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:

• Homepage: http://www.vcprojects.com/geshi/
• Download & Discussion: http://www.vcprojects.com/geshi/download-discussion

Managing Custom Areas and Categories with Powershell

The patterns & practices SharePoint Guidance team has posted this article on how to manag custom areas and categories i SharePoint 2010 http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff798462.aspx. But all the examples is written in C# (and that’s a good thing ) but I don’t want to have to use a feature receiver add my custom areas and categories, so I have create this demo PowerShell script, strongly inspire by the Microsoft article.

[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.Practices.ServiceLocation") | Out-Null
[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.Practices.SharePoint.Common") | Out-Null
 
#EventSeverity		Description
#	None			Indicates no event entries are written. 
#	ErrorCritical	Indicates a problem state that needs the immediate attention of an administrator.
#	Error			Indicates a problem state requiring attention by a site administrator. 
#	Warning			Indicates conditions that are not immediately significant but that may eventually cause failure.
#	Information		Contains noncritical information provided for the administrator.
#	Verbose
 
#TraceSeverity		Description
#	None			Writes no trace information to the trace log file.
#	Unexpected		Represents an unexpected code path and actions that should be monitored.
#	Monitorable		Represents an unusual code path and actions that should be monitored. 
#	High			Writes high-level detail to the trace log file.
#	Medium			Writes medium-level detail to the trace log file.
#	Verbose			Writes low-level detail to the trace log file.
 
#Create a List<DiagnosticsArea> to collect the Diagnostics Area
$areaCollection = New-Object 'System.Collections.Generic.List[Microsoft.Practices.SharePoint.Common.Logging.DiagnosticsArea]'
 
#Add a DiagnosticsArea with the name Custom Area
$customArea = New-Object 'Microsoft.Practices.SharePoint.Common.Logging.DiagnosticsArea' -ArgumentList "Custom Area"
#Add a DiagnosticsCategory, to the Custom Areas DiagnosticsCategories collection, with the name Business logic, EventSeverity set to Warning and TraceSeverity to Medium
$customArea.DiagnosticsCategories.Add((New-Object 'Microsoft.Practices.SharePoint.Common.Logging.DiagnosticsCategory'("Business logic", ([Enum]::Parse([Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.EventSeverity], 'Warning')), ([Enum]::Parse([Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.TraceSeverity], 'Medium')))))
#Add a DiagnosticsCategory, to the Custom Areas DiagnosticsCategories collection, with the name Data layer, EventSeverity set to Error and TraceSeverity to Medium
$customArea.DiagnosticsCategories.Add((New-Object 'Microsoft.Practices.SharePoint.Common.Logging.DiagnosticsCategory'("Data layer", ([Enum]::Parse([Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.EventSeverity], 'Error')), ([Enum]::Parse([Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.TraceSeverity], 'Medium')))))
#Add the Custom Area to the List<DiagnosticsArea> collection
$areaCollection.Add($customArea)
 
#Create a new DiagnosticsArea witht the name Test Area and adds it to the List<DiagnosticsArea> collection
$areaCollection.Add((New-Object 'Microsoft.Practices.SharePoint.Common.Logging.DiagnosticsArea' -ArgumentList "Test Area"))
 
#Get a IConfigManager from the SharePointServiceLocator
$configManager =[Microsoft.Practices.SharePoint.Common.ServiceLocation.SharePointServiceLocator]::GetCurrent().GetInstance([Microsoft.Practices.SharePoint.Common.Configuration.IConfigManager])
 
#Create a new DiagnosticsAreaCollection with the IConfigManager as parameter
$configuredAreas = New-Object 'Microsoft.Practices.SharePoint.Common.Logging.DiagnosticsAreaCollection' $configManager
 
#loop through the newly collection of diagnosticsareas
$areaCollection | % {
 
	#get the instance from the current configuration
	$existingArea = $configuredAreas[$_.Name]
 
	#if the area the is null, we add add the area from the List<DiagnosticsArea> collection
	#else we loop through the collection we got from current configuration
	if($existingArea -eq $null)
	{
		$configuredAreas.Add($_)
	}
	else
	{	
		#loop through the collection we got from current configuration
		$customArea.DiagnosticsCategories | % {
 
			#get the category instance from the $existingArea (DiagnosticsArea)
			$existingCategory = $existingArea.DiagnosticsCategories[$_.Name]
			#if the category is null, we add to the current configuration
			if($existingCategory -eq $null)
			{
				$existingArea.DiagnosticsCategories.Add($_);
			}
		}
	}
}
#save the current configuration
$configuredAreas.SaveConfiguration()

The demo code.

What new and download link to SDK for SharePoint 2010

Download link:

• SDK for SharePoint 2010 Reference: Software Development Kit download

What’s new links:

• What's New in the SDK for SharePoint Server 2010
• What's New in the SDK for SharePoint Foundation 2010

Proud to present the next release of SharePoint Manager

This release includes new features and a bug fix:

• ServiceProxies
• ApplicationProxies
• ReadOnly mode
• Feature
• Delete
• External list error handling
• Site Subscriptions

Download the new release here: http://spm.codeplex.com/releases/view/51438

Querying for features with PowerShell

On my current project we have a feature with a model that adds some aspx files in a document library. My problem is when I add a new file to the model manifest the new aspx is not now added to the document library, on WSP solution upgrade. The solution for this is to “re-active” the feature with the model. This is easily done, either through the GUI or by PowerShell “Enable-SPFeature –Force”, but the problem is I don’t know where the feature is already activated and I don’t won to look through over all the webs to check if the feature is activated, so I need to query for where the feature is activated. This is done by calling a method called “QueryFeatures” http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.sharepoint.spfeaturequeryresultcollection.aspx. This method can be found on the SPContentDatabase, SPWebApplication, SPWebService, and the SPSite classes.

In my example I query the SPWebService for two features and then re-active by calling Enable-SPFeature –Force N.B. this don’t disable the feature and there for, if there are a feature receiver attach to the feature, with FeatureDeactivating method, this well not be call.

My PowerShell (Code update 11/9-2010)

$featureGuids = ("41ee3cfa-0863-4c1c-9f6b-41697ff44ee0", "7176542e-ec21-411e-86b3-24abb5251a0b")
$contentService = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPWebService]::ContentService
$featureGuids | % { $contentService.QueryFeatures([Guid]$_) } | % {
    Enable-SPFeature -Identity $_.DefinitionId -Url $_.Parent.Url -Force
}