Mart Muller's Weblog

Thursday July 3rd there will be a new free event from the Dutch Information Worker User Group (DIWUG). 

This evening contains two interesting sessions. The first one is about Nintex Workflows, presented by Sander de Koning. The second session of the evening is about authentication providers in MOSS 2007, and will be presented by Peter Gerritsen. All sessions are in Dutch.

The host of this event is Imtech in The Hague. Check out the sessions here, and click here to subscribe!

Last week we received an email telling us that we are the winner of the Search Partner of the Year Award! We are very proud receiving this Microsoft award for a project we did with Twijnstra en Gudde, a Dutch company.

Basically what we did for the user, is creating one single search text box:

Underneath however, it searches many different subsystems like CRM data, Projects, a document management system, people in the organization and all the relations they have with each other.

Using Ontolica search for MOSS 2007 and the Business Data Catalog (BDC), we achieved a user friendly user interface with all kind of drill down options that go through all the different systems.

Anyway, great achievement for Tam Tam and the people that worked on this project!

• Listen and watch audio/video podcasts, anywhere on your PC or mobile device (Zune, SmartPhone, or any podcasting device)
• Share content by producing your own audio/video podcasts and publish them on PKS on your own.
• Connect and engage with podcasters via your integrated instant messaging program
• Find the most relevant content using the five star rating system, tag cloud, search engine and provide your feedback via comments.
• Get automatic podcast updates by subscribing to RSS feeds fully compatible with Zune and other podcasting devices
  • Simple RSS feed based on a defined podcast series
  • Simple RSS feed based on a person
  • Dynamic RSS feed based on search results
• Play podcasts in real-time using Microsoft® Silverlight™ and progressive playback
• Retrieve instant ROI and metrics with the ability to track the number of podcasts downloaded and/or viewed, instant feedback via rating system and comments, and subscribers via the RSS feed
• Access the richness of SharePoint to extend the solution: workflows, community sub-sites, access rights, editorial and more
• Customize your own PKS User Experience

UPDATE: some people notified me about this not working for SharePoint. Too bad, I didn't test and read it well. Sorry for that!

Something which is hard to explain to customers is why they can edit a document in SharePoint only via the document context menu 'Edit in Word' and not directly via the link to the document. Especially when a link is provided in an email message, it is annoying to see that you can only open a document in read only mode.

Today I got the question if it was possible to create a list of links directly to documents to edit, without opening them in read-only mode. Good question, good reason to find a solution!

The behavior is managed client sided. SharePoint uses javascript to open a document in edit mode. It looks something like this:

javascript:editDocumentWithProgID2(/'path/document.doc','Word.Document','SharePoint.OpenDocuments');

The problem with this is that regular SharePoint users cannot link to the document directly and it is not really user friendly.

During my search I ran into a MS KB article that explained that you can change the behavior of opening document while browsing in the registry. The steps to take:

1. Quit all Office 2003 and 2007 Office programs that are running.
2. Click Start, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and then click OK.
3. Locate and then right-click the following registry subkey: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\<version_number>\Common\Internet
4. Point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
5. Type OpenDocumentsReadWriteWhileBrowsing, and then press ENTER.
6. Right-click OpenDocumentsReadWriteWhileBrowsing, and then click Modify.
7. In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.
8. In the File menu, click Exit to quit Registry Editor.

For more information about this check out the KB article.

Just released: the Visual Studio 2008 extensions (1.2) for WSS 3.0!

Download it here. Note that it will only run on 32-bit...

"Visual Studio project templates for Web Parts, site definitions, and list definitions; and a stand-alone utility program, the SharePoint Solution Generator. Please also download the User Guide and Samples listed in Related Resources.
The User Guide for this tool can be found here: Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Tools: Visual Studio 2005 Extensions User Guide, Version 1.1

The 1.1 version can be found here for Visual Studio 2005 support: Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Tools: Visual Studio 2005 Extensions, Version 1.1
Version 1.2 of the Visual Studio 2008 Extensions for Windows SharePoint Services contains the following tools to aid developers in building SharePoint applications:

 
Visual Studio 2008 Project Templates

• Web Part
• Team Site Definition
• Blank Site Definition
• List Definition
• Empty SharePoint Project

• Web Part
• Custom Field
• List Definition (with optional Event Receiver)
• Content Type (with optional Event Receiver
• Module
• List Instance
• List Event Handler
• Template

I often get questions about where to begin when you want to start developing in SharePoint. This question is quite tricky, because you can approach it in many different ways. Just start with your first web part or first dive into the wide range of functionality first?

Personally I would approach it this way:

• A good starting point is the Office web site: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointtechnology/HA102055631033.aspx . There are some video’s and explanations about SharePoint in general. Try to get to know the SharePoint concept of sites, lists, etc.
• Secondly I would suggest setting up a development environment: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb330848.aspx. Also make sure you get the SharePoint SDK (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=6D94E307-67D9-41AC-B2D6-0074D6286FA9&displaylang=en)
• SharePoint guru Patrick Tisseghem wrote some articles about SharePoint development. Take an hour and read them, they help you a lot understanding SharePoint development. (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb530302.aspx)
• Also check out the (free) online courses and video's about SharePoint development: WSS Development or MOSS Development
• Just start writing you first simple web part. Personally I would suggest doing it step by step the first time(s), to really get to know what's happening and why. Later on you can choose to use the visual studio extensions to simplify the development process. For a step-by-step web part development tutorial, check out one of my older postings: http://blogs.tamtam.nl/mart/CreateASharePoint2007WebpartStepByStep.aspx
• Always keep in mind that you are not the first one starting development in SharePoint. Thousands of developers have had the same challenge. Use that experience and search the Internet for code samples, approaches and other development articles!

I also read that there is a new web site online for SharePoint development. Check it out here: http://www.microsoft.com/click/SharePointDeveloper/

Good luck!