zip (36.98 KB)

Team Foundation Server, setting up your version control folders and branch relationships to properly merge code in the model

Somebody asked me a question how to make a form immovable once it is loaded - I am sure this is not a very common request...I looked at the form properties but did not come across any property at the form level that achieves this...so I wrote some code to do it - it seems to work. Throw this code into your form code...

'Trap Initial Form Load to capture initial form coordinates
Dim originalLocation As System.Drawing.Point

Protected Overrides Sub OnLoad(ByVal e As System.EventArgs)
   MyBase.OnLoad(e)
   originalLocation = Location
End Sub

'After location changes restore back to original location
Protected Overrides Sub OnLocationChanged(ByVal e As System.EventArgs)
   MyBase.OnLocationChanged(e)
   Location = originalLocation
End Sub

http://coolthingoftheday.blogspot.com/2007/05/free-powershell-introductiongetting.html

Vishwas Lele gave an excellent talk on MOSS 2007 - Microsoft Office SharePoint Server today. I was impressed with the features and the kind of extensibility power that is encapsulated within this product - Vishwas started out by explaining how MOSS is based off WSS 3.0 and ASP.Net 2.0 which are tightly integrated to basically give you features from both worlds i.e. SharePoint features using WSS 3.0 features and programming\extensibility using ASP.Net 2.0. He then continued showing how you can have a single site but show different users content based on their regions. He also demonstrated Content Types and how do drive lists based off them. I was impressed with the extensibility options using InfoPath 2007 where you can now allow an end user to design\change forms without installing InfoPath on their PC's - this is achieved using Forms Services which are web based. In the end Vishwas demoed how the MOSS also includes Excel Business Services where you can harness formulas\business logic embedded in Excel to drive your business logic. Also coupled with .Net 3.0 you can use Windows Workflow which is tightly integrated with MOSS, this interests me since I develop mostly business applications which have complex business workflow logic. Great talk from Vishwas which I highly recommend.

For more on developing solutions using the MOSS technology go to this excellent article http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/06/08/GatheringMoss/

 

I picked up this month’s MSDN magazine and came across an interesting article. The article described a way to test .NET Classes though the command line!!! Who would have thought of that - obviously Microsoft did and is achieved through a free downloaded program called Window PowerShell. This excited me due to its potential of Unit testing objects. Here is the link to the article http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/07/05/TestRun/default.aspx

 

Here is what I did first

• Downloaded Windows PowerShell for XP from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/technologies/management/powershell/download.mspx
• Open Windows PowerShell through your Start Menu. The first things I tried to do was type in old DOS command like dir etc. and they worked. In fact the tool gave me more information on the files e.g. was the file in the listing read-only etc.
• The first programming I try to do is to write a program\profile that executes on start up – here is how I got it working
  • The article mentions that you can view your profile file (startup script file) when you type notepad.exe $profile. But that does not quite work since it seems the file does not exist by default.
  • Type $profile in the command line. This will show you the path of the startup script file
  • Create the directory and file physically in the path show e.g. My Document\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1
  • Now go back to the power shell prompt and type notepad $profile – this opens up the profile file correctly now
  • In the profile file type in the text below and save. Open power shell the script should execute…
    • C:
    • C:\
    • write-host "My first windows power shell script"
  • Well it won’t execute by default. Power shell disables script execution by default for security reasons – to enable scripts to execute, I executed the command
    • set-executionpolicy unrestricted
  • Re open the Windows PowerShell program, you will now see the message “My first windows power shell script” and notice that your default directory is C:\
  • !!SUCCESS!!!

 

More to follow tomorrow\this week – this is exciting cannot wait to start unit testing….

There is a code camp  at Reston, you will find more information at http://novacodecamp.org/. Code camp is a ONE day deal where you can sit and listen to industry technical guru's belt out presentations on the latest topics in the Microsft Technical Arena and best of all it is free. A must go...

My First Windows Mobile 5.0 Program using Visual Studio 2005 - T-Mobile Dash Smartphone - Steps for beginners and sample first program with source code

Brian Noyes presented at the Capital Area .NET User Group today http://www.caparea.net/Default.aspx?tabid=54. He went thought the basics of WCF and did a simple demo showing us the fundamentals of the underlying concepts - He went through the ABC's - A - Address (Where) B - Bindings (How) C - Contract (What) - We went on to see how we define the Contract and related objects and how to host a Service to ultimately consuming it through a proxy. Very good presentation.

Brian has his blog at http://www.softinsight.com/bnoyes/ He is also coming out with a new Book on Click Once Deployment technologies which is coming out next month December 2006.

If your .NET solution contains projects that contain custom/user controls for windows/web forms these controls are automatically loaded into the toolbox so that they can be utilized on your forms. In some cases when there are a large number of controls in your project the solution seems to compile slowly or the toolbox seems to take quite some time to load. If you are facing such issues turn off the AutoToolboxPopulate property on the ToolsàOptionsàWindows Forms DesigneràGeneral tab.

http://www.madcodecamp.com/photoalbum_contents.aspx?Albumid=5

Something basic, Not that you would but you could...If you want to debug .NET solutions without Visual Studio you can use DBGCLR.EXE to do so which gives you a GUI interface to debug .NET Executables/Programs/Processes. To use this you either need to have the .NET SDK 1.1/2.0 installed or Visual Studio (in which case you don't need to use DBGCLR). Users who have SDK installed can find the tool at Microsoft.NET\FrameworkSDK\GuiDebug. Users who have Visual Studio installed can find this tool at Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\SDK\v1.1\GuiDebug for .NET 1.1 or Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\GuiDebug for .NET 2.0.

 

Click here  http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/d9kh6s92.aspx to get a listing of tools for the .NET Framework.

Writing Cross-Language .Net Solutions in VB.Net, Visual C# and Visual J#

I have uploaded the Mirosoft Reston Code Camp presentation and source code for my talk on custom controls (with data binding) at http://www.knowthycode.com/Downloads/20060608/WinForms_Custom_Controls_Presentation_Clyde.zip

The schedule and details for the Reston Code Camp can be viewed at http://www.madcodecamp.com/schedule/codecampmain.htm. Hope to see you there.

Geoff Snowman and Lamont Harrington are going to host a, what I believe to be an excellent session on Biz Talk integration. So if you are a novice, expert or simply want to know more about Biz Talk and how it integrates with other microsoft products come on over. Find out more at http://caparea.net/Meetings+and+Events/509.aspx

Microsoft will be hosting a Code Camp on June 10’Th. The code camp is a great event for .NET developers to network and also gain a lot of information on the topics that are current and unique. The speakers in Code Camp are experts on topics they speak on and have a lot of experience in the subject they are presenting; it is a good opportunity for developers to get questions answered in person. You actually see code being developed on the fly!!!

Call for Speakers- To present on a wide variety of topics from Web Applications, Smart Clients, Data Access and Security Best Practices.

Whether you are a speaker or an attendee we would love to have you participate in this developer event.

Whether you are a speaker or an attendee find out more here.

Boosting performance when using solutions that contain large Visual Basic projects in Visual Studio 2005

Designing and Debugging a User Control in DESIGNTIME and RUNTIME in Visual Studio 2003

HOTFIX: For Visual Studio 2005 crashing/compile errors message while Debugging using Edit and Continue or ASP.Net

If you have hosted your blog using dasBlog on your IIS Server then do not name the application as dasBlog. I had my blog hosted at www.knowthycode.com/dasBlo g. Brian had put a reference to my blog in his blog hosted in dasBlog, and it should have worked.

But nope the dasBlog Web application does not like the word "dasBlog" in any URL's specified in its web post's. So when you post the web log like brian did it kinda does a find and replace for the word "dasBlog" as part of URL's and really screwes up the way the HREF is rendered to a browser in the web post.

What does the replace is the section listed below in your Site.Config for your dasBlog web application. 

<ContentFilter find="dasBlog" replace="&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dasblog.net&quot;&gt;dasBlog&lt;/a&gt;" isregex="false" />"

Watch how weird this webpost looks due to the word dasBlog in it's contents.

Thanks Brian for pointing this out

Designing and Testing a User Control in Visual Studio 2005 using the Test Container

Smart Client Custom Controls Powerpoint Presentation and Source Code

I have officially started blogging November 19'Th 2005. I hope to share my ideas and concepts through this blog and have fun doing it. I speak at user groups about development using Visual Studio 2005, .NET Framework 2.0, I want this blog to initially serve as a portal for people who are interested in and want to collaborate on topics that interest me.

About myself: Worked in the Software Industry for about 13 years. I started programming in COBOL/C/Unix and have since then gone onto build successful database intensive enterprise applications primarily using Microsoft Technology (VB6/COM+/.NET/ CENTURA/SQL Server/ORACLE). I specialize in building software components for use in Database driven GUI applications.

Thanks Brian for the help on blogging and everything else.