SharePoint 2007 Development Wiki Blog from June, 2009

• This Week in SharePoint with Joel - Broadcast 02
  Mark and Joel have started doing these webcasts...now on iTunes (awesome!)...great way to keep up with End User related SharePoint posts...and then come here and get the Dev related ones too

• SPExLib Release: These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things « Solutionizing .NET
  Some great extra stuff added to this library which I can see growing into something all SharePoint Developers will use. I've got some bits I will add when I get some time too! Great job for those who have contributed so far! If you've got stuff, go contribute too!

• SharePoint Designer 2010: Preview? What Preview? by Furuknap
  Some interesting pics of the new SharePoint Designer 2010 UI

• SharePoint Form Field Assistant - Home
  I don't know where he gets the time...but this little beauty rocks! The screenshots speak for itself!

• Video: SocialMedia Samurai - SharePoint Use For Public Websites - SocialMedia Talk
  Nuff said about Michael without saying anything, this new series is a must watch!

• CodeProject: Shared Navigation for SharePoint Site Collections. Free source code and programming help
  A common issue with having to split Sites using Site Collections to break out content databases into chunks to get round limitations of one site collection, is the shared navigation...this code project approach shows a way to resolve this.

• Why We Build WSPs and Option Explicit - Blog - Robert Bogue (MVP)
  This is music to my ears! And from an MVP...so please please listen!

• Chris Johnson : How we demo...
  Interesting information on how Microsoft Product Team demo their SharePoint stuff!

• SharePoint can have Wildcard searching... » Andy Burns' SharePoint Blog
  Some interesting collation of research on wildcard searching...one of the most common requirements I get from my clients!

• CodeProject: WSS Picture Thumbnails Web Part. Free source code and programming help
  Another great addition to CodePlex for SharePoint

• Confluence and SharePoint Wikis « Blog @ JodieM.com.au
  Some interesting comparisons between Confluence and SharePoint

This week has been action packed with posts!

• Six ways to store settings in SharePoint by Wicton Wilen
  Great post on methods of configuration...also on the wiki too at Environment Configuration approaches

• YouTube - Beginning SharePoint Development (Part 1 - IISSetup - HD)
  A new series of web casts for SharePoint Developers

• Bill Baer : Alternate Access Mappings and Windows Powershell
  Some cool PowerShell goodness to manage Alternate Access Mappings

• Erwin van der Valk's blog: Practicing patterns : Using interfaces and base classes in different assembly using vsewss 1.3
  Some interesting findings from Erwin with regards to separate dlls for interfaces and a limitations of VSeWSS and a nice workaround

• stsadm.webconfig
  Rich Finn (project founder of SPSource) has started a new project to make managing web.config files using SPWebConfigurationManager even easier!

• Templates-based menu control for SharePoint - Waldek Mastykarz
  Not sure where Waldek gets the time to keep coming up with this stuff...but great information regarding accessibility of Menu controls in SharePoint

• WCF and SharePoint: context != context - Waldek Mastykarz
  More from Waldek on WCF and SharePoint and issues he found on context

• SaurabhKV : SharePoint Performance, Stress or Load Testing
  Some interesting findings on SharePoint Performance etc.

• The Content Query Web Part « Path to SharePoint
  Awesome set of links on the Content Query Web Part!

• How to: Programmatically read the ChangeLog in PowerShell
  Some interesting PowerShell to read the changelog with SharePoint

• Account Names, SharePoint Setups, Server 2008 and Cheese
  Great post by Bill Simser with advice on accounts and setups for SharePoint

• Don't use LocalHost when Developing for SharePoint
  Some great advice from Rob Bogue on using localhost with SharePoint Development

• Granularity of SharePoint Features and Solutions
  A shout out from Francis on how people break down features and solutions

• SharePoint Branding Build Test Checklist
  Some thorough notes on what to check when branding SharePoint

• Debugging your code execution for anonymous users in SharePoint
  Some great tips from Tobias Zimmergren on debugging with anonymous SharePoint sites

• Beginning SharePoint Development in Next USPJ Issue - What Are Your Concerns?
  Bjorn is planning his next USPJ and would like to know your gripes...also check Where to start with SharePoint Development

• A tiny cute SharePoint calendar (Part I)
  Nice "tiny calendar" for SharePoint!

• [Build WSP's at the start of the project and just get it over with!]
  Read and obey ... WSP's rule!

• Stsadm Technical Reference for SharePoint Server 2007
  If you've been on the moon all week...TechNet are dabbling with Silverlight...ohhh ahhhh

• SharePoint Groups vs. Active Directory Groups
  A great comparison between AD groups and SharePoint groups!

• MOSS 2007 - Capture direct view clicks
  Liam just keep delivering! This one is awesome and records click throughs within SharePoint

• Wrapping Your Head Around the SharePoint Beast: The Importance of the SharePoint Community
  Great post on SharePoint community

• Writing a custom trace listener to log to the 12 hive log from the Enterprise Library logging block
  Great post by Brian Farnhill on logging

• SPDX: Object-Relational Entity-Class Generator for SharePoint Lists.

  SPDX makes it easier to write software that works with data stored in SharePoint Lists. It generates strongly-typed entity classes based on the List or the Content Type definition, enabling use of InstelliSense and virtually eliminating run-time errors. It is developed in C#.

• SharePoint Saturday Sydney (8th August)

  @BrianFarnhill et al are organising Australia's first SharePoint Saturday. @DanielBrownSA is also organising one in Adelaide too.

• Winsmarts SharePoint WCF Support

  @SahilMalik has gotten around to releasing on CodePlex the Solution Package with a feature to activate WCF for SharePoint. Great work! I'm making a grand assumption that SharePoint 2010 will have this as default, so always good to get comfortable with it now.

• Providing Application Diagnostics - patterns & practices SharePoint Guidance

  Some great guidance on Tracing & Logging in SharePoint via the Microsoft P&P team!

• Managing SharePoint Configuration- patterns & practices SharePoint Guidance

  Some great guidance on configuration management by the Microsoft P&P team and referrals to some awesome Community solutions for configuration management in SharePoint

• Securing SharePoint List/Document Library Views Seems (sort of) Possible with jQuery

  @PaulGalvin has presented a solution to get round that sneaky business requirement that always seems to come up around securing views on a SharePoint List using jQuery.

• patterns & practices Web Client Software Factory - Release: Guidance to enable Unity in a SharePoint App

  I have been playing with IoC recently and found this great post on the P&P site explaining how Unity can be integrated with SharePoint

• Ian's SharePoint Blog - Testing SharePoint Kerberos Configuration

  @IMorrish published this, not always a development concern, but a great little tool to test Kerberos configuration in an environment.

• Guest Blog by HiSoftware's Founder Robert Yonaitis - Customizing the Page Editing Toolbar to Include Content Validation for the Web Content Scenario in MOSS - The Bamboo Team Blog - Bamboo Nation

  There has been a few of these types of articles published, but I like this one as it puts some more weight around accessibility in a WCM solution!

• SharePoint Solution Deployment Strategies - Dare I say Best Practices?

  LOL the dreaded "Best Practices" slogan...but some good guidance within this article on what you should deploy using Solution Packages with some different scenarios depending on the size of the project.

• SaurabhKV : SharePoint 2007 Development - Build Processes

  Covering off another approach to SharePoint Development Solution Packaging like VSeWSS, WSPBuilder and STSDev.

• MOSS How to ...: Create a Report from an Analysis Services 2008 Database and deploy it in SharePoint 2007

  A great walk through of how to set up a report in a reporting services environment from start to finish!

• I got tired of attaching debugger to w3wp.exe. And you? - Life of a Hungarian SharePoint Geek

  Another nice little addition to attaching the debugger whilst doing SharePoint development...everyones favourite past time!

• New FREE Enhanced Discussion Board View for SharePoint - SharePoint Joel's SharePoint Land

  @JoelOleson published information on a new Solution Package that makes Discussion Boards useable...as the out of the box ones simply don't cut the mustard.

It seems every week more and more great content appears! These could almost become daily Coffee break posts!

WSP

• Carsten Keutmann: Beginning SharePoint Development (Bonus part #3 WSPBuilder overview)
  Hot off the press! Carsten has released a fix for an installation issue with WSPBuilder! This man is the shining light of all things SharePoint Dev Tools!
• Planning SharePoint Solution Packages (WSPs) - Eli Robillard's World of Blog
  Eli has done a great job of articulating the most generic way of breaking up WSPs...which is a question commonly asked of me.
• UK SharePoint Team : Modifying out-of-the-box SharePoint files
  Yes guys, don't modify out of the box 12 files...but if you do...read below...
• SharePoint 2007 - 12 Hive System-File Changes: One Feature to rule them all! - Sharad Kumar
  This is a really nice concept...creating a backup on replacing a 12 hive file. I tend to just have backups of 12 Hive files for each major release SP1, Infra Updates, SP2 etc and use file diff...but another nice approach.
• John W Powell : Automate SharePoint Solution Builds with Visual Studio Extensions For Windows SharePoint Services (VSEWSS) 1.3
  Some TFS goodness with VSeWSS
• Use TFS to automate even better WSP builds with WSPBuilder « Brian Farnhill
  And some more TFS goodness with WSPBuilder

Environment

• How to effectively manage your SharePoint Environments, deployments and customsations with solid governance, solution packages and source control by Phil Whicklund
  Very good presentation on Configuration Management
• Zac Smith's SharePoint Blog - Installation accounts for a dev/test server
  Completely agree with this...have a read...catch things as early as possible...security is always last thing to remember...before Reports that is
• Connecting to SharePoint 2007 Web Services using a Service Reference in Visual Studio 2008 - Windows Live
  Nice little reminders on SharePoint Web Services with WCF from April
• A new approach to solve SharePoint's painfully slow spin-up / start-up time for first request - Muhimbi's SharePoint Blog
  Application Pool taking AGES to start up...check this post out! AWESOME!
• Securing Application Pages in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
  Updated advice on MSDN on securing application pages

API

• Performance of various methods to retrieve one list item - Waldek Mastykarz
  Waldek does it again with a thorough post on different methods of retrieving a list item
• Steve Fox : Retrieve SharePoint List Data with XLINQ using VS 2010 Beta 1
  Some cool future stuff with XLING in VS2010

Agile Development

• Measuring velocity is not enough - Agile Sharepoint development by 21apps and Andrew Woodward MVP
  Andrew is sharing his experiences with TDD...really looking forward to this book once it's published!
• Doing Agile in a Team of One - Day 2 and the End of Sprint 1 - Agile Sharepoint development by 21apps and Andrew Woodward MVP
  and another one..

WCM

• Top Sharepoint Sites - Sharepoint Gallery Sharepoint Showcase
  Great new site...kind of competing against Ian Morrish's www.wssdemo.com excellent resource, but worth a mention!
• Chris O'Brien's blog: My checklist for optimizing SharePoint sites
  Probably the post of the week for me! Great stuff by Chris on optimising SharePoint...again always the last thing people think of!
• SharePoint RTE breaks in IE8 when in editing mode - Waldek Mastykarz
  Waldek raises some issues with Rich Text Editor in IE8
• Building Public Facing SharePoint Site - SharePoint Saturday Chicago Session Recap - George Durzi
  George Durzi presents some great stuff around WCM
• Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog : How We Did It: SharePoint.Microsoft.com
  AN interesting case study on the new shiny SharePoint.Microsoft.com site

Cloud

• Microsoft Online Services Team Blog : SharePoint Online IPD Guide Published
  Some more information on SharePoint for the cloud

Misc

• SharePoint Social Computing - Enterprise Social Software
  A new site released today focusing on SharePoint and Social Computing...interesting to see where this goes...
• Guest Blog by BlueThread's Rob D'Oria - Why is that BLOB in My SharePoint Database? - The Bamboo Team Blog - Bamboo Nation
  Good explanations on BLOB architecture in SharePoint...the most used weapon by other Vendors to combat SharePoint
• SharePoint Designer 2007 Governance: Options for selective lockdown? - Sharad Kumar
  Lock it down! Uninstall it! It's growing on me, but the source code it manipulates isn't
• Tony Testa's World - What are my options for forums in SharePoint?
  Some good advice around Forums in SharePoint...because lets face it...the Discussion Board sucks more than the Wiki's!

Think this is the biggest week yet! Please support my efforts to compile this by tweeting the link!

Development Environment

• Tip: Convering your Virtual PC 2007 disks to Windows Virtual PC (on Windows 7) - Tobias Zimmergren's thoughts on development
  Saved a few of my colleagues today playing with the new VPC stuff in Windows 7!
• Logging everything that is going on when an assembly loads using CThru - But it works on my PC!
  Some nice looking stuff here in terms of being able to trace your application flow
• Sanjay Narang's thoughts on SharePoint : Should I Build my application in SharePoint vs. ASP.net
  Some great conversation is going on here and also in more depth on this [wiki] ...I encourage people to submit their thoughts on this!
• Downloads of my SPTechCon Boston Sessions - The SharePoint Farmer's Almanac
  A great take on SharePoint from an Admin perspective...good way to explain this if your a dev talking to an admin

• SPElements - SPListConstraints: List Constraints add-on SharePoint
  Got shown this by @omarbesiso, haven't had a chance to look deeply into it...but notable just for what it's trying to achieve. Much like SLAM.
• Sahil Malik on Silverlight in Sharepoint -dnrTV
  Sahil has been busy with webcasts and podcasts recently...this one on Silverlight which he seems to be focussing on lately
• CoDe Magazine - Article: SharePoint Applied: SharePoint 2007 Ninja Debugging
  A register only article *sigh* but some good content in there on debugging. Should also check out the SharePoint Development Debugging.
• SharePoint Check Calendar Availability Custom Column (Beta) - Home
  Some awesome clever goings on in this code to check availability before saving calendar entries in SharePoint!
• My adventures into SharePoint and PowerShell « Brian Farnhill
  Brian has been busy learning PowerShell, good discovery post...should also check out wiki section.
• SPCodeSnippets By : Ayman El-Hattab - Home
  Some nice snippets for Visual Studio, some are available with VSeWSS, but more comprehensive in this
• SharePoint BDC Part 1: Getting Started with the Business Data Catalog - Tobias Zimmergren's thoughts on development
  Some more love in the BDC space usually focused on by Lightning Tools folk.

WCM / UI

• Guest Blog by HiSoftware's Founder Robert Yonaitis - Preventing Compliance Errors Before They Happen for the Web Content Scenario in MOSS - The Bamboo Team Blog - Bamboo Nation
  A very hush hush area about Accessibility in SharePoint...
• Sample MOSS 2007 WCM site now available - Adventure Works Travel
  Please please please take the time to check out the Adventure Works content!
• Automatically add themes to the SPThemes.xml file » Andy Burns' SharePoint Blog
  Nice way of deploying Themes in SharePoint
• WSS 3.0 NavBar 2.0
  A cool way to get navigation to work better in WSS 3.0
• Person.aspx Navigation - Becky Bertram's Blog
  A discovery post on modifying My Site navigation (we've all been there sigh)

Testing

• Testing SharePoint Workflows using TypeMock Isolator (Part 3) - But it works on my PC!
  Some nice code on using TypeMock to test Workflow
• [Small steps for testing, big steps for SharePoint testing ]
  Andrew talking about Testing SharePoint

SharePoint 2010

• Erika Ehrli : MSDN Office Developer Center - Pre Office/SharePoint 2010 Update
  The place to bookmark for 2010 info
• What we know or can infer about SharePoint 2010 - as of June 23, 2009 - Blogging about SharePoint
  The rumour mill kicks off again for vNext
• Preparing for Upgrade to 2010 Today - Part 1 Preupgradecheck - SharePoint Joel's SharePoint Land
  Joel talks about prepping your environment for 2010

Agile

• [TDD and SharePoint is it worth doing? ]
  Andrew just keeps on doing what he does best...

Mobile

• PKS Mobile Services Pack and PKS Player for iPhone « The General Theory of RIAtivity
  Some awesome stuff going on with PKS recently!

InfoPath

• Submit this Form InfoPath - Kathy Hughes, MVP
  Good read on InfoPath from Australian MVP

Admin

• Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog : Service Pack 2 Update.
  Yes, there is a fix for SP2 mishap
• UK SharePoint Team : How to incrementally deploy SharePoint MySites
  Some guidance on deploying My Sites
• Example Solution Architecture: Twynham School Learning Gateway
  Always get asked about architecture of Site Collections etc. This is a great example