This release includes a “go-live” license for users who want to use VS in a production environment.

Remark: Before installing the Release Candidate you will have to uninstall any previously installed Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 versions.

Related posts:

1. SharePoint 2010 Beta 2 and Silverlight 4 Beta available
2. CTP of Visual Studio 2008 extensions for WSS v1.3
3. Visual Studio 2008 extensions for WSS v1.2

Related posts:

1. SharePoint 2010 Beta 2 and Silverlight 4 Beta available

Today Microsoft makes this official with an update on their SharePoint Designer page.

For end users, Microsoft SharePoint Designer opens the door to more advanced customizations, but take care because you can ruin your site in a matter of minutes with SPD.

Microsoft also wrote an open letter to their customers about the change in licensing. You can find some quick answers on common questions about the change.

If you have already made an investment in Office SharePoint Designer and Software Assurance take a look at this blog post.

Related posts:

1. Microsoft Expands List of Formats Supported in Microsoft Office
2. Service Pack 2 for Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
3. Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager

First I will show you the code snippet to create the Alert, after that I will explain the code step by step.

SPAlert newAlert = user.Alerts.Add();
newAlert.Title = list.Title;
newAlert.AlertType = SPAlertType.List;
newAlert.List = list;
//newAlert.EventType = SPEventType.Add; <= doesn’t work
//use the following codes to set the "eventtypeindex" property
//all =0, added = 1, modify = 2, deleted = 3, web discussions = 4
newAlert.Properties["eventtypeindex"] = "1";
newAlert.AlertFrequency = SPAlertFrequency.Immediate;
//passing false to Update method will refrain from sending the alert confirmation mail
newAlert.Update(false);

Step by step:

The first thing to create the alert is to use the Add method of the Alerts property of the SPUser class, in our example “user” is an instance of a SPUser class.

SPUser user = mySite.Users["domain\user"];
SPAlert newAlert = user.Alerts.Add();

If you want to set an alert for a list, you have to set the AlertType property to SPAlertType.List and set the List property to an instance of the SPList class.

newAlert.AlertType = SPAlertType.List;
newAlert.List = list;

If you want to set an alert for a list item, you have to set the AlertType property to SPAlertType.Item and set the Item property to an instance of the SPListItem class.

newAlert.AlertType = SPAlertType.Item;
newAlert.Item = item;

The next property you want to set is the EventType property, this didn’t work out the way I wanted it too. I was having a problem with setting the EventType on an SPAlert to SPEventType.Add.

My code wouldn’t throw an error but neither would it set the EventType to SPEventType.Add, in stead it would stay at SPEventType.All.

I fixed this by using the following codes to set the “eventtypeindex” property of the SPAlert:

• all = 0
• added = 1
• modify = 2
• deleted = 3
• web discussions = 4

//newAlert.EventType = SPEventType.Add;
newAlert.Properties["eventtypeindex"] = "1";

The last properties to set is the AlertFrequency.

newAlert.AlertFrequency = SPAlertFrequency.Immediate;

If you AlertFrequency is different than Immediate you will have to set the AlertTime property, the AlertTime property defines the next time the alert will be sent.

newAlert.AlertFrequency = SPAlertFrequency.Daily;
newAlert.AlertTime = new DateTime(DateTime.Today.Year, DateTime.Today.Month,
 DateTime.Today.Day, 8, 0, 0);

Last but not least you will have to call the Update method of the instance of SPAlert. You can pass a bool parameter which tells the update if it needs to send an alert confirmation mail or not.

newAlert.Update(false);

No related posts.

Following are a few things talked about on the site:

• Team Development
• Source Code Control
• Automated Builds
• Continuous Integration
• Build Testing
• Unit Testing and Test Driven Development
• Solution Versioning

Application Lifecycle Management is the marriage of business management to software engineering made possible by tools that facilitate and integrate requirements management, architecture, coding, testing, tracking, and release management.

Related posts:

1. Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager

Paul Grenier of EndUserSharePoint.com has written a jQuery script that allows a user to expand all grouped by instances with one click, as a response to a question I asked on the Stump The Panel forum. I loved the script so much I decided to package it for easier use and distribution and put it on my SharePointology project on Codeplex.com.

It is a feature called SPOCollapseAndExpandAll, it is a jQuery feature that adds a + and – to the menu bar of the document/list libraries to Expand/Collapse all grouped by’s with one click. days.

Before expanding:

After expanding:

Download SPOExpandAndCollapseAll v1.0.

Prerequisites

This webpart needs jQuery to be added to your SharePoint pages.

No related posts.

It covers:

• Page Navigation
• Page Branding
• Web Services
• Custom Content Types
• User Management

Microsoft Ramp Up is a completely free, online, community-based program that only requires a Live ID to sign up and dig in. It connects you with other professionals while you’re building your skills.

On Ramp Up you can review the content and advance through the learning track at your own pace. At the end of the each level, you take an assessment to unlock the next level. Once you’ve completed the full learning track, you will have gained new skills integral to a successful developer.

Other tracks you can dig into are:

• SharePoint for Developers – Part I
• Visual Studio 2002/2003 Developer
• Visual Basic 6.0 Developer
• Java Developer
• Aspiring Developer
• Visual Studio 2008 Track

Related posts:

1. Online SharePoint 2007 Development Training
2. SharePoint Developer introduction for .NET developers
3. Visual Studio 2008 extensions for WSS v1.2

It is a project that aims at giving SharePoint users an even more user-friendly experience by providing a useful collection of SharePoint extensions and SharePoint developers some examples on how stuff is done.

My first contribution to this project will be a webpart called SPOShowBirthdayWebPart, it is a webpart that will display all users whose birthday is coming up in x days.

Download SPOShowBirthdayWebPart v1.0.

Prerequisites
This webpart uses the RunWithElevatedPrivileges function to impersonate the administrator in SharePoint Server 2007. After you do this, you may receive the following error message when you try to enumerate all user profiles:

“Access Denied. Only an administrator may enumerate through all user profiles.”

Microsoft released a hotfix package for this bug “SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package: May 8, 2008″,
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952294

Related posts:

1. Web Part to show upcomming birthdays in SharePoint V2.0
2. Expand and Collapse All Feature v1.0 Released

New features in VSeWSS 1.3

• Can be installed on x64 Server OS machines
• Separate build commands for package, deploy and retract are added
• Command line build, package and retract commands are included
• Refactoring support for renaming of Web Parts
• WSP View improvements for consistency of deleting feature elements, merging features and adding event receivers to features
• Solution Generator can now generate solutions from publishing sites
• Allowing partial trust BIN deployments of web parts
• …

For more information about this release read: “Announcing: Community Technology Preview of Visual Studio 2008 extensions for SharePoint v1.3” on the Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog.

Related posts:

1. Visual Studio 2008 extensions for WSS v1.2
2. SharePoint Best Practices Conference Notes (London 2009) – Day 1
3. Online SharePoint 2007 Development Training

Microsoft Ramp Up is a completely free, online, community-based program that only requires a Live ID to sign up and dig in. It connects you with other professionals while you’re building your skills.

On Ramp Up you can review the content and advance through the learning track at your own pace. At the end of the each level, you take an assessment to unlock the next level. Once you’ve completed the full learning track, you will have gained new skills integral to a successful developer.

Other tracks you can dig into are:

• Visual Studio 2002/2003 Developer
• Visual Basic 6.0 Developer
• Java Developer
• Aspiring Developer
• Visual Studio 2008 Track

Related posts:

1. Ramp Up – SharePoint for developers – part 2
2. Visual Studio 2008 extensions for WSS v1.2

To something like this:

In Part 2 we are going to learn how to add other fields (properties) to the Search results.

How do we do this?

Let’s first include the Mobile phone of a user into the XML list of results returned by the search service.

• First you go to your People Search Page and execute a search on a certain name for wich you know you will find results.
• On the results page you click on Site Actions / Edit page.
• For the People Search Core Results web part you choose Modify Shared Web Part.

• Open the Results Query Options by pressing on the + sign in front of it.
• Look up the Selected Columns field and press the [...] button and you’ll get this:

<root xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<Columns>
<Column Name="AccountName"/>
<Column Name="UserProfile_GUID"/>
<Column Name="PreferredName"/>
<Column Name="JobTitle"/>
<Column Name="Department"/>
<Column Name="WorkPhone"/>
<Column Name="OfficeNumber"/>
<Column Name="Fax"/>
<Column Name="AboutMe"/>
<Column Name="PictureURL"/>
<Column Name="WorkEmail"/>
<Column Name="WebSite"/>
<Column Name="Path"/>
<Column Name="HitHighlightedSummary"/>
<Column Name="HitHighlightedProperties"/>
<Column Name="Responsibility"/>
<Column Name="Skills"/>
<Column Name="SipAddress"/>
</Columns>
</root>

• Now you’ll be able to include new columns based on the columns you can reference from the user profile database. For example if you wanted to include a person’s mobile phone you’ll want to include <Column Name=”MobilePhone”/>. After you’ve done that the XML getting returned by the Search has the MobilePhone column in it.
• Where do you find these column names? Go to your Central Administration, click Shared Services, then Search Settings and click Metadata property mappings.

• You’ll find the column names in the column Property Name.

Now we’ll have to change the XSLT to include the MobilePhone column as output.

• Choose Modify Shared Web Part for the People Search Core Results web part. If you don’t know how to do this look up a few lines.
• Just below Data View Properties you see a XSL Editor button. Press it.
• Search for “Phone” and you’ll find a line containing  <xsl:with-param name=”phone” select=”workphone” />.
• Copy that line and change the new line to  <xsl:with-param name=”mobile” select=”mobilephone” />.
• Keep searching for “Phone” and you’ll find the following line <xsl:param name=”phone” />.
• Copy it and change the new line to <xsl:param name=”mobile” />.
• Search again and you’ll find:

<xsl:if test='string-length($phone) > 0'>
<tr>
<td><b>Telefoon nr: </b></td>
<td><xsl:value-of select="$phone" />  </td>
</tr>
</xsl:if>

• Copy and change to:

<xsl:if test='string-length($mobile) > 0'>
<tr>
<td><b>Mobiel nr: </b></td>
<td><xsl:value-of select="$mobile" />  </td>
</tr>
</xsl:if>

• Save it, publish the page and retry your Person Search and you’ll get something like this:

Related posts:

1. Customize the People Search Results – Part 1
2. Dropdown to change the View disappeared
3. Add Web Parts to DispForm, EditForm or NewForm.aspx

First of all let’s start off with showing how the default People Search Results look like:

In my opinion not really something you can give to your users to work with. No labels, no design, no clear layout.

This article will try to show you how you can beautify these results a bit.

Preparation:

Let’s try and get ourselfs something to work with for starters. The list of results returned by the search service is in XML format and get’s transformed by using an XSLT. If we can get the XML before it gets translated by the XSLT we can use that XML as input for our custom XSLT.

How do we do this?

• First you go to your People Search Page and execute a search on a certain name for wich you know you will find results.
• On the results page you click on Site Actions / Edit page.
• For the People Search Core Results web part you choose Modify Shared Web Part.

• Edit the XSL by pressing the XSL Editor button.
• Save the existing source into a backup XSL file, you can use it later on.
• Replace the existing XSL by the folowing code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
	<xsl:output method="xml" version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" indent="yes"/>
	<xsl:template match="/">
		<xmp><xsl:copy-of select="*"/></xmp>
	</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

• Save, press OK button on Properties of web part, choose Save and stop editing from the menu.
• Retry your search and the results will look something like this:

<All_Results>
    <DummyResult>
      <Everyone />
    </DummyResult>
    <Result>
      <id>1</id>
      <accountname>MOSS\Sharepoint-Test</accountname>
      <userprofile_guid>07BEF018-AE22-495E-B8B5-0EF167B46C90</userprofile_guid>
      <preferredname>Sharepoint Test</preferredname>
      <jobtitle>Sharepoint Tester</jobtitle>
      <department>ICT</department>
      <workphone>+32 14 76 78 90</workphone>
      <officenumber>+32 14 76 45 67</officenumber>
      <aboutme></aboutme>
      <pictureurl></pictureurl>
      <workemail>Sharepoint-Test@moss.com</workemail>
      <website></website>
      <url>http://moss2007:17212/Person.aspx?guid=07BEF018-AE22-495E-B8B5-0EF167B46C90</url>
      <urlEncoded>http%3A%2F%2Fmoss2007%3A17212%2FPerson%2Easpx%3Fguid%3D07BEF018%2DAE22%2D495E%2DB8B5%2D0EF167B46C90</urlEncoded>
      <hithighlightedsummary>moss\<c0>Sharepoint</c0>-<c1>Test</c1>  <ddd /> <c0>Sharepoint</c0> <c1>Test</c1>  <ddd /> <c0>Sharepoint</c0>-<c1>Test</c1> </hithighlightedsummary>
      <hithighlightedproperties>
        <HHTitle />
        <HHUrl>http://moss2007:17212/Person.aspx?guid=07BEF018-AE22-495E-B8B5-0EF167B46C90</HHUrl>
      </hithighlightedproperties>
      <responsibility>Testing Sharepoint</responsibility>

      <skills>sharepoint;C#</skills>
      <sipaddress></sipaddress>
      <imageurl imageurldescription="File with extension: aspx">/_layouts/images/html16.gif</imageurl>
      <addtomycolleaguesurl>javascript:AddToColleagues('moss\\sharepoint-test')</addtomycolleaguesurl>
      <EveryOne />
    </Result>
  </All_Results>

• Copy the XML and save it in a file.

Create the XSL:

Now that we have the XML, we can this data as input for our XSL. I will explain how to create a simple XSL with Sharepoint Designer 2007. If you have experience with making XSL using another tool, be my guest.

• Open up your Sharepoint Designer 2007 and open the site (File, Open Site) you are working with.
• Make a new ASPX page (File, New, ASPX).
• Insert a Data View on the page (Data View, Insert Data View).
• After you add the Data View, the Data Source Library window opens.

• Expand the node that says XML Files, as seen above, and choose Add an XML file. Browse to your XML file that contains the XML data we saved before and hit ok. Hit Yes on the question about importing the XML.
• Click the dropdown of your file, and choose Show Data.
• A nice way to get you started is by using the default XSL that Sharepoint uses to display the People Search Results. We saved it earlier on in this article into a backup XSL file. Open this backup file in Notepad or some other text editor, copy the XSL source code, go to your ASPX file in Sharepoint Designer and copy the XSL source code between the <XSL> and </XSL> tags.
• Go to the Split view in Sharepoint Designer, this will show you the code and the resulting page.
• Now you can edit the result, you can add labels to your data. Make stuff bold, italic, use tables to design the results.

Testing the new XSL:

• When you are satisfied with the result copy everything between the <XSL> and </XSL> tags and paste it into your Sharepoint site. Where exactly? Look at the “Preparation” part of this article and search for “pressing the XSL Editor button” that will explain where to paste the XSL source.
• Save, press OK button on Properties of web part, choose Save and stop editing from the menu.
• Retry your search and the results will look something like this:

It’s not much, but it’s a start. I’ll show you what i changed to the Default XSL source, search for DisplayOfficeProfile and compare it with the next source, the differences are the things I changed.

<xsl:template name="DisplayOfficeProfile">
  <xsl:param name="title" />
  <xsl:param name="dep" />
  <xsl:param name="phone" />
  <xsl:param name="skills" />
  <xsl:param name="responsibility" />

  <table>
  <span class="psrch-Metadata">
  <xsl:if test='string-length($title) > 0'>
  <tr>
   <td><b>Functie: </b></td>
   <td><xsl:value-of select="$title" /></td>
  </tr>
  </xsl:if>
  <xsl:if test='string-length($dep) > 0'>
  <tr>
   <td><b>Afdeling: </b></td>
   <td><xsl:value-of select="$dep" />  </td>
  </tr>
  </xsl:if>
  <xsl:if test='string-length($phone) > 0'>
  <tr>
   <td><b>Telefoon nr: </b></td>
   <td><xsl:value-of select="$phone" />  </td>
  </tr>
  </xsl:if>
   <xsl:if test='string-length($skills) > 0'>
  <tr>
   <td><b>Skills: </b></td>
   <td><xsl:value-of select="$skills" />  </td>
  </tr>
  </xsl:if>
  <xsl:if test='string-length($responsibility) > 0'>
  <tr>
   <td><b>Responsibility: </b></td>
   <td><xsl:value-of select="$responsibility" />  </td>
  </tr>
  </xsl:if>
  </span>
  </table>
  <br/>
</xsl:template>

I also removed the following part of the XSL:

<div class="psrch-Description">
          <xsl:choose>
            <xsl:when test="hithighlightedsummary[. != '']">
              <xsl:apply-templates select="hithighlightedsummary" />
              <br/>
            </xsl:when>
            <xsl:when test="aboutme[. != '']">
              <xsl:value-of disable-output-escaping="yes" select="aboutme"/>
              <br/>
            </xsl:when>
          </xsl:choose>
           <xsl:choose>
            <xsl:when test="responsibility[. != ''] or skills[. != '']">
              <xsl:choose>
                <xsl:when test="responsibility[. != '']">
                  <span class="psrch-PropLabel">
                    <xsl:text>Responsibilities: </xsl:text>
                  </span>
                  <span class="psrch-PropValue">
                    <xsl:value-of select="translate(responsibility,';',',')"/>
                    <xsl:text> </xsl:text>
                  </span>
                </xsl:when>
              </xsl:choose>
              <xsl:choose>
                <xsl:when test="skills[. != '']">
                  <xsl:if test="responsibility[. != ''] and skills[. != '']">
                    <br/>
                  </xsl:if>
                  <span class="psrch-PropLabel">
                    <xsl:text>Skills: </xsl:text>
                  </span>
                  <span class="psrch-PropValue">
                    <xsl:value-of select="translate(skills,';',',')"/>
                  </span>
                </xsl:when>
              </xsl:choose>
              <br/>
            </xsl:when>
            <xsl:otherwise><span /></xsl:otherwise>
          </xsl:choose>
        </div>

Related posts:

1. Customize the People Search Results – Part 2

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

Visual Studio 2008 Item Templates (items that can be added into an existing project)

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

SharePoint Solution Generator

This stand-alone program generates a Site Definition project from an existing SharePoint site.

Related posts:

1. CTP of Visual Studio 2008 extensions for WSS v1.3
2. Service Pack 2 for Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
3. SharePoint Best Practices Conference Notes (London 2009) – Day 2

You can get everything from this brand new site that just went live: http://www.MsSharePointDeveloper.com.

Related posts:

1. Ramp Up – SharePoint for developers – part 2