So , when we need to create a SharePoint Search content source, using Powershell, we use the following commands-

$searchapp = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication "Search Service Application"
New-SPEnterpriseSearchCrawlContentSource -SearchApplication $searchapp -Type SharePoint -name ContentSourceWithTypeSharePoint -StartAddresses http://localhost:6001/

This would create a content source

Clicking on the “ContentSourceWithTypeSharePoint” would open up the content source which we have created using the default settings as below:

This was a simple scenario. Now consider creating the content source of type “Web” which would be

$searchapp = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication "Search Service Application"
New-SPEnterpriseSearchCrawlContentSource -SearchApplication $searchapp -Type Web -name ContentSourceWithTypeWeb -StartAddresses http://localhost:5000/

And this would create a content source with type “Web” as below

Here, we can see that the crawl behavior is set to custom and there would be no direct parameters in Powershell to change these options.

So, I recently had a research into this and found out that adding the parameters, MaxPageEnumerationDepth and MaxSiteEnumerationDepth , could bring you these options.

ie, To bring the crawl option to the second option -”Only crawl the first page of each start address”, the Powershell script would be 

$searchapp = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication "Search Service Application"
New-SPEnterpriseSearchCrawlContentSource -SearchApplication $searchapp -Type Web -name ContentSourceWithTypeWeb -StartAddresses http://localhost:5000/ -MaxPageEnumerationDepth 0 -MaxSiteEnumerationDepth 0

This actually means that the Page depth and the Site depth that you expect is zero, which defaultly means that you would be crawling only the first page of your start address and hence this option is selected.

and to bring the crawl option to the first option -”Only crawl within the server of each start address“, the Powershell script would be 

$searchapp = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication "Search Service Application"
New-SPEnterpriseSearchCrawlContentSource -SearchApplication $searchapp -Type Web -name ContentSourceWithTypeWeb -StartAddresses http://localhost:5000/ -MaxSiteEnumerationDepth 0

This actually means that the Site depth that you expect is zero and it can go any pages deep if it is within the server, which definitely means you would be crawling only within the server of the start address.

This post was inspired from a question asked in SharePoint.Stackexchange.com - http://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/27901/how-to-create-a-content-source-of-type-web-with-the-option-only-crawl-within/27908#27908

As you may know, changing core SharePoint files is unsupported and can lead to problems when patching.

The best way to clean up modified SharePoint installations is to pull out the customizations and move them into new files as part of a solution package (WSP file). That makes it easy to re-deploy customizations and ensures your environment will stay clean.

Read more here and download CSSCompare here.

Check out more about the project in Codeplex Project Home Page.

1. Go to this site and download Snowstorm.js file and upload it to some Document Library

2. Open your SharePoint page and add a Content Editor WebPart.

3. Edit the HTML Source for the content Editor WebPart

4. Add the following code and set the Chrome Type for the Web Part as none

<script src="{Path}/snowstorm-min.js"></script>

5. Save and Exit Edit mode and that’s it!

It’s always a good idea to have a “Stop Snowing” link for those who find this annoying. Simply edit the JavaScript code in the Content Editor WebPart and add the following code.

<script type="text/javascript" src="/Docs/snowstorm-min.js"></script>
<a onClick="javascript:snowStorm.stop();" href="#">Stop Snowing</a>

There are many other customization available. Check this page for more options.

Error Scenarios:

These are the possible errors that can occur:

1. SharePoint Designer popping up correlation ID with detailed error something like this

Error while executing web part: System.StackOverflowException: Operation caused a stack overflow.  

2. Error while saving site as template

System.InvalidOperationException: Error generating solution files in temporary directory.
at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSolutionExporter.ExportWebAsSolution()

This issue might appear for just one site or subsite in the whole site collection. Basically it could be assumed that this occurs with a particular site that has a DataForm web part or any web part that inherits from this DataForm web part. Removing the DataForm webparts from the site or page might bring things to normal.

Why errors all of a sudden?

Recently, the following Security Update KB 2494001, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2494001 and the June 2011 cumulative update for SharePoint 2010 has updated the timeout for the Data Form web part and the web parts that inherit from the Data Form web part.

Basically farms that have recently been upgraded with cumulative updates might find these issues.

Possible Solution

The only workaround for the web parts timing out is to apply one of the solutions listed in KB 2639184, released by Microsoft.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2639184

There are 3 solutions provided in this article and I believe the 3rd solution would be an ideal solution for large Data Form XSLT transformations. Here are the details -

1.) Sub class the DataForm Web Part. Override the following methods. Then Deploy the assembly.
Example:

 public class customDFWP : DataFormWebPart
    {
        public override bool IsGhosted
        {
            get
            {
                return true;
            }
        }
        public override bool CanHaveServerControls
        {
            get
            {
                return true;
            }
        }
    }

2.) Add a safe control entry to the web.config
Example:

<SafeControl Assembly="customDFWP, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=963f869a440db619" Namespace="customDFWP" TypeName="*" Safe="True" AllowRemoteDesigner="True" SafeAgainstScript="False"/>

3.) Add the following to the <tagMapping> element of the web.config
Example:

<add tagType="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.DataFormWebPart, Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" mappedTagType="customDFWP.customDFWP, customDFWP, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=963f869a440db619" />

4.) Register the assembly on the form page.
Example: 

<%@ Register tagprefix="customDFWP" namespace="customDFWP" assembly="customDFWP, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=963f869a440db619">

5.) On the form page find <WebPartPages:DataFormWebPart > and replace it with the new custom tag.
Example:

<customDFWP:customDFWP>

Again, if nothing goes right remove the Data Form web part and try to accommodate the same logic differently, may be using a custom web part with css.

You can also follow us in Twitter @allaboutmoss.

There are organizations were numerous workflows are created that are developed using, either out of the box features or SharePoint Designer or Visual Studio developed or even third party tools like Nintex or K2.

What is a workflow ? - A workflow is comprised of a sequence of events such as workflow initiation, task creation, and task completion. When you add a workflow, you specify a task list and history list that workflow instances of that workflow association will use to track the events for the workflow. The task list contains the items that users interact with and enter data into while interacting with the workflow. The workflow history contains key information about each event including date, status, participant, and description.

Workflow history list – This is a hidden list in all SharePoint sites and this could be accessed by appending /Lists/Workflow History/ to the address of the SharePoint site. Many of the organisations would like to keep these lists as long as possible to maintain as a backup for the workflows created. But what about the bulk amount of database space that it occupies?

Workflow Auto Cleanup timer job – The Workflow history list is deleted by default using the Workflow Auto Cleanup job. This job should delete all workflow instances and related task entries that exist 60 days after the workflow is completed or cancelled. Thank God!!! All those unwanted entries could be deleted automatically by running the timer job. If you wish to keep the workflow history list, it could be done by disabling the timer job. Go to Central Admin -> Operations Tab (SharePoint 2007) -> Timer job definitions -> Find the timer job, click open and just disable.

There are also patches available from Microsoft technical support to increase the number of days from 60 to a larger number, thus increasing the amount of time that the workflow histories could be retained - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/nishand/archive/2007/09/10/changing-the-spworkflowassociation-autocleanupdays-property.aspx

Workflow history list never gets deleted

Wonder why the database space is still getting eaten up even though the workflow history list are scheduled for auto cleanup. Recently there was an msdn post which described that even though the timer job is enabled, the Workflow history lists are infact not getting deleted. As the post explains, Workflow history items themselves are not deleted, but the entry point to view them on the status page for a particular instance will no longer be available.

The post has a code sample that could be used to actually delete all the Workflow history list items. Those who would be running workflows on K2 or Nintex could also check with the vendors, how these lists are managed by them.

CAML Viewer makes it even more simpler. CAML Viewer lets you view CAML query for Views and it also shows internal names for all fields.

I developed this using SharePoint client object model and you can download the source code from here.

I am planning to add more features soon. If you have a suggestion or comment, please add it to the Discussion page.

1. Fire up Visual Studio and create a new Visual WebPart project.

2. Add a TextBox (txtTitle), Button (btnGo) and Div (results) to show our results.

3. Add the following code the Click event of the button

//Clear Results Table
results.InnerHtml = "";
SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(delegate()
	{
        using (SPSite site = new SPSite("You Site URL"))
        	{
               SPRecycleBinQuery query = new SPRecycleBinQuery();
               query.ItemCollectionPosition = SPRecycleBinItemCollectionPosition.FirstPage;
               query.IsAscending = true;
               query.ItemState = SPRecycleBinItemState.FirstStageRecycleBin;
               query.RowLimit = 100;
               query.OrderBy = SPRecycleBinOrderBy.Title;
               SPRecycleBinItemCollection binItems = site.GetRecycleBinItems(query);

               //Filter Items where Title Maches the search text
               var filteredItems = from i in binItems.OfType<SPRecycleBinItem>()
                                   where i.ItemType == SPRecycleBinItemType.File && i.Title.ToUpper().Contains(txtTitle.Text.ToUpper())
                                   select i;

                results.InnerHtml = "<table class='SearchTable' width='100%'>";
                if (filteredItems != null & filteredItems.Count() > 0)
                    {
                        results.InnerHtml += "<th>Search Results</th>";
                        foreach (var item in filteredItems)
                        {
                            results.InnerHtml += "<tr><td colspan='3'>" + item.Title + "</td></tr>";
                        }
                    }
                    else
                    {
			results.InnerHtml += "<tr><td colspan='3'>No Results found!</td></tr>";
	           }
      results.InnerHtml += "</table>";
                }
      });

4. Build and Deploy the WebPart. Below is a screenshot of this Web Part in action.

This is a simple example of how we can use c# to query Recycle Bin. We can improve this Web Part by adding Error Handling, Delete Permanently or Restore options etc.

Post inspired by this question in SharePoint.Stackexchange.com : http://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/11005/is-it-possible-to-search-the-recycle-bins/11007#11007

I was having a difficult situation when my site collection restore gave me this error.

It basically describes that the backup of the web application that I took was running on a farm with a different SharePoint version. I checked and verified that both had SharePoint 2010 and had SP1 installed recently.

Follow the steps to resolve this problem.

1. Make sure that the farm versions are the same. This can be achieved by going to Central Administration – > System Settings -> Manage Servers in this farm

2. Checking the Farm versions in the different farms, I was able to find that the SharePoint farm versions were different.

3. I started the SharePoint Configuration wizard on the first server and I could see that there were some changes happening. This could be the step many of us could miss. We need to run the SharePoint Configuration wizard after an SP1 upgrade.

4. I did the same for both the farms and noticed that the Farm versions were the same now.

5. I then did a backup of the site collection using stsadm from the first farm and restored into the second farm. Everything went right this time.