Mart Muller's Weblog

Today I was thrilled to hear that my blog (yes, this one) is nominated for the Dutch Bloggies 2007 in the category 'best corporate weblog'!

Let the voting begin! :)

Like a while ago for WSS 2.0, Microsoft released application templates for WSS 3.0 also. Download them all here or separately:

• Board of Directors
• Business Performance Reporting
• Case Management for Government Agencies
• Classroom Management
• Clinical Trial Initiation and Management
• Competitive Analysis Site
• Discussion Database
• Disputed Invoice Management
• Employee Activities Site
• Employee Self-Service Benefits
• Employee Training Scheduling and Materials
• Equity Research
• Integrated Marketing Campaign Tracking
• Manufacturing Process Management
• New Store Opening
• Product and Marketing Requirements Planning
• Request for Proposal
• Sports League
• Team Work Site
• Timecard Management

Via Mark, I ran into an article of Daniel Larson talking about the SharePoint Ajax toolkit on codeplex.

"So now that ASP.NET AJAX has hit the RTM, a lot of SharePoint developers are looking at using Atlas in SharePoint. Officially though, it's not supported in WSS or MOSS. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't use it, there are just Atlas components that you should realize are NOT compatible with WSS.

But there *ARE* ASP.NET AJAX technologies that are compatible and that you should use. So here is my guidelines on using Atlas within WSS or MOSS. I've probably said this before, so this may be redundant, but wanted to lay out some guidelines now that everything has hit RTM. "

..

"The SharePoint Ajax Toolkit is available now in source code as well as the WSP solution package. I forgot to check in this morning when I built the release, so if you grabbed source this morning the code won't run against the RTM Atlas build (although the WSP will, that is the latest available.) Be sure to grab change set 16960 or newer.  

Source code: http://www.codeplex.com/sharepointajax/SourceControl/ListDownloadableCommits.aspx

Releases: http://www.codeplex.com/sharepointajax/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx"

read more here

Heather has done some great work again when it comes to CSS and SharePoint (V3). Check out her reference chart for the classes and property overview.

"The following CSS reference guide highlights the major styles used in MOSS and WSS v3 sites. The guide is organized by area of the page and include the style name, function, CSS file name and approximate line number and a sample screenshot of the style location on the screen. Use these guides to identify styles that can be overridden for your custom branding and installation or to quickly reference style name and CSS information for customization."

Now available for download:

 

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0: Software Development Kit (SDK)

The Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 software development kit (SDK) contains conceptual overviews, programming tasks, samples, and references to guide you in developing solutions based on Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.

download here

 

SharePoint Server 2007 SDK: Software Development Kit and Enterprise Content Management Starter Kit

The Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Software Development Kit (SDK) contains conceptual overviews, programming tasks, code samples, references, and an Enterprise Content Management (ECM) starter kit to guide you in developing solutions based on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

download here

Since last week, there are 2 new SharePoint user samples available on GotDotNet:

• Forms Based Authentication Setup Helper for MOSS 2007 - Utility to ease the process of setting up and configuring Forms Based Authentication for MOSS 2007. This is a work in progress. So feedback is solicited.
• Infowise SharePoint & Wss Watchtower - Infowise SharePoint Watchtower is a centralized security application that allows you to view and manage your SharePoint Portal 2003 and Team Site permissions from one location.

Ishai posted a very nice article about a print list option in SharePoint. Besides the fact that it is a useful option, I demonstrates the extensibility of the SharePoint UI using features very well.

"The solution will be deployed as a wss feature, which allows us an easy way to add a menu item to the sharepoint menus. The feature will define that the item we want to add will be added to the actions menu of all lists, in a site collection. You can ofcourse change it so that it behaves differently and connects only to lists of a certain type if you so wish, or maybe move the menu item to a different place. I recommend reviewing the msdn article on the possible configurations."

Sometime soon I will post some articles about the feature framework as well, with some interesting examples.

The program for the European SharePoint Conference in Berlin later this year is published on the conference website. Seems like there are some interesting session and the conference is definately worth visiting. Check out:

• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3

As I posted before, I finally found the Dutch MOSS version last week. The SharePoint product team blog announces now 13 new languages for download:

Servers + SharePoint + SharePoint Server 2007 (617MB)

• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (Arabic)
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (Dutch)
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (English)
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (French)
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (German)
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (Hebrew)
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (Italian)
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (Japanese)
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (Korean)
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (Polish)
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (Portuguese-Brazil)
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (Simplified Chinese)
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (Spanish)
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (Swedish)
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (Traditional Chinese)
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard and Enterprise Editions (Thai)

The English 180 day trial of Office SharePoint Server 2007 from download center is available here.

Office Forms Server 2007 (in Server)

• Office Forms Server 2007 (Arabic)
• Office Forms Server 2007 (Dutch)
• Office Forms Server 2007 (English)
• Office Forms Server 2007 (French)
• Office Forms Server 2007 (German)
• Office Forms Server 2007 (Hebrew)
• Office Forms Server 2007 (Japanese)
• Office Forms Server 2007 (Korean)
• Office Forms Server 2007 (Italian)
• Office Forms Server 2007 (Polish)
• Office Forms Server 2007 (Portuguese-Brazil)
• Office Forms Server 2007 (Swedish)
• Office Forms Server 2007 (Thai)
• Office Forms Server 2007 (Simplified Chinese)
• Office Forms Server 2007 (Spanish)
• Office Forms Server 2007 (Traditional Chinese)

No trial is available.  Download SharePoint Server Enterprise Trial here to evaluate Forms functionality.

Office SharePoint Designer (in Applications)

• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (Arabic)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (Dutch)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (English)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (French)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (German)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (Hebrew)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (Japanese)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (Korean)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (Italian)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (Polish)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (Portuguese-Brazil)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (Swedish)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (Simplified Chinese)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (Spanish)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (Thai)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (Traditional Chinese-Taiwan)
• Office SharePoint Designer 2007 - DVD (Traditional Chinese-Hong Kong SAR)

The 180 day English trial of Office SharePoint Designer 2007 is available from download center here.

Via Mark, a worth reading document to know everything about MOSS Search.

"This evaluation guide is designed to present a solid understanding of the search capabilities in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. It provides an overview of Enterprise Search solutions from Microsoft, gives a hands-on tour of the product, and concludes with useful information for administrators and developers. IT professionals should use this guide to perform a thorough and effective evaluation of Enterprise Search functionality in Office SharePoint Server 2007."

Download here

Currently, we (Tam Tam) are looking for new people that want to join our team. We're looking for SharePoint developers, or developers that want to dive into SharePoint (2007) technology.

So, if you are interested or want to have additional information, please drop me a line, add me to your live messenger list, or linkedin account (both: martATmartmullerDOTnl).

Via the SharePoint Team blog:

"The Tool WSSDW.exe is on Codeplex and is a community supported tool, not an officially Microsoft released product.  It can be downloaded here. Please don't contact product support with any issues you may experience using the tool.  This is the tool referred to on TechNet as the tool that was used to for load testing by the SharePoint Performance test team at Microsoft.

From Codeplex workspace:

"The SharePoint test data population tool (WSSDW.exe) is a capacity planning and performance testing tool that populates data for testing SharePoint deployments. The SharePoint test data population tool is available as a command-line executable program that extracts information about how to populate the server from an XML configuration file, and calls Microsoft .NET assembly: WSSDWLib.dll. "

...

For additional SharePoint performance and capacity planning information, see Plan for performance and capacity.
For additional Excel Services performance and capacity planning information, see Determine resource requirements to support Excel Services."

 

Read the complete article here

Finally, the moment I've been waiting for a long time ;) I've been tagged by Joost Bekel in the tagging-thing-game in blog-o-sphere, initiated by Jef Pulver. As many others have done before me, five things people probably don't know about me:

• I've been playing some musical instruments since I was little: flute, violin, guitar, bass guitar, piano and a little bit of drums. Until a few years ago, I've been playing in several bands as well (uncluding with Matthew Cosier at the Seattle EMP during the Office DevCon 2006). It's something I should pick up again.
• In 2002, Tam Tam gave me the opportunity to go to the SharePoint DevCon in Seattle...during my iternship.
• We recently bought a new house in Capelle aan den IJssel. Arienne (my wife) and I had two demands: she wanted to have a bath, I wanted a private parking space. We're both happy now :)
• We've had a lot of pets since we are together (3,5 years): 6 guinea-pig's, 2 rabbits (of which one died a day before Christmas), 24 fish, a cat (which the fire department is very happy with) and two rats. The cat and a few fish are still here.
• I drink too much coffee!

So, the five people I tag are:

• Matthew Cosier. I met him in Seattle during the 2006 Office DevCon
• Pedro Serrano, a Portugeese friend and fellow blogger
• Liam Cleary, who writes excellent postings about MOSS
• Ferry den Dopper, one of my colleagues at Tam Tam and Interaction Designer
• Branimir Giurov, a C# MVP (and almost ex-colleague) from Bulgaria

I've been looking and asking for it a while, but then I ran into it last week: the Dutch version of MOSS 2007. Also available in German, English, French, Italian, spanisch and Swedisch. It is available for a little while already, but somehow I have missed it. Some of our customers will be very happy.

Download here

Guidance and tools to enable IT Pros to upgrade custom Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 sites and templates to function in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 environments.

The Toolkit serves three main purposes:

• To provide IT professionals with the guidance and tools they need to upgrade customized Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 sites and site templates to function in a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 environment.
• To provide a set of upgraded application templates for Windows SharePoint Services based on those currently published for Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 on TechNet.
• To provide instructions for installing these application templates in a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 environment.

The 60 page guide covers the following topics:

• Ch 1: Introduction. Introduces the Upgrade Toolkit for Windows SharePoint Services Sites and Templates, explaining its purpose, scope, audience, and contents.
• Ch 2: Planning Your Template Upgrade. Examines the site and site template upgrade process from beginning to end and gives you necessary information for planning your upgrade strategy. It explains that the upgrade process has two stages: one to perform before your Windows SharePoint Services environment is upgraded to Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, and one to perform after the upgrade.
• Ch 3: Preparing a Site Template Based on a Customized Site Definition. If you determine, based on Chapter 2, that one or more of your site templates are based on customized site definitions, this chapter will familiarize you with upgrade definition files and new site definitions.
• Ch 4: Stage 1: Before Upgrading to Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. Describes the Stage 1 site template upgrade steps that you must perform before starting the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 upgrade.
• Ch 5: Stage 2: After Upgrading to Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. Describes the Stage 2 site template upgrade steps that you must perform after finishing the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 upgrade.
• Ch 6: The Upgraded Application Templates for Windows SharePoint Services. Lists and describes the function of each of the upgraded application templates for Windows SharePoint Services and gives you detailed instructions for installing the application templates in a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 environment.
• Ch 7: Troubleshooting. Provides workarounds and fixes for problems you may encounter.
• Appendix: Glossary. Lists the relevant terms used in this solution accelerator.

Also included in this toolkit are:

• A set of command scripts to streamline some of the server tasks during the site and template upgrade
• A set of upgraded application templates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. To get these templates, click here.

To view this solution online at TechNet, click here.

 

Download here

First of all, happy new year! 2006 has been an exciting year, expecially for office/sharepoint people. A lot of beta stuff and new things to dive into. 2007 will probably be even better, looking at all the Office 2007 opportunities to come!

Anyway, a good start with a tip from Eli, talking about authenticating when opening documents in an extranet, and expecially, how to avoid it.

"The solution is found in Internet Security and Acceleration Server (ISA) 2006. If you're making SharePoint available externally you should already be running ISA. The trick is configuring the Listener of that external connector to allow persistent cookies. Go to Listener Properties, Forms, Advanced. Name your cookie and select "Only on Private Computers" for the second field.

It's also good to configure ISA to use Forms-based NTLM authentication, which even has extensions to supoprt third-party authentication providers like RSA. That way you can use most any browser to hit your external SharePoint site, not just IE and Firefox. "

Read the complete article