Saturday, November 6, 2010

Windows 7 Favorites and SharePoint

One of the many cool features in Windows 7 is the Favorites

This is a list of “shortcut” that is display in the Windows Explore and in the “save as” dialog in programs like Word.

clip_image001

clip_image003

The Windows 7 Favorites works by creating a shortcut to folder and this goes for WebDav folders to.

To setup the a shortcut to a SharePoint site

To setup the shortcut and you only need to do this one time. Open Word and to go “save as” (the shortcut for this is F12), enter the url for the SharePoint site in the file name (Only the url!) and click enter or click on the save button. Then right click on the clip_image004 and select “Add current location to Farvorites” and wola your SharePoint is add and it is easy to browse next time when you want to save a document. clip_image006

Monday, November 1, 2010

IE 9, site pinning, overlay icons and SharePoint

One of the new thing in IE 9 is the site pinning. A cool new feature that allows a users to add a tab in IE9 to the taskbar. After the tab is added to the taskbar we can, from IE 9, interact with it, like overlay icons and ther is it where SharePoint comes in, as the data provider. I create an announcements list and read the current count from it and set the overlay icons to match the count all through JavaScript.

The results of adding two list items to announcements list image

My code

This is the code in the PlaceHolderAdditionalPageHead content placeholder

  1. <script src="http://ajax.Microsoft.com/ajax/jQuery/jquery-1.4.2.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>




This is the code in the PlaceHolderMain content placeholder



  1. <span id="statusInfomation">Loading...</span>
  2. <script type="text/javascript">
  3. var loadingIcon = "/_layouts/images/jumplist/search.ico"
  4.  
  5. var getData = function()
  6. {
  7. $.getJSON("/ie9test/_vti_bin/listdata.svc/Ie9TestAnno()/$count", function (data)
  8. {
  9. if(data != 0 && data < 6)
  10. {
  11. var icon = "/_layouts/images/jumplist/num_" + data + ".ico";
  12. setOverlayIcon(icon, "Now got " + data);
  13. }
  14. else if(data == 0)
  15. {
  16. setOverlayIcon("", "Now got " + data);
  17. }
  18. });
  19. }
  20.  
  21. function setOverlayIcon(url, text)
  22. {
  23. $("#statusInfomation").html(text);
  24. if(url != "")
  25. {
  26. window.external.msSiteModeSetIconOverlay(url, text);
  27. }
  28. else
  29. {
  30. window.external.msSiteModeClearIconOverlay();
  31. }
  32. }
  33.  
  34. $(document).ready(function()
  35. {
  36. setOverlayIcon(loadingIcon, "Loading...");
  37. setInterval(getData, 5000);
  38. });
  39. </script>




In function in line 21, is where I interact with the overlay icons, pure magic :D



- Happy IE 9 coding

Saturday, October 30, 2010

List the controls added to a SPDelegate on a Website

I need to inspect a delegate control, to discover which control there is add to it. So I create this PowerShell code to create a HttpContext, set the right Current.Items to be a real SharePoint context. Create a SharePoint Delegate Control, set the properties and then invoke CreateChildControls on it and out put the result on the screen.

image

  1. [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.Web") | Out-Null
  2. [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SharePoint") | Out-Null
  3.  
  4. #parm
  5. $delegateControlId = "SmallSearchInputBox"
  6. $weburl = "/cwd"
  7. $hosturl = "http://win-ugka6ujlm21"
  8. $absoluteUrl = $hosturl+$weburl
  9.  
  10. #creating a fake httpcontext
  11. $request = New-Object "System.Web.HttpRequest" "", $absoluteUrl, ""
  12. $stringWriter = New-Object "System.IO.StringWriter"
  13. $httpResponse = New-Object "System.Web.HttpResponse" $stringWriter
  14. [System.Web.HttpContext]::Current = New-Object "System.Web.HttpContext" $request, $httpResponse
  15.  
  16. #HACK - Need a 'Microsoft.SharePoint.SPWeb' not a 'System.Management.Automation.PSObject'
  17. [System.Web.HttpContext]::Current.Items["HttpHandlerSPWeb"] = (Get-SPSite -Identity $hosturl).OpenWeb($weburl, $false)
  18.  
  19. #create and set properties for the delegate control
  20. $dc = New-Object "Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.DelegateControl"
  21. $dc.AllowMultipleControls = $true
  22. $dc.ControlId = $delegateControlId
  23.  
  24. #create a method object and invole the method
  25. $bindingFlags = [Reflection.BindingFlags] "NonPublic,Instance"
  26. $method = $dc.GetType().GetMethod("CreateChildControls", $bindingFlags)
  27. $method.Invoke($dc, @());
  28.  
  29. #list the child controls
  30. $dc.Controls | %{
  31. $_.GetType().BaseType
  32. }
  33.  
  34. #dispose
  35. $StringWriter.Dispose | Out-Null
  36. $httpResponse.Close() | Out-Null


The code:

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Health Analyzer Demo

What is health analyzer? This is the copy/pasta from msdns Overview of SharePoint Health Analyzer “SharePoint Health Analyzer is a feature in Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 that enables administrators to schedule regular, automatic checks for potential configuration, performance, and usage problems in the server farm.”

So what we need to create a health analyzer rule?

  1. Create a subclass of the SPHealthAnalysisRule or SPRepairableHealthAnalysisRule
  2. Register the rule
  3. Test/execute the rule

1) Create a subclass

In this demo I create a subclass of the SPRepairableHealthAnalysisRule and besides for implement the abstract properties from SPRepairableHealthAnalysisRule, I also override Check and Repair method.

The Check method is used to identify a single potential problem in the SharePoint environment. In this demo we are a test if a very important file exists on the c: drive.

  1. public override SPHealthCheckStatus Check()
  2. {
  3. FileInfo info = new FileInfo(@"c:\importantfile.txt");
  4. return info.Exists ? SPHealthCheckStatus.Passed : SPHealthCheckStatus.Failed;
  5. }




Repair method is used to repair the problem that if the Check method return SPHealthCheckStatus.Failed. In the demo we just create the very important file on the c drive.



  1. public override SPHealthRepairStatus Repair()
  2. {
  3. try
  4. {
  5. if (Check().Equals(SPHealthCheckStatus.Failed))
  6. {
  7. FileInfo info = new FileInfo(@"c:\importantfile.txt");
  8. info.Create();
  9. return SPHealthRepairStatus.Succeeded;
  10. }
  11. else
  12. {
  13. return SPHealthRepairStatus.Succeeded;
  14. }
  15. }
  16. catch
  17. {
  18. //TODO: Log the error
  19. return SPHealthRepairStatus.Failed;
  20. }
  21. }




2) Register the rule



Microsoft has a “How to: Create a Feature to Register a Health Rule” where they use a feature receiver to register rule with. But I’m big PowerShell fan, so it was naturally for me to create a simple PowerShell script to register and unregister.



Register PowerShell:



First we load the SharePoint DLL and my custom DLL. Then we call the static RegisterRules method with take the custom assembly as parameter. The RegisterRules return an IDictionary<Type, Exception>. We test if the IDictionary<Type, Exception> count is 0, if not, we display the exceptions by pipe the collection to the Format-List cmdlet.



  1. [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SharePoint") | Out-Null
  2. $assembly = [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("HealthAnalyzerDemo")
  3. $exceptions = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.Health.SPHealthAnalyzer]::RegisterRules($assembly);
  4. if($exceptions -ne $null)
  5. {
  6. if($exceptions.Count -eq 0)
  7. {
  8. Write-Host "All rules were registered.";
  9. }
  10. else
  11. {
  12. $exceptions | fl
  13. }
  14. }
  15. $assembly = $null




Unregister PowerShell:



The only difference between the register script and the unregister script is, instead of call the RegisterRules method we call the UnRegisterRules.



  1. [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SharePoint") | Out-Null
  2. $assembly = [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("HealthAnalyzerDemo")
  3. $exceptions = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.Health.SPHealthAnalyzer]::UnregisterRules($assembly);
  4. if($exceptions -ne $null)
  5. {
  6. if($exceptions.Count -eq 0)
  7. {
  8. Write-Host "All rules were unregistered.";
  9. }
  10. else
  11. {
  12. $exceptions | fl
  13. }
  14. }
  15. $assembly = $null




3) Test/execute the rule



Microsoft has a “How to: Test a Health Rule During Development” where they use a console application to test/execute the health rule. But this is so obviously a PowerShell thing :)



Execute rule PowerShell:



First we load the SharePoint DLL and my custom DLL. Then we create a new object of the rule class. Write the current return status from the Check method. Test if the status is equal to failed, if it is, we call the Repair method.



  1. [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SharePoint") | Out-Null
  2. [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("HealthAnalyzerDemo") | Out-Null
  3. $checkIfFileOnDiskExistRuleRepair = New-Object "HealthAnalyzerDemo.HealthAnalyzers.CheckIfFileOnDiskExistRuleRepair"
  4. $status = $checkIfFileOnDiskExistRuleRepair.Check()
  5. Write-Host "Status for"$checkIfFileOnDiskExistRuleRepair.Summary"is:"$status
  6. if($status -eq [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.Health.SPHealthCheckStatus]::Failed)
  7. {
  8. Write-Host "Calling the Repair method"
  9. Write-Host "Result:" $checkIfFileOnDiskExistRuleRepair.Repair()
  10. }




Summary:



It's really easy to make rules, that will give the It-pros a fight change to managed and maintain the SharePoint platform. Microsoft has some “Guidelines for Designing Health Rules”.



My demo code

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Using GeSHi to syntax higligh

I just found this great tool to create syntax highligt in Windows Live Writer.

The tool is call GeSHi (Generic Syntax Highlighter) and has the following goals:

  1. Support for a wide range of popular languages.
  2. Easy to add a new language for highlighting.
  3. Highly customisable output formats.

For more infomation:

image