Pioneering SharePoint

Customize List Forms using Silverlight

2010-09-18T12:54:00.000-05:00

Well I started at a new client a few months ago. They do things a little different. I would like to think I got the job because of my passion for custom field types and custom list forms. But they are going a different direction. We started the project using customized list forms with custom field types, now we've switched gears to Silverlight! So I'm trying to mix Silverlight with list

Don't forget your Security Bits!

2010-08-13T11:39:00.000-05:00

Apparently SecurityBits are important when creating a custom list schema in 2007. I just spent a few hours wondering why I was getting Access denied inside a ListViewWebPart. It turns out I didn't have SecurityBits. You can list them in your list template, in your list schema main tag, or in the Security tag inside MetaData. But you have to have them somewhere. Remember your options

Customizing a list form at a later time with Rendering Templates

2010-06-17T21:48:00.000-05:00

A while back I wrote a post on how you can customize list forms using Rendering Templates. Since then, I've spoken on the topic and I'm starting to receive feedback. Because of this, I have discovered more secrets on using Rendering Templates. I think you'll like this one. I have more on queue. You can customize a list form anytime! Not just when you provision a custom list as I alluded to in

Where did the link to my site go?

2010-06-14T20:43:00.000-05:00

Have you ever noticed that when you delete a web, the link on the top nav bar disappears. It actaully disappears because the link to the endpoint was deleted. SharePoint verifies the links; this is also how security trimming works. So back to the problem. You've provisioned a web and you've set it up to inherit the top navbar and to show a tab (link). This link points to default.aspx. Now

Creating Lists without a Fields collection

2010-04-28T07:14:00.000-05:00

I learned a neat trick a few years ago on a way to create lists without redundancy. You might have heard of it and after reading this post it will sound familiar. I'm not the first person to blog about it but I felt it was important. We all know how to create a list using provisioning techniques: create a list schema create a list template create a feature deploy the feature activate the feature

Funny Business with ListViewWebPart

2010-04-16T15:44:00.000-05:00

I wouldn't exactly call this a tip, more of a trick. Maybe I'm just doing something wrong but I thought I would share my frustration. NOTE: I did find a workaround but I would like to know what's really going on underneath, please comment on this. See bottom. Let's start There are several ways to provision a ListViewWebPart (LVWP) to a web part page: Designer, web browser, element manifest

Copying the ECB Menu

2010-01-26T06:42:00.000-06:00

Level 300 There are two approaches [javascript and CAML] one can take to accomplish this technique. I am taking the low-road; manipulating the CAML directly. If you don’t feel comfortable with writing custom list schema, this could be difficult and frustrating. It’s not hard to do but there’s a technique to creating custom list schema and other blog posts can do a better job explaining it. In

THE correct way to customize forms

2009-11-13T17:19:00.000-06:00

I've been aSharePoint developer for a number of years. And I thought I knew alot about SharePoint and its inner workings. Wrong! There is so much to this product, it's impossible to know everything. In my line of work, I develop modules for clients. These are features that create some lists, some workflow, some pages, put it all together to solve a business problem. Thats what SharePoint is all

Updating List Forms

2009-10-10T14:08:00.000-05:00

BackgroundLately, my project has transitioned in its life cycle from development to maintenance. Now this is important because the techniques I am applying cannot disturb the solution. Once it was deployed to production, the site collection cannot be revamped. So we have to come up with creative ways to get the updated functionality into the existing webs. New webs can use functionality drawn

False login discovered!

2009-09-17T09:06:00.000-05:00

BackgroundAt my client, we have unique authentication scheme. They use two directory services. Active Directory drives the windows side but an LDAP implementation drives theverything else. A real heterogeneous environment. Every night, maybe even more often, the AD forest is synchonized with it's LDAP counterpart. LDAP is the system of record not AD. This setup can cause problems especially for

I need my SPContext now

2009-09-10T11:01:00.000-05:00

Don't fret if you have an HttpContext you can create a SPContext. Just use SPContext.GetContext. SPContext context = SPContext.GetContext(HttpContext.Current); But what if you want to use this context. If you call SPContext.Current you might not get the right one. The SPContext contains references to alot of Objects like SPSite, SPWeb, as well as SPList, SPListItem, FormContext and others.

Failed to load workflow

2009-09-01T22:15:00.002-05:00

Sometimes SPD just won't load an imported XOML file. Why?Like other people have mentioned clear the AssemblyProxyCache first. But that doesn't always work. Why?It turns out there might be a dependent assembly used in the workflow that wasn't installed on the target system. You can find out by opening the XOML file as text and looking in the root tag. All the namespaces used in the XML are

DVWP failed to sort my columns

2009-08-31T13:39:00.017-05:00

I'm sure some of you have had the pleasure of creating a DataViewWebPart (DVWP) in SharePoint Designer (SPD). You know, the one where you take an existing ListViewWebPart (LVWP), choose tasks, and convert to DataFormWebPart.Anyways, it creates the XSLT for you that behaves almost like the LVWP. You have the capability to sort descending and ascending on certain fields (you set which ones) and you

Please SharePoint, leave my assemblies alone!

2009-08-20T08:25:00.006-05:00

I had the unfortunate experience of bringing the production server down after my latest deployment. Yes, I follow best practices. I wrap all my solutions in a WSP. That's what got me into so much trouble. I guess I really need to change the version number with every new release. Keep reading and you'll see why.When you deploy/upgrade a solution with allowgacdeployment, it takes whats listed

PeopleEditor doesn't always resolve - really!

2009-08-13T20:02:00.005-05:00

The other day we were troubleshooting some code that uses a PeopleEditor. You know that great control that lets you select users/groups to include into your custom list. You can use it two ways: You can enter a name or Use the browse popup to find the name. When you use it to resolve a name (click the CheckNames icon), you can enter an Active Directory alias or a full name as it would appear

Sometimes you can't read a file

2009-07-16T06:52:00.000-05:00

The other day, I was debugging a deployment process. It's pretty simple; just a feature receiver that creates some lists, sets some security, and attaches some workflow. We use Nintex 2007 here. It's awesome. I wrote some code a while back that automates this provisioning process (reads a workflow template file, calls the Nintex web service, publishes the workflow to the list). Well it wasn't

Sometimes you don't have a Session

2009-04-23T16:23:00.000-05:00

I ran into an interesting problem the other day. I had set up some code to cache frequently accessed variables. I had used the Cache object but then discovered it wouldn't ever refresh with a new value unless I setup some type of expiration policy. So then I got the idea to use the Session cache instead. So everything was fine until I tried to refresh those variables. It seemed to be working

SPException throws exception!

2009-03-17T15:10:00.000-05:00

This one had me baffled for days.You know, you write some code and then want to relay a friendlier error message back to the user if an exception occurs.Well it turns out that this breaks under certain conditions on your server.You can make SPException break if you do the following:Enable custom errorsTurn on CallStackTurn on AllowPageLevelTraceTurn on debug.Here are the code snippets:

A really blank site definition

2009-01-22T08:44:00.000-06:00

Ok people have been asking for this...I have created a blank site definition, more blank than blank STS Team site. You can't get anymore bare metal than this. I hope someone finds this useful.Here we go!#ONET.XML