Category Archives: December 2007

Cogitans Commercial Products

2 Restituo

Ego a SharePoint amet tractus project usque ad CodePlex rem priore anno etiam finita locus suus, Ego aestimare quod suus fuerit downloaded per 40 ad 60 (potest etiam 100) companies in just about two months. That indicates to me that there’s a market for that solution and if I were to successfully commercialize it, that could translate into a goodly amount of beer 🙂

Mea background est actu multo in productum progressionem et quid est requiritur ut a summo-INCISURA productum, ut opponitur CodePlex amat project, to market. In my vita, Ego auctor productum R&D for all software products. The difference between then and now is that I’m a consultant now working for an (optimum) consulens firma (Conchango). Antea, Ego me totum turba retro et ante, selling and supporting the products we brought to market. Hodie, Lorem solus.

Ego plures productum ideas in animo, but I think the easiest would be to create a commercial version of the above-mentioned CodePlex project that uses that as a starting point and extends it further. My fuzzy off-the-cuff thinking is to charge something like $100 immenso elit licentia et $500 per production web front end. I think I would also give away the source code.

Donec turpis est, vel si sententia libentissime communicare, placere relinquat comment vel email me directe. I’d like to hear opinions like:

  • Est omnes operaepretium?
  • Practica suggestionibus enim ipsum, pecunia, distribuendis.
  • Aliquam.
  • Sustinere.
  • Alia comment velis relinquere.

Suus "facile" ad ascendit cum productum ideas et ad peragendam eos, though many dozens of hours of work are required. The other stuff is not as easy for me.

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Dominica matutina Funny: “Jesus moriturus”

1 Respondere

Nos emit primi (et tantum) "Luxuria" car back when hurricane Floyd nailed the east coast of the U.S. We got a LOT of rain here in New Jersey and plures dies before life returned to normal. Just before Floyd struck, nos fecit offer pro usus Volvo 850 GL et post Floyd percussit, expulit domum.

It was our first car with a CD player. Like most new car owners, nos abiit paulo CD insanit, revived our dormant CD collection and went on long drives just to listen to CD’s in the car. Like all fads, this passed for us and we ended listening to the same CD over and over again. In nobis, erat Jesus Christus Superstar.

De (multis) egregie frusta in quod petram Opera cantatur per instauratione religionis genera, ductus Caiaphas, the "High Priest". They sing their way into deciding how to handle the "Jesus problem" and Caiaphas directs them to the conclusion that "Jesus must die". The refrain on the song is "Just must die, Oportet, Oportet, this Jesus must die". You hear that refrain a lot in that piece.

Ad tempus, my son was about three years old. You can probably see where this is going.

I came home from work one day and my son is in the living room playing with toys and humming to himself. I’m taking off my jacket, vultus per mail et omnes more ambulant-in-in-ostium effercio et subito animadverto quod iusta dicens, non vere cantantes: "Jesus oportet mori, Oportet, must die." I was mortified. I could just see him doing that while on one of his baby play dates at a friend’s house — probabiliter ultimum fabula date cum quod infantem amicus.

We pulled that CD out of the Volvo after that 🙂

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Google receperunt mea vive dolor Blog In Adsense elit

7 Restituo

UPDATE: Ut de 03/09, I have found no way to integrate my live spaces account with Google Adsense. Microsoft’s system here seems to prevent all of the technical mechanisms that Google provides would-be adsense hosters. I tend to believe this is mainly a side effect of the security they’ve built into live spaces, not a direct effort to disable Adsense.

Hoc est non a SharePoint post, sed esset interest ad bloggers plerumque.

Someone commented on their Windows Live Spaces blog that Google affirmatively denied their application to participate in AdSense. She theorized that Google denied her because Windows Live Spaces hosts her blog. Autem, Ego nuper accepit in progressio meo vivunt spatia blog, ita consilium aut mutari vel Google negavit alia ratione.

Utique, Non videre manifestum ad integrare Google Adsense in meum vivunt spatium, but it’s a start 🙂

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Magister foveant / Donec mattis libero varius vestibulum Relationships

5 Restituo

Forum users frequently as questions like this:

> Salve,
>
> Indica mihi, si est album consuetudo facere potest
> et typum domini detail (sicut invoices) without using InfoPath.
>

SharePoint suggero features ut sustentaret arcam quidam de genere negotium requisita similis.

In genere, one links two lists together using a lookup column. List A contains the invoice header information and list B contains invoice details.

Use additional lists to maintain customer numbers, product numbers, etc.

Use a content query web part (in MOSS only) and/or a data view web part to create merged views of the lists. SQL Server Reporting Services (SRS) is also available for the reporting side of it.

Autem, there are some important limitations that will make it difficult to use pure out-of-the-box features for anything that is even moderately complex. These include:

  • Size of related lookup lists vs. "smartness" of the lookup column type. A lookup column type presents itself on the UI differently depending on whether you’ve enabled multi-select or not. In either case, the out-of-the-box control shows all available items from the source list. If the source list has 1,000 items, that’s going to be a problem. The lookup control does not page through those items. Pro, it pulls all of them into the control. That makes for a very awkward user interface both in terms of data entry and performance.
  • Lookups "pull back" one column of information. You can never pull back more than one column of information from the source list. Puta, you cannot select a customer "12345" and display the number as well as the customer’s name and address at the same time. The lookup only shows the customer number and nothing else. This makes for an awkward and difficult user interface.
  • No intra-form communication. I’ve written about this here. You can’t implement cascading drop-downs, conditionally enable/disable fields, etc.
  • No cascading deletes or built-in referential integrity. SharePoint treats custom lists as independent entities and does not allow you to link them to each other in a traditional ERD sense. Verbigratia, SharePoint allows you to create two custom lists, "customer" and "invoice header". You can create an invoice header that links back to a customer in the customer list. Igitur, you can delete the customer from the list. Ex arca archa, there is no way to prevent this. To solve this kind of problem, you would normally use event handlers.

It may seem bleak, but I would still use SharePoint as a starting point for building this kind of functionality. Though there are gaps between what you need in a solution, SharePoint enables us to fill those gaps using tools such as:

  • Tracto vicis. Use them to enforce referential integrity.
  • Custom columns: Create custom column types and use them in lieu of the default lookup column. Add paging, buffering and AJAX features to make them responsive.
  • BDC. This MOSS-only feature enables us to query other SharePoint lists with a superior user interface to the usual lookup column. BDC can also reach out to a back end server application. Use BDC to avoid replication. Rather than replicating customer information from a back end ERP system, use BDC instead. BDC features provide a nice user interface to pull that information directly from the ERP system where it belongs and avoids the hassle of maintaining a replication solution.

    BDC is a MOSS feature (not available in WSS) and is challenging to configure.

  • ASP.NET web form: Partum a plenus-featured Nullam-enabled quod forma utitur SharePoint obiectum exemplar et / vel textus muneris leverage SharePoint Libelli dum providente admodum dociles, user interface.

Ultimum potest bene sentire sicut tu incipiens a VULNUS, sed considera quod SharePoint diam vos satus off per sequens key features:

  • Exemplar cum securitatem tuendam.
  • Menu ratio tuendam.
  • "Master table" (i.e. consuetudinem tabulatum) cum securitate, ædificavit-in alimonium ac auditing.
  • Quaerere.
  • Iaculis tincidunt diam ferramentis (BDC).

Vestibulum ipsum nibh, in condimentum arcu Si nova, vos multum infrastructure et Plumbing ædificare coram accedentibus quod offert SharePoint.

I do believe that Microsoft intends to extend SharePoint in this direction of application development. It seems like a natural extension to the existing SharePoint base. Microsoft’s CRM application provides a great deal of extensibility of the types needed to support header/detail application development. Although those features are in CRM, the technology is obviously available to the SharePoint development team and I expect that it will make its way into the SharePoint product by end of 2008. If anyone has an knowledge or insight into this, commodo licentia a ineo.

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Vivos Tip: Quaero Web content Parte, Column p valorem et Lookup

3 Restituo

I have a column name in a content type named "Real Estate Location".

That column is of type "lookup".

Ego mutatio: <CommonViewFields> et ostenderent agmen ItemStyle.xsl.

Simplex <p:value-lego a =…> retro redit, ut valor includit intrinsecam Ordinale data positione, quales:

1;#Miami

Ut humana valorem-amica, uti post-p substring, ut ostensum:

<p:value-of select="substring-after(@Real_x005F_x0020_Estate_x005F_x0020_Location,’#’)"></p:valor ex->

Uti hoc ars, quotiens operamur cum lookup valores in p commutat atque opus ad adepto valorem in humana-amica.

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December SharePoint Beagle Donec Up & Vivo

Aliquam responsum

Multi ex vobis sciunt hoc iam, sed December edition SharePoint Beagle vivunt.

Omnem articulum in mea sententia est lectione condignas.

Volo dare parum gibba ut intercalatae collegam meum articulum scriptor (Natalya Voskrensenskya). She provides a screen-shot extravaganza while describing how she used custom lists, workflow, SharePoint amet, data views and other elements to implement a self-service training feature in MOSS. She describes techniques that can be applied in many different business scenarios. Check out eius blog at tu dum eam.

Non oblivisci Lorem articulum as well 🙂 I wrote about using MOSS to help an HR department manage open positions.

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MUSCUS michi “Obvius negavit,” ad creare a workflow Negotium, Sed ego vere praesto

2 Restituo

I’ve implemented a workflow using SharePoint Designer in a site which is mainly read-only to "NT_AUTHORITY\Authenticated Users" (i.e. omnes). There is a forms library for an InfoPath form. There is an associated workflow tasks list as well so that when the workflow operates, potest assignari munia ad populum.

Ego conteram permissione formae bibliotheca et negotium album, ut omnem creare potest formas et authenticitatis user update eorum assignari munia.

I test with my low-privileges test account.

Nisi et sem risus forma possum? –> MAXIME

Ego potest obvius munus ab pagina electronica? –> MAXIME

Video Edit workflow est opus nectunt –> MAXIME

Ego potest click in link? –> IMO … Licentiam denegari.

Recensere video cur pagina negaverit me licentiam cum eo clicca? That’s not how it’s supposed to work…

Vadam ad securitatem iterum configuration, very closely. I do it again. Existimo deleting is stipes satis patet, quia nescitis quicquam.

Tandem, I search the Internets. I find this highly unlikely MSDN forum thread: http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1838253&SiteID=17

Posters videretur innuunt, quod in simplici actu exporting workflow est ad coegi disco firmabo MUSCUS securitas a fluxi? I can hardly believe I just typed that. I’m reminded of the South Park episode about the 9/11 Stan est coniuratio ubi petens nostrum Preznit, "Really?" over and over again.

Ita, nihil perdere, Ego ignis sursum SPD, vox-click in workflow, et salvabo eam meam c:\ drive. That would be the c:\ drive on my laptop. I’m looking over my shoulder the whole time so that no one will ask me, "why are you saving that workflow to your laptop?"

INCREDIBILITER, that solves my problem. I can edit the task.

Ex hoc ego nominare hoc esse maxime prodigiosum workflow de Workaround 2007.

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SharePoint amet, Item scriptor current “Absoluta encoded URL” et https

4 Restituo

We often want to send an email that includes a hyperlink to the item or document that triggered the workflow. We can use current item’s "Encoded Absolute URL" for this purpose. Autem, it always seems to use "http" for the URL protocol. If your site runs on HTTPS then it will not work for you.

imaginem

Fuit quantum ego scient, there is no out of the box solution to this problem. If you need to use HTTPS, you have no out of the box option.

To solve it, create a custom action that provides a string replace function to use in your workflow. Alternatively, use a 3rd party tool such as the excellent package here: http://www.codeplex.com/spdwfextensions 🙂

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Vivos et Securus: Determine Internal Column Name of a Site Column

3 Restituo

UPDATE: Jeremy Thake has blogged about this and put up some code for a console application that shows internal names.

I was trying to get a content query web part to display a due date from a task and because the screen label is "Due Date", I assumed that the column name to use in <CommonViewFields> is "Due_x0020_Date".

Iniuriam!

The real column name in this case was "DueDate".

How did I find it? I re-read Heather Solomon’s blog entry on modifying CQWP to show additional columns of data. She describes this process at step #13. Trust it. It’s correct. At least, it was correct for me. I did not trust it at first for another column with a much longer name.

I say "Trust it" because I did not trust it and probably wasted near two hours butting my head up against a wall. After I resolved the "DueDate" nomen, I wanted to add another field to <CommonViewFields>. Using the Solomon technique, I was getting a column name like "XYZ_x0020_Project_x0020_Due_x00".

I thought to myself, that’s clearly a truncated name. I went ahead and un-truncated it with no success. I finally used the seemingly truncated name and it worked.

Bonus tip: When I was working with the CQWP, if I added a bad internal name to <CommonViewFields>, the CQWP would tell me that the query had returned no results. Sed, if I added a data type to the field name, it would return a result. Adding the data type actually masked a problem since I was referencing a non-existent field. I could add it, but when I tried to display its value, I would always get a blank.

This did not mask the error:

<CommonViewFields>Due_x0020_Date;</CommonViewfields>

This did mask the error:

<CommonViewFields>Due_x0020_Date,DateTime;</CommonViewfields>

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Beware Breaking Changes to ItemStyle.xsl

Aliquam responsum

I was working with ItemStyle.xsl to customize the look of a Content Query Web Part and right about lunch time, I made a breaking change to the xsl. I didn’t realize it, but this had far reaching effects throughout the site collection. I went off to lunch and upon my return, noticed this message appearing in a bunch of places:

Unable to display this Web Part. To troubleshoot the problem, open this Web page in a Windows SharePoint Services-compatible HTML editor such as Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer. If the problem persists, contact your Web server administrator.

I blamed the client (not realizing as yet that it was my fault at this point) but eventually noticed that visual studio intellisense was warning me that I had malformed XSL. I corrected it and everything started working.

Be darned careful when working with ItemStyle.xsl (and any of the global XSL files) — breaking them affects many artifacts in the site collection.

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