Michael's Coding Den: Sharepoint

SharePoint Mirroring

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 12:02:14 GMT

There are number of posts and documents about how to setup mirroring of SharePoint content DB, but when I started my mirroring I stumbled over number issues, which I probably missed in documentation and which took some of my time to find out what was wrong. So in this post I’d like summarize all important parts of setting SharePoint mirroring.

Refer to detailed description in the end of this post to get the initial understanding.

Prepare all you SharePoint Content databases for recovery. Use “ALTER Database <databasename> SET RECOVERY FULL;“ SQL command against all databases which will participate in backup and mirroring.
(Optionally) Prepare content databases to be detached from web application, because in future you could rename it. To do this run “stsadm -o preparetomove -contentdb SQLSERVER:DBNAME –site <url>”.
Make the SharePoint farm backup, and restore it on your Disaster Recovery (DR) box. Use OOTB backup/restore – Central Admin –> Operations –> Backup. The reason to restore SharePoint on DR box instead of straight mirroring is to have everything set and configured absolutely the same as on production box, to have minimum restoration time.
After you restore your instance on DR box close SharePoint Central Admin. You don’t need it anymore :)
Make SQL backup of your SharePoint DBs and their LOGs from production box, which will be mirrored. Usually only content databases are mirrored - search and other stuff can be missed, because it’s not so vital as content DB. I had number issues with making SQL backups and restore DBs on DR box, after you restored your new instance, so, I found more convenient to provide new copy of all DBs specially for mirroring. Make this backup with SQL commands “BACKUP DATABASE/LOG” and copy those files to DR box.
Go to SQL Management Studio and delete all SharePoint DB which you want to mirror.
Restore your databases with “NORECOVERY” attribute. UI doesn’t help you, so we are using SQL command “RESTORE DATABASE … NORECOVERY …” for this.
After restoration completed you will see your DB with new icon and having “(recovering…)” status. Now time to apply the logs with the same “NORECOVERY” attribute and the similar command “RESTORE LOG … NORECOVERY…”
Wait a couple of minutes, allowing SQL server to restore some stuff.
Now connect to Production SQL instance from DR box, select the database you just restored in DR, and right-mouse clicking, selecting tools->mirroring. Mirroring Wizards will start. Go through all steps. Ignore mirroring endpoints name difference. But pay attention on “encryption” settings on principal and on mirror boxes – they must be the same. Use next command to change these settings “ALTER ENDPOINT Mirroring FOR DATA_MIRRORING (ROLE = PARTNER, ENCRYPTION = SUPPORTED)” to be the same among principal and mirror boxes.
Activate mirroring in the end of Mirroring Wizard, and you DB status will changed to “principal”/”mirroring”.
You might have security error, saying that your DR box can’t connect to partner (production box). Go to SQL again and run the following “alter database myDatabase set partner = 'TCP://abc.domain.net:7024';”
Repeat everything from step 6 to 11 for all SharePoint databases.
To switch to DR box and start using mirrored databases, you need to go to mirroring window again and press “FAILOVER” button. This will switch your databases and DR boxes will be active. Without failover you site on DR box won’t be accessible.

Troubleshooting:

1) User SQL Management Studio, right mouse click on DB, Tasks->Launch Database Mirroring Monitor to check the status of your mirroring databases.

2) You can have the following error “Cannot open database "<…>" requested by the login. The login failed. Login failed for user '….'.” when you try to use “stsadm –o addcontentdb …”. This happens when you DB not in failover status. You need to make your DR failovered (active) and only then add content DB

That’s all. I hope this post will save some of your time when you start your SharePoint mirroring.

Starting SharePoint solution and planning your documentation

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 10:56:43 GMT

When a new SharePoint project is about to start I use the following steps to design and plan solution

Creating Vision/Scope
Site structure and Navigation
Use Case Scenarios
Data Flow scenario
Content location
Site Collection Boundaries
List of required features and site definitions
Security: Roles and Permissions
Page Wireframes: layouts and content types
Targeting
Search strategy (scopes, authoritative, best bets)
Infrastructure Plan
Disaster Recovery
Deployment plan

Take into account that SharePoint SDLC differs from standard development, and not all projects require those steps.

Mirror: Starting SharePoint solution and planning your documentation

MS officially supports SharePoint virtualized environment

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 09:48:48 GMT

Today @jthake posted info about the recent announcement from Microsoft that they finally started to support “Virtualized SharePoint environment” for

Virtual PC
vmWare
Win2k8 hyper-v

What does it mean for end-users, developers or IT guys?! Nothing.

It mostly the question of taking the official decision for managers, what and where will be deployed. Because in case of any problems Microsoft will help you in troubleshooting, but not for SharePoint under one of virtualized environment. You must had a installation on physical boxes.

Now it’s now an issue. They announced support of virtualized SharePoint environments

Mirror: MS officially supports SharePoint virtualized environment

SharePoint Infrastructure Update (WSS/MOSS) and exception with “Blocked file types” page

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 14:16:57 GMT

After installing SharePoint 2008 (WSS/MOSS) Infrastructure Update from July 2008 you may find that “Blocked file types” page is broken (Central Administration –> Operations –> Blocked file types). Albeit it worked before, 10 mins ago, but now you end up with the following exception

Object reference not set to an instance of an object.   at Microsoft.SharePoint.ApplicationPages.BlockedFileTypePage.InitializeValues()
   at Microsoft.SharePoint.ApplicationPages.BlockedFileTypePage.OnLoadComplete(EventArgs e)
   at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint)

What it means, that SharePoint can’t resolve your WebApplicationID (GUID of your site) from Content DB.

The fully qualified URL for “Blocked file types” looks like “http://<CentralAdmin>:<port>/_admin/BlockedFileType.aspx?WebApplicationId=fa221a6a-42a2-4a09-8aac-76a31f160880”.

I have no idea why SharePoint can’t resolve web application after Infrastructure Update, something wrong happened and your site just can’t be found. I didn’t test with SQL Profiler, but expect that nothing returning from Content DB

To fix this you need just to create new Web Application :) That’s all. At this time the Content DB tables will be updated with new web app and GUID, and “Blocked file types” will start work again.

Mirror: SharePoint Infrastructure Update (WSS/MOSS) and exception with “Blocked file types” page

Deploying SharePoint Web Parts as a part of PageLayouts in MOSS 2007

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 01:46:39 GMT

Web Parts are an important and everywhere used part of SharePoint. Web Parts are documented pretty good and there are several sources describing as just ASP.NET WebParts (Darren Neimke book) and some resources about Web Parts in SharePoint as well. But in reality SharePoint WebPart specific stuff is not properly documented, and in this post I’d like to publish some tips regarding Web Parts in SharePoint

General Info

Not all Web Parts are inherited from System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebPart class. Some of them comes from Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPart, which is inherited from the System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebPart now. When you develop your own Web Parts, in mostly cases you need to inherit from System.Web WebPart class

Finding the connections

For some tasks you might handle the Web Part connection/disconnection programmatically. For example, connect your Web Part via code or via Page Layouts. To do this you need to know the Consumer and Provider names. It’s not the problem for your Web Parts, but how to find the Provider name for the out-of-the-box Web Parts?! For this you need to use Reflector.

First, to know the class name of SharePoint Web Part you need just put any Web Part to the page and export it to XML. In that XML you will find the assembly and class name. After that open that assembly in Reflector and navigates to the class you need to get Provider name. Scrutinize that Web Part class to find the connections and name of Provider connection. Connection may be not exactly in that class, but in one of the base classes.

For example for Page Filter Web Parts the Provider name is “ITransformableFilterValues”

Deploying Web Parts with connections

If you deploy you pages and want to have Web Parts being already connected for each new page user creates, then you need to connect Web Part via XML description inside Page Layout.

Connection consists from 3 parts:

Consumer ID and Name –which you know, because usually it’s you own custom Web Parts
Provider ID and Name – I described above how to extract that name
Name of the parameter you select from dialog box when connect Web Parts manually.

So, let’s start:

Put any Web Parts to your Page Layout (I use SharePoint Designer for this, because it simplify my work), save page and navigate to the code.
In code find the <WebPartPages:WebPartZone> section, and there you will find you Web Parts markup tagged with <Components: prefix.
Find the ProviderID attribute of the Web Parts you want to connect and remember values . These values will be used when we create the connection between Web Parts.
Open your page in browser to verify it works.
Connect Web Parts manually, and save the name of the parameter which is shown in the popup dialog box when you connect Web Parts
Remove connections between Web Parts, and return back to SharePoint designer
Open the Page Layout code and navigate to the very beginning of document. Try to find the following section “<WebPartPages:SPProxyWebPartManager”. If you don’t have this section you can miss the following step
Add the <WebPartPages:SPProxyWebPartManager runat="server" ID="ProxyWebPartManager"> section inside “PlaceHolderMain” content holder
Now, we are ready to create connections. Add the following codesnippet inside SPProxyWebPartManager

   1: <SPWebPartConnections>   2:            <WebPartPages:SPWebPartConnection ID="g_myConnectionName"   3:                ConsumerConnectionPointID="IFilterValues" ConsumerID="WebPartA"   4:                ProviderConnectionPointID="ITransformableFilterValues" ProviderID="WebPartB">   5:                <WebPartPages:TransformableFilterValuesToFilterValuesTransformer MappedConsumerParameterName="Parameter">   6:                </WebPartPages:TransformableFilterValuesToFilterValuesTransformer>   7:            </WebPartPages:SPWebPartConnection>   8: </SPWebPartConnections>

Let’s review the “blue” selections, because it’s where connection magic happens

g_myConnectionName is the name of current connection, can be any name
IFilterValues – Consumer interface name of Web Part which accept connection
WebPartA – consumer Web Part ID from the WebPartZone section we found and remembered previously
ITransformableFilterValues – Provider interface name of Web Part which provides connection (in this sample I used Page Filter web parts and they have such provider name. Refer to the “Finding the connections” section where I described how to extract the names
WebPartB – provider Web Part ID from the WebPartZone section we found and remembered previously
Parameter – the name from the connection dialog box where you select the parameter

10. Save the page layout. Go to SharePoint and create the new page based on that page layout. After page will be created you can find that your Web Parts are already connected. Job done!

Take into account, that you can’t change Web Parts connection for pages created for the Page Layouts with predefined Web Part connections.

Mirror: Deploying SharePoint Web Parts as a part of PageLayouts in MOSS 2007

Moving ASP.NET master.page to SharePoint

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:27:25 GMT

In these days SharePoint become more and more popular. There are number of web project which starts directly in SharePoint, but however a lot of project remains out the SharePoint scope, and exists as pure ASP.NET application.

The one of the common task of migrating ASP.NET application to SharePoint is changing the site landing page to become SharePoint page. But it’s where the problem starts. ASP.NET applications tend to consume different modern tools and technologies like ASP.NET MVC, SilverLight, URL Rewriting and others which seems to be very common in pure ASP.NET development, but could be the potential problems in SharePoint world.

There are three thing you need to concentrate on

1) master.page

Remove AutoEventWireup="true" attribute. SharePoint doesn’t support it on all pages;
User controls are not supported on master.page, so move them to CONTROLTEMPLATES folder and change references
Check that all classes you inherit from has the namespaces

2) CSS

SharePoint doesn’t support CSS validation on 100%, so I can hardly recommend something specific here. But what did helped me a lot id debuging and CSS customization is just to have the “clean” CSS file, which resets all customization http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/css/reset/

3) Web.config

You need to make sure that you are using the right siteMap defaultProvider (<siteMap section>) from your ASP.NET web.config, otherwise all your SiteMap elements will be considered as Sharepoint Publishing classes elements (if u have MOSS), which are differs from asp.net SiteMap classes
If you are using URL rewriting or other specific modules you need to create the <system.webServer> section in SharePoint config file and add them there.
You need to add all your DLLS to the list of SafeControls

4) Code

You need to have [assembly: AllowPartiallyTrustedCallers()] in your dlls.
DLLs must be signed
All classes must have namespaces

Mirror: http://msmvps.com/blogs/laflour/archive/2008/07/10/moving-asp-net-master-page-to-sharepoint.aspx

SharePoint Designer removes tags when saves page layout - “file system” feature workaround

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 04:13:30 GMT

In the current project we are using SharePoint Designer 2007 intensively to create number of PageLayouts, especially to put WebParts there and pre-configure WebParts connections. SPD is not such a bad tool, because there is no alternative for this. But time to time it really buggy and awful that you start thinking if it passed QA team before being released. (event SP1 doesn’t solve a lot of common crucial bugs, which stops you using SPD at all)

The most disgusting stuff of SharePoint Designer is that it formats your pages markup without asking you. And what’s worse it REMOVES some tags. I really can’t understand that behaviour – WHY it removes what you typed when you save document?!

Recently, we stumble over the very nasty thing of SPD – accidental formatting. We have a PageLayout with several web parts on the page and we created <SPWebPartConnections> section to predefine WebParts connections. But whenever you save your document, SPD for some reasons removes some of your <SPWebPartConnections>. We spent about 2 hours to understand any dependencies or logic, but without success. It seems that they have some kind of RAND which selects which of the SPWebPartConnections tags to remove. We tried to install several hotfixes for SPD – but nothing works.

So, the only way is to use other tools, like Visual Studio. But there is a problem. If you are edit your pageLayout in Visual Studio and want to test it, you need to re-deploy your pagelayouts each time, because VS doesn’t support check-in/check-out to SharePoint Content DB.

But there is alternative way to edit your pages and have check-in support from the Visual Studio. SharePoint has very cool “file system” feature. It means that you can navigate to your PageLayouts from explorer, open them in any editor and save it back. All your changes will be stored in Content DB(!!)

To do this your need to open Windows Explorer and navigate to My Network Places. On the left side you will see the “Add Network Places” item. Open it and type there “http://<yoursite>/_catalogs/masterpage/”, type the name of your network folder like “MySite PageLayouts” and press OK.

Now, if you open the “MySite PageLayouts” item from Windows Explorer->My Network Places you will see the content of your “_catalogs/masterpage/” SharePoint folder. And now your can open your masterPage or PageLayouts in any editor, edit them and save them. All changes will be stored into ContentDB. But don’t forget to checkout your file before editing (via Sharepoint or SPD)

So, this trick allows you to edit any SharePoint files and forget about SharePoint Designer issues

Mirror: SharePoint Designer removes tags when saves page layout - “file system” feature workaround

Page events stop working after using output stream for binary download

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:22:56 GMT

In my previous SharePoint projects I've met the situations when you need to outstreem some binary files, like PDF file or something else, but when you do this by the standard way (how you used to do in normal ASP.NET site) you found that page is "dead" after you streamed you file to the client. By "dead" I mean that it doesn't respond to any events, and you can't use this page.

The problem lies in the SharePoint JavaScript files, which are integrated into the each web page, and seems that they protect you from unnecessary double-posts. But unfortunately such behaviour breaks your stream output.

I didn't have a change to investigate this problem in details, to find out what exactly affects on this, and always solved this by putting stream out in the new popup window.

In these days on SharePoint NGs this question was risen and "andyspears" posted a work-around, how to change the SharePoint JS and return the normal behaviour back.

   1: //1) Set your button's client-side click event to:    2: "exportRequested=true;"    3:     4: //2) register the following JS:    5: string beforeSubmitJS = "\nvar exportRequested = false; \n";    6: beforeSubmitJS += "var beforeFormSubmitFunction = theForm.onsubmit; \n";    7: beforeSubmitJS += "theForm.onsubmit = function(){ \n";    8: beforeSubmitJS += "var returnVal = beforeFormSubmitFunction(); \n";    9: beforeSubmitJS += "if(exportRequested && returnVal)   10:     {_spFormOnSubmitCalled=false; exportRequested=false;} \n";   11:    12: //beforeSubmitJS += "alert(returnVal + '\\n' + _spFormOnSubmitCalled);";   13: beforeSubmitJS += "return returnVal; \n";   14: beforeSubmitJS += "}; \n";   15:    16: //beforeSubmitJS += "alert(theForm.onsubmit);";   17: this.Page.ClientScript.RegisterStartupScript(this.GetType(), "alterFormSubmitEvent", beforeSubmitJS, true); 

Thanks AdnySpears, good work!

Mirror: Page events stop working after using output stream for binary download

Subclassing Content Query Web Part to override CAML query

Wed, 28 May 2008 13:43:42 GMT

The Content Query Web Part (CQWP) in MOSS is one of the popular out-of-the-box Publishing components which is used in content management sites, allowing you to get results from different sources.

But sometimes out of the box functionality is not enough to meet your requirements, and you need to customize CQWP. There are several resources describing how to do this - 1, 2, 3, 4

The most important features which are missed in CQWP are:

overriding query to use custom CAML
enabling web-part connections

To implement these functionality you need to subclass ContentByQueryWebPart class and override several methods.

Below I will describe what exactly need to be done to achieve desired behaviour.

Query Override

To have custom CAML query in your Web part you need to override CreateChildControls base method. You can find samples how to do this in the references above, but it's done so implicitly, that you can easily spend hours to find out why you code doesn't work and gives you different errors

The crucial part is in the way sending the query to the base class within overrided CreateChildControls

   1: protected override void CreateChildControls()   2: {   3:     this.QueryOverride = customQueryString;   4:     5:     base.CreateChildControls();   6:     7:     QueryOverride = string.Empty;   8:     9:     CommonViewFields = string.Empty;  10: }

First, you need to set your custom query to the "this.QueryOverride" to inform base class about query - line 3

Second, call base CreateChildControls() allowing your query being executed - line 5

Third and last - CLEAN query and view fields properties - line 7,9. Without this step you will get errors when open your Web Part in edit mode

Enabling Connection

The Content Query WP doesn't accept any connections by default. You need to implement this too. Everything you need to to is just add ConnectionConsumer attribute. But trick in setting the right attribute which is used in Parameter dialog box, when you connect two web-parts.

   1: [ConnectionConsumer("Another WebPart", "IFilterValues", AllowsMultipleConnections = true)]   2: public void SetConnectionInterface(IFilterValues filterProvider)   3: {   4:     if (filterProvider != null)   5:     {   6:         // save provider with values   7:         providerValues = filterProvider.ParameterValues;   8:         _filterProviders.Add(filterProvider);  // variable declaration is List<IFilterValues> _filterProviders = new List<IFilterValues>();   9:         List<ConsumerParameter> parameters = new List<ConsumerParameter>();  10:           11:         // add params  12:         parameters.Add(new ConsumerParameter("param1",  13:                 ConsumerParameterCapabilities.SupportsSingleValue |  14:                 ConsumerParameterCapabilities.SupportsEmptyValue));  15:         parameters.Add(new ConsumerParameter("param2",  16:                 ConsumerParameterCapabilities.SupportsMultipleValues |  17:                 ConsumerParameterCapabilities.SupportsAllValue |  18:                 ConsumerParameterCapabilities.SupportsEmptyValue));  19:    20:         filterProvider.SetConsumerParameters(new ReadOnlyCollection<ConsumerParameter>(parameters));  21:    22:         }  23: }

Method name can be any, but pay attention which provider you are using . WebPart providers send data via different provider interfaces, for example when you are working with Filtering web parts (like "Current User Filter" web part) then you need to "listen" your incoming connections via IFilterValues (thx Mutaz for this findings), for other WB it could be IWebPartField or IWebPartRow.

If you are expecting to get data from WP via unsupported provider you connection link will be dimmed

Practical Sample

@d2design kindly asked to provide practical sample, for example how to use current user as a keyword :)

Actually, it's good example which shows how use both features I described.

To do this you need to have:

ShareServices (SSP) with UserProfile, where current userName is stored
"Current User Filter" WebPart, to get the userName from SSP. It returns you logged user name by default (not necessary actually, as well as SSP, because you could resolve you user name via standard asp.net User class when construct custom query)
Enable WebPart connections as I described above. You need to use IFilterValue interface for "Current User Filter" and store your incoming user name in variable.
Override query to include your userName in resulted custom query.

TIPS:

When you are quering content which is not published and approved (like pages) you wont be able to see that content on the page in final view. You data will be available in page edit mode only, because they are treated as "draft" data.
<OrderBy>CAML tag is not parsed by CQWP, you need to remove it from your query and set the related order field of CQWP class<OrderBy>CAML tag is not parsed by CQWP, you need to remove it from your query and set the related order field of CQWP class

Mirror: Subclassing Content Query Web Part to override CAML query

MOSS Content Deployment Jobs - Lookup Fields and requirements

Thu, 22 May 2008 12:45:00 GMT

Content Deployment Job is a nice feature of MOSS 2007 to secure your main site from unauthorized and accidental changes and have approved content being deployed via standard MOSS functionality.

But Content Deployment Jobs are a bit tricky :(

There are some areas which I'd like to highlight in the current post, which helps you to save hours in configuring Content Deployments Path and Jobs

Requirements

To have successful contend deployment you need to prepare your sites correctly. There is a great post from Stefan Gossner who provided detailed explanations to all pre-requirement.

Just to summarize, you need:

Destination Site without any template pages (don't use "Blank" template even)
Deploy features to Source and Destination sites
Activate features ONLY on Destination site

Incremental Deployment

When you set deployment path and created your first job you need to do full deployment ("Deploy all content" option) first, and after it's done set the incremental deployment.

Your incremental job could fail with the next exception

"Violation of PRIMARY KEY constraint 'PK__#ExportObjects____50430BFC'. Cannot insert duplicate key in object 'dbo.#ExportObjects'."

The reason is that SP1 for MOSS changed the document versioning system, but no changes where done to Content Deployment Job functionality. To solve this issue you may need to install the following hotfix http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950279 or disable minor versioning for specific lists (google to find details about this)

Lookup fields

The biggest trick in Content Deployment Jobs relates to Lookup fields deployed via Feature. I think that the following exception will be familiar for those who tried run Content Deployment Jobs for Site with Lookup Fields feature

The element 'FieldTemplate' in namespace 'urn:deployment-manifest-schema' has invalid child element 'Field' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/'. List of possible elements expected: 'Field' in namespace 'urn:deployment-manifest-schema'. at System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaValidator.SendValidationEvent(ValidationEventHandler eventHandler, Object sender, XmlSchemaValidationException e, XmlSeverityType severity) at System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaValidator.ElementValidationError(XmlQualifiedName name, ValidationState context, ValidationEventHandler eventHandler, Object sender, String sourceUri, Int32 lineNo, Int32 linePos, Boolean getParticles) at System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaValidator.ValidateElementContext(XmlQualifiedName elementName, Boolean& invalidElementInContext) at System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaValidator.ValidateElement(String localName, String namespaceUri, XmlSchemaInfo schemaInfo, String xsiType, String xsiNil, String xsiSchemaLocation, String xsiNoNamespaceSchemaLocation) at System.Xml.XsdValidatingReader.ProcessElementEvent() at System.Xml.XsdValidatingReader.ProcessReaderEvent() at System.Xml.XsdValidatingReader.Read() at Microsoft.SharePoint.Deployment.XmlFormatter.ParseObject(Type objectType, Boolean isChildObject) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Deployment.XmlFormatter.DeserializeObject(Type objectType, Boolean isChildObject, DeploymentObject envelope) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Deployment.XmlFormatter.Deserialize(Stream serializationStream) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Deployment.ObjectSerializer.Deserialize(Stream serializationStream) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Deployment.ImportObjectManager.ProcessObject(XmlReader xmlReader) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Deployment.SPImport.DeserializeObjects() at Microsoft.SharePoint.Deployment.SPImport.Run()
5/22/2008 11:14 AM Content deployment job 'Remote import job for job with sourceID = 0ffd575d-df2f-474f-83b6-f3454f2e7d0d' failed.The exception thrown was 'System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaValidationException' : 'The element 'FieldTemplate' in namespace 'urn:deployment-manifest-schema' has invalid child element 'Field' in namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/'. List of possible elements expected: 'Field' in namespace 'urn:deployment-manifest-schema'.'

The problems is exactly in deployment scripts of Lookup fields. There are several samples how to deploy lookup fields via feature (http://www.sharepointnutsandbolts.com/2007/04/feature-to-create-lookup-fields-on.html) but all of them are not suitable for the Content Deployment Jobs. Because you will get the exception which I posted above.

The only way to find out why this happens is to use 3rd party tools (SharepointSpy or FieldsExplorer) to compare the SchemaXML of Lookup Fields after deployment via FeatureReceiver. So, after scrutinizing this issue I found out that deploying Lookup Fields via FeatureReceiver differs from Lookup fields create via Central Admin Web site. FeatureReceiver deployment adds additional attribute "xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/" to the Lookup SchemaXML which breaks the Content Deployment Job.

So, the solution is simple - verify the published schema in FeatureReceiver before calling Update() method for Lookup Field and remove this attribute.

Mirror: MOSS Content Deployment Jobs - Lookup Fields and requirements

Publishing Content Types and missed "CreatePage.aspx" page in WCM sites

Tue, 20 May 2008 12:40:39 GMT

SharePoint content types is very popular thing, and used in almost all Sharepoint projects. Deployment of content types via feature is described in almost every book about SharePoint, but non of them describe how to do in correctly :) This happens mostly because the real nature of deployment content types reveals in Web Content Managed (WCM) projects, where you are working with content types inherited from publishing types. And there is no Sharepoint WCM book yet.

So, what's exactly specific in publishing content types for WCM? It's the nature on publishing types and using content types in publishing lists, such as "Pages" for example.

If to follow the standard practices in deployment of content types via feature, but inherited from any "Publishing" types and then add your custom content type to specific list (let's consider "Pages" list) you will find a bit strange results.

Adding new custom publishing content type pages will fail in that scenario - you will be redirected to "UploadPage.aspx" page, not to "CreatePage.aspx" page where you usually create new pages for your custom publishing content types.

The problem in that, if you create the content type inherited from publishing types, and don't specify the "CreatePage.aspx" template pages explicitly then you will loose the ability to create new pages for your content types in list toolbar menu (like on the screen above).

Actually it depends how you are adding new content type page - via Site Action menu, or via List toolbar menu. I realized that adding new page for custom publishing type fails from list toolbar menu (in default screnario), and works if you add it via Site Action menu.

The workaround is next - add the reference to "CreatePage.aspx" template explicitly using the <DocumentTemplate> tag inside the <ContentType> feature tag. The code-snipped is following

<ContentType

        ID="0x010100C568DB52D9D0A14D9B2FDCC96666E9F2007948130EC3DB064584E219954237AF3900<GUID>"
        Name="my Publishing Content Type"
        Group="my Publishing Content Type"
        Description="Content Type inherited from Publishing Page"
        >
        <FieldRefs>
            <FieldRef ID="{<GUID>}" DisplayName="Title" Name="Title" Sealed="TRUE" />
            <FieldRef ID="{<GUID>}" DisplayName="Description" Name="Comments" />
        </FieldRefs>
        <DocumentTemplate TargetName ="/_layouts/CreatePage.aspx"/>

</ContentType>

When you deploy this content type via feature and add this content type to the list, "CreatePage.aspx" become available and you could create your publishing content via list toolbar menu. The work is done :)

Another trick is how to make your publishing content type available in specific list during feature deployment. For this reason you need to use following tag inside feature deployment xml

<ContentTypeBinding
ContentTypeId="<LIST ID where your content type should be added>"
ListUrl="$Resources:cmscore,List_Pages_UrlName;"
/>

Mirror: Publishing Content Types and missed "CreatePage.aspx" page in WCM sites

Sharepoint Tools Overview for Windows 2008 and Visual Studio 2008

Wed, 14 May 2008 13:49:17 GMT

I used to use a couple of tools in WSS/MOSS development which covered 90% of all functionality. These tools are

Sharepoint Spy
WSS Extensions for Visual Studio 2005

but when I switched on Windows 2008 Server + Visual Studio 2008 I noted that these tools are not supported there. Sharepoint Spy can't be installed on Windows 2008 (actually I can, but u need to use ORCA and change MSI); WSS Extensions works with VS 2005 only, and you can't use them with TFS builds.

Well... there is another reality, where you can survive without these tools :)

There I'd like to post the list of other tools which help you to substitute the Sharepoint Spy and WSS Extensions

Imtech Fields Explorer
Imtech StsAdm Commands to export List definitions
Sharepoint Inspector to browse your SharePoint 2007 farm
Sharepoint Logging Spy to allow real time diagnostics of multiple servers
SharePoint Visual Studio Project and Deployment Templates to package SharePoint solution properly for deployment
Visual Studio SharePoint Project Utility Tool Window to customize Sharepoint content creation

I welcome if you post in comments other tools which help you in Sharepoint development, deployment and debugging

Mirror: Sharepoint Tools Overview for Windows 2008 and Visual Studio 2008

CSS and ASP.NET Menu in Sharepoint

Wed, 14 May 2008 13:15:55 GMT

Using CSS in SharePoint differs a little bit from the standard approach we use in ASP.NET applications - some styles doesn't work as they expected to work.

The major problem is that SharePoint doesn't understand some CSS applied on ASP.NET сontrols. I stumbled over several cases. There is a simple rule how to avoid this - just use the SharePoint controls instead of ASP.NET once. In this cases CSS will be applied correctly

The nastiest thing I remember about CSS and Sharepoint is using asp:Menu control :) This control is very dodgy under normal asp.net sites, but it's double dodgy under Sharepoint.

The situation is that - you have page area height equal 100% of client browser height. It means that if you change the size of your browser window page layout height is changing too. On this page we have navigation which is implemented via <asp:Menu> control. So far so good, but there is a small issue. If you navigate on menu and dynamic sub-items are shown your page height changes and you noticing that vertical scroll bar is shown. WTF you could think :) Why this scroll bar appears?! This never happens in ASP.NET sites.

The answer is - CSS "min-height" property. This property sets the minimum height of your page when scroll bar appears. So, what you do is just edit your page and add the .min-height: 2000 for the page's root element and test the page in browser.

Unfortunately, situation the same - scroll bar appears when your menu items are shown. You can use IE Dev Toolbar of other tool to debug DOM model in browser, but changing this property doesn't help at all.

The issue is exactly in <asp:Menu> control. I dunno why but it breaks the page CSS style of min-height (I'd pleased if someone explain me WHY and HOW this happens?!). To fix this you need to use <Sharepoint:AspMenu> control instead of <asp:Menu> and min-height is set correctly in this case - no scroll bar when you navigate on menu.

Mirror: CSS and ASP.NET Menu in Sharepoint

Export Sharepoint List Definition with OCDExportList and reusing standard Views

Wed, 14 May 2008 12:47:15 GMT

When you are engaged in SharePoint development under Windows Server 2008 you are limited in 3rd party tools, because not all tools are working there, for example you can't use Sharepoint Spy - it requests Windows Server 2003 only (actually you can run Sharepoint Spy by modifying MSI and removing Windows version check)

There are some other tools which support Windows 2008, one of this tools is "OCDExportList", as you could imply from its name it allows you to export the List Definitions.

OCDExportList is just STSADM extension which gives you list's schema xml . But, if you gonna use this schema xml in your feature deployment, you need to make some changes.

By default "OCDExportList" exports list with all views, like "AllItems.aspx" and etc, but actually in 90% cases you need to use standard views, and don't deploy custom ones. So, to deploy list and use standard views the following changes of list schema xml should be applied

Add SetupPath="pages\form.aspx" for each <Form> in <MetaData>/<Forms>
Find <View> ulr="AllItems.asxp" and change attributes

add SetupPath="pages\viewpage.aspx"
change "DisplayName" value on "$Resources:core,objectiv_schema_mwsidcamlidC24;"

After that, the deployed list will use standard views

Mirror: Export List Definition with OCDExportList and reusing standard Views

Renaming server PC with Sharepoint

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 10:34:38 GMT

Usually all Sharepoint development happens on virtual environment. There are several advantages of this, like

creating snapshots of your system to mitigate system restore when you broke your environment
creating Sharepoint farm on the single PC, when you can easily run different virtual systems and setup sharepoint farm there

But when you are cloning your existed sharepoint system you end up with absolutely the same sever, including the same server name name. And this is the only problem. However, renaming server name with the installed Sharepoint is not trivial as you could expect.

There are several items which should be renamed - server name, database name, Sharepoint references. And the situation became complex when your Sharepoint sites use Sharepoint Search - in this case you need rename MSSQL$MICROSOFT##SSEE database.

Actually, I failed with renaming Sharepoint Search DB, and decided to turn search off before system renaming.

The follow steps should be done to rename server with installed Sharepoint

Go to the Sharepoint Central Administration > Operations > Services on Server and stop "Windows SharePoint Services Search"
To go the Control Panel -> System and rename your server (save your old name somewhere). Don't restart your system
If you have MS SQL Server installed on the same box you need to rename in too - go to "SQL Server Management Studio" and execute the following script

EXEC sp_dropserver '<old_name>' GO EXEC sp_addserver '<new_name>', 'local' GO
Update Sharepoint references to the PC name calling the next command: stsadm -o renameserver -oldservername <old server name> -newservername <new server name>
Restart your PC
If you try to open Central Administration after restarting PC it will try to open the site with the old server name. You need to recreate your Central Administration site for the new server name calling the following command(any port address): psconfig -cmd adminvs -provision -port 1800 -windowsauthprovider "onlyusentlm"
Now if you restart IIS and try to open your Central Admin site it will successfully open your site with new server name
Go to the "Application Management" and remove Central Administration Web Site with old server name

That's all. Now you have the clone of your virtual server with the new server name.

Update: Guideline how to rename content database: http://blogs.technet.com/wbaer/archive/2008/06/16/renaming-content-databases.aspx

Mirror: Renaming server PC with Sharepoint

Sharepoint UserGroup (Canberra)

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 11:31:06 GMT

Today I visited the Australian Sharepoint UserGroup in Canberra, and actually it was the first UG session which I liked (I visited UG in different countries and liked this one the most)

Topic was about VSTO & Sharepoint. No Powerpoint, only live code :) The covered areas - WPF, Sharepoint, XSD, WebServices, VSTO Word Add-in and Ribbon customization. I really liked this sample. This session remembered me the first engagement in consultant role, where I did the similar task only for the Outlook plugin

The presenter was Ishai Sagi - Sharepoint Microsoft MVP. Nice guy. He is blogging there http://www.sharepoint-tips.com/

PS: And I won the "Sharepoint Designer Step by Step" book :)

Mirror: Sharepoint UserGroup (Canberra)

SharePoint Services learning curve

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 12:09:06 GMT

When you first stumble over the new technology the important thing is to extract the "right" learning curve, which allows you to get into the technology as fast as possible and to be the most productive.

This make sense especially when you set to the project to replace another team member and you can't afford to examine all possible sources to learn the subject

So, I've made the next WSS learning curve list, which helped me a lot in the attempt to perceive the real nature of SharePoint under the severe pressure:)

Sharepoint Architecure - Web Application, Site Collection, Site
Site Customization
Object Model, WSS Handlers and Compilation models
Deployment via UI and via scripts
Features - creating and adding event handling
Types of Web Pages - application and site pages (creating, ghosted state)
User controls - Web parts, Smart Parts
Page Templates, Delegate Controls
List and Content Types
Security

Other sharepoint related usefull staff

Mirror: http://msmvps.com/blogs/laflour/archive/2007/10/15/sharepoint-services-learning-curve.aspx