Eric Khaw's .Net Buzz

How to Create a Visual Webpart in SharePoint Sandbox Solution

2012-04-03T15:59:00.001-07:00

I am sure you must be aware of Visual Webpart is not applicable in Sandbox solution when you try to add it on Visual Studio 2010.

But now you can install a Visual Studio 2010 SharePoint Power Tools to helps you resolve this problem, after installed just insert your new Visual Webpart (Sandbox) as normal.

But as Sandbox solution, this still has limitation which constrained by SharePoint Sandbox framework.

Here the link to download the Power Tools.

http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/8e602a8c-6714-4549-9e95-f3700344b0d9

Create a Page/Item in Ghosted Mode Programmatically

2012-02-07T16:36:00.000-08:00

Have you ever encountered pages/items added to SharePoint library/list via feature with custom code is not ghostable? This is because when file or page is created under SP Object Model the SharePoint will save them as instance in content database. But when you provisioning those files via feature module then they will become ghosted. When you need a custom to provision file? Such as page is already existed, that is default page of site or etc.

Some of you may not know what ghosted mean in plain English,

"A ghosted page is a page in SharePoint website which is not stored in the database instead it reference to a file which exists in the server’s file system. These reference files are common for all the website/site collection within that SharePoint server, i.e., if you modify a reference file then that change will reflect in all the websites/site collections within that SharePoint server automatically. So we can say these reference files are used as template."

Reference: http://www.etechplanet.com/blog/ghosted-and-unghosted-pages-in-sharepoint.aspx

As you can see the benefits of having file which is ghosted when you are working in large farm or huge repository that referenced to same file.

The SP Object Model does not support adding file to SharePoint under ghosted mode, therefore after reflected Microsoft.SharePoint assembly and discover that is a way to perform same task as feature module does. "EnableModuleFromXml" in Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequest.

I had attached a helper class which hope it can help you along with your development.

Here the example when you try to use provision a file.

GhostFile("FullFeaturePathOnServer", [targetWebsite], [targetFolderRelUrl | "Or leave empty"], differentTargetFileNameOrNull, createListItem, mode)

Set createListItem = false when try provision item in list.

The helper class download link https://skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?cid=fc19b8b8ec05ba70&resid=FC19B8B8EC05BA70!9714&parid=FC19B8B8EC05BA70!9713&authkey=!AOsvhv1OfK18VmU

SharePoint List View (Calendar) Webpart Cross Site/Web Rendering with No Code Hack

2012-01-24T11:49:00.000-08:00

These scenarios more likely to happened when working on restricted environment such as no custom development and the SharePoint Designer is only tool available.

For instance,

"Calendar list cannot be shared across other site collection or subsite with Calendar view mode"

"This webpart is only work on current website context and when it used on other website the information is not the same"

If above sound familiar then this little non-coding hack maybe useful to you.

Here the pre-requisites:

SharePoint Designer (2007 or 2010 depend on your environment)
Basic Html editing skill.
A new minified masterpage.
A new page inherit from new minified masterpage.
SharePoint Page View Webpart.

Some of you may already aware what have to be done with above pre-requisites. You are right, we are going to create a new webpart page without any branding and loaded with Page View webpart (Iframe).

Here the steps:

Create a new masterpage without any branding but leave the main place holder.

Create a new webpart page and point it to newly create minified masterpage. This page has to be create on website that you wish to share. e.g. http://yoursharepointsite.com/pages/calendar.aspx

Insert the Calendar webpart into page just created in step 2.

You are almost there, go to the page that require the Calendar webpart to render and insert the Page View webpart. e.g. http://yoursharepointsite2.com/pages/pagerender.aspx
Point the newly inserted Page View Webpart to http://yoursharepointsite.com/pages/calendar.aspx.
Walah, done.

Limitation

The website which consume the content is assume to have same access permission to source website, otherwise credential is require for login.

Node.js

2011-11-06T15:22:00.000-08:00

The JavaScript web server framework.

You can re-use existing Javascript skill to write a server side application.

What does that mean to me if I am a SharePoint/ .Net Web developer?

You can write a quick and easy JavsScript application to access backend system, such as MS SQL, MySQL and many more. It is crossed platform!!

You are looking a highly efficient and performance for concurrent application.

Do I need to write everything by myself?

Not really, that is many modules can plug into your application. Visit this for further details

https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/modules

Debugging?

Build-in debug framework or third-party tools, e.g. Node GDB or Node Inspector.

So, what is the benefits of using the Node.js?

No extra language to learn but Node’s syntax.
Scalable and parallel infrastructure.
Lightweight and memory efficient.
Crossed platform

To find out more about this great stuff

http://nodejs.org

Windows 7 with ReadyBoost - Perfect for Virtualization Development.

2011-08-27T07:08:00.000-07:00

That is one cool feature in Windows 7 which not many people are aware (actually it existed in Windows Vista), which can improve the performance of VMs and host machine with fraction of cost. Let's me introduce it to you, ReadyBoost. Let me get the quote from Microsoft how they describe this feature.

"Want a simple way to speed up your PC?

Just plug in a USB flash drive or card and let ReadyBoost borrow it. ReadyBoost is designed to help when your PC's memory is running low. Low memory can make your computer sluggish because Windows, which needs a place to stash data, turns to the hard drive. Flash memory offers a speedier alternative.

ReadyBoost works with most flash storage devices. In Windows 7, it can handle more flash memory and even multiple devices—up to eight, for a maximum 256 gigabytes (GB) of additional memory.

I am using Windows 7 with ReadyBoost for three Windows Server 2008R2 machines (AD, SQL and SP2010) which configured for SharePoint 2010 and Fast Search. The outcome is very satisfied from results I done in PassMark benchmarking tool.

Here configuration details.

8GB DDR3 Memory

i7 processor

ReadyBoost (32GB SSD with ESATA)
7200RPM HDD
USB 2 for VMs

This is the result of SP2010 running without ReadyBoosts in host machine. The VM and host system response are very sluggish and in not workable condition.

After activated ReadyBoosts in host machine, the result has obvious improved and overall performance (VM and host) is noticeable.

Of course experience/result may be vary depend on running applications or hardware configuration, but strongly recommended to try it out if you have any spare flash drive or SSD.

Ajax Toolkit's TabPanel/UpdatePanel and ReportViewer - panelCreated error

2011-08-03T03:08:00.000-07:00

You may receive the error when using the Ajax toolkit and ReportViewer on the page, e.g.

This is because the Ajax control is conflict with the ReportViewer, it will works if you using the .Net ScriptManager. But because you need the ToolkitScriptManager for your Ajax controld, therefore this is not an option.

But that is work around/fix for this error, which is just simply change your ToolkitScriptManager to ScriptMode="Release" and it will work like charm.

Good tips for Developing SharePoint 2010 projects

2011-07-05T14:17:00.000-07:00

1) All customisation have to be deployable and repeatable, such as using WSPs and features to deploy solution to SharePoint environment. NEVER do manual deployments or fixes, such as create a custom list, modify config file, update SharePoint site. As all these can be done in SharePoint API and scripted in most cases.

2) Implement automate deployment process to reduce possible human error, such as site creation and site configuration. This can be done by PowerShell, batch file, wsp or custom application. Example write a bespoke console application to export site hierarchy and contents, when deploy solution the bespoke application should reuse to create whole SharePoint site.

3) Make sure all SharePoint Services Objects were disposed correctly to avoid memory leak. Reference site http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa973248(v=office.12).aspx. And the tool to check objects were disposed correctly, http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/SPDisposeCheck.

4) Do not try to customise any SharePoint site definition or template, all design and customization should be done by feature stapling or web provisioning event. Any customisation on SharePoint component is bad and not promised to compatible in future SharePoint release.

5) Custom coding should be done in Sandbox solution and this is because:
a. Better resource monitoring and controlling.
b. Compatible with Office 365.
c. Isolated, better security for farm.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ee335711.aspx

6) Minified JS and CSS files, also consolidate them into two files to improve SharePoint rendering performance.

7) Using Model-View-Presenter (MVP), Model-View-Controller (MVC) or similar layer separation pattern to speed up development process. Using mocking framework to perform unit testing on SharePoint object. E.g TypeMock or Nmock. In my opinion the unit test should cover basic function tests with looses code, this will prevent chances to break test classes when code refactoring.

8) Make sure source and destination server are in same version and packages when using the SharePoint's content export/import. Such as same language pack, service pack, hotfixes.

9) Test, test and test before check-in into source control. Developer has full responsibility when check-in codes, he/she must fully tested their code and check-in with meaning comments.

10) Try to use the out-of-box features as much as possible, unless you have very strong reason not to do so otherwise developer should avoid using any custom database, codes or third parties components.

SharePoint 2010 Version Numbers with Cumulative Update

2011-05-04T08:35:00.000-07:00

Please find the SharePoint 2010 version numbers table listed at below.

SP2010 (with download links)	Version	KB articles
public Beta (rel. 11/2009)	14.0.4536.1000	n/a
RTM (04/2010)	14.0.4763.1000	n/a
June 2010	14.0.5114.5003	2028568
August. CU 10	14.0.5123.5000	2352346
October CU 10	14.0.5128.5000	2394323
December. CU 10	14.0.5130.5002	2459125
February. CU 11	14.0.5136.5002	2475880
April CU 11	14.0.5138.5001	2512804

The SharePoint 2010 SP1 is around the corner, Microsoft should release it sometime in June/July.

SharePoint 2010 - Form Based Authentication with Claims Authentication Part 1/2

2011-04-28T09:25:00.000-07:00

Here the summary of how-to configure form based authentication in SharePoint 2010.

Install and configure membership provider, e.g sqlmembershipprovider.
Create a new web application with claim authentication, alternatively update existing web application from basic to claims based.
Configure the SharePoint IIS instance to consume membership provider.

(optional) create a custom login page (I will list it in part 2)

I am strongly suggest you try all these steps in test or dev environment first to avoid any unhappy result. :)

Install and configure membership provide

You can choose any membership provider for FBA and for simplicity I had picked SQL membership provider for my demonstration.

First of all, you need a SQL database and it can be Express or full version.

Run the aspnet_regsql.exe execute file from this location.

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727 (please note the drive may be varies)

Then select

Point the application to right database and any necessary username and password.

Click finish to complete the configuration

Create or update the Web Application

To create a new web application, go to Central Admin -> Application Management -> Web Application -> Create New Web Application.

Select Claims Based Authentication

(Note: You need the Claims Based Authentication for FBA)

Fill the FBA details and you need these information in later stage, feel free to change it but make sure you write it down.

And fill the rest details of web application and then select "OK".

For update existing web application to Claims based, run this PowerShell script.

$webapp = Get-SPWebApplication "http://yourwebapplicationurl"

$webapp.UseClaimsAuthentication = "True"

$webapp.Update()

Configure SharePoint IIS instance to use the membership provider

Once above two steps are completed then we can start to configure SP instance in IIS to talk to our SQL memberhsip provider.

Go to Administrative Tools -> Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.

Select your web instance from tree menu under Site

The first step you need to setup a connection strings first, select Connection String then Add.

Your connection string should be look like this

The server name is the server which we were installed membership provider database to, the database has to same as value put down in previous step.

GO back to your IIS website root and select Providers.

Select .Net Roles from dropdown and click on Add.

Remember we put down the values in SharePoint Central Adminstration for Role manager in previous step? Now we have to enter it again in Name field and details as below.

Type: SQLRolePRovider

Name: FBARole

ConnectionStringName: FBACon

ApplicationName: /

Once finished then select .Net Users from feature dropdown and select Add.

Fill these values in new window opened.

Type: SQLMembershipProvider

Name: FBA

ConnectionStringName: FBACon

ApplicationName: /

Same steps have to apply on Central Adminstration v4 website and SecurityTokenServiceApplication web service.

Once all set, go to website and you should expect to see screenshot below if all went smoothly.

Select Windows to auto logon if you current user has permission.

You may ask "what if I don't want the login selection box appear when user visit SharePoint site?".

Then you can extend your SharePoint site and have Windows (Site A) and Form authentication (Site B) side-by-side, for those need access to Windows authentication they can access SharePoint site A and the rest for Site B.

SharePoint 2010 - Improve the Public Website Performance

2011-03-23T02:33:00.000-07:00

This is important for those who working on public SharePoint site the performance impact of default templates, such as default.master and nightdaddy.master masterpage page file.

Out of the box the SharePoint inject a lot of javascript files and controls for various purpose, like page UI functionalities or backward compatible. E.g corev4.js and SharePointWebControls:UIVerisonedContent.

These additional JS files or components were generated huge amount of overhead when loading a page, see the comparison at below.

That is about 4 times smaller (22.36KB and 80.25KB) than out-of-the-box template, some more the customized template (removed edit scripts and control) was consisted more images and content query webpart compare to standard but empty page.

So my recommendation for public website when using the SharePoint.

Remove the SharePoint script files from masterpage if you not need them, such as <SharePoint:ScriptLink language="javascript" name="core.js" defer="true" runat="server"/>. Only inject those scripts when in edit mode by using PublishingWebControls:EditModePanel.

Remove SharePoint editing stylesheets, such as speditingstyle.css, edit-mode-21.css, webtagging.css, wpeditmodev4.css and forms.css. Inject them by using the Editmodepanel.

Remove the controls from masterpage or page layouts, not to hide or disable them. As system still generate but hide them by style.

Migrate SharePoint contents to another SharePoint Environment

2011-02-07T07:09:00.000-08:00

Why we need deploy contents to another SharePoint site when it is accessible to everyone over the web? This is because in some cases the SharePoint environment has been setup in multiple location or the contents have to be kept in multiple isolated stages. Example:

Multiple farms configuration with isolated network or limited network bandwidth within farms. Speed up the response time by deploy contents locally.
Staging/production environment, staging for internal and production for public (Internet accessible)
Fail-over environment for SharePoint.
And etc.

There are number of ways which allow you to deploy contents from SharePoint to another SharePoint environment, but today I just want to show you the approaches I had used most (free) and the advantage and disadvantage.

Here the approach for content deployment on SharePoint.

SharePoint Content Deployment (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/ee721058.aspx).

Content deployment is a feature of SharePoint Server which allow you to deploy content from source site collections to another site collection.

Advantage

Free and system aware feature.
Support schedule deployment.
Support massive data deployment, but it depend on network connectivity.

Disadvantage

No library or item level deployment.

Very specific when setting up the deployment destination, e.g. the destination site has to be blank or empty site for initial deployment.

Xavor - SharePoint Migrator Free Edition (http://www.xavor.com/index.php/what-we-do/solutions/sharepoint-2010-tools/)

The third party migration tool which supports site, web, library and item deployment.

Advantage

Drag and drop UI for content migration, support site, web, library and item deployment.
Free but with limitation. (see disadvantage)

Crossed platform supported, WSS3.0, SP2007 and SP2010.

Disadvantage

30GB limitation for deployment.

The service application has to be installed on source and destination server.

No scheduler.

Recommendation of Hardware Specification for SharePoint/Fast Search Development

2011-01-05T16:18:00.000-08:00

A lot of people asking me about what sort of hardware specification for my SharePoint environment when I am doing testing or development, or what sort of hardware they need when develop SharePoint project in laptop and etc.

In past, I had done number of projects which involved of multi-servers farm configuration, such as Fast Search for SharePoint, SharePoint staging to production deployment or multiple SharePoint web front-end server. Therefore I needs a decent machine at least can run multiple VMs and the same time without too much compromised on portability and performance.

I had done my research on Internet and found out there are not many laptops meet my criteria (year 2010) but with big bucks. Hereafter, I bought a Sony F series laptop with external Solid State (SSD) hard-disk and end result is brilliant!!! I was running three VMs at the same time without any lagging or unresponsive click, the environment consisted of Windows Server 2008R2, Active Directory, SQL 2008R2, SharePoint 2010 Ent, Fast Search for SharePoint and Visual Studio 2010.

Here the details those servers running on laptop:

Server 1 – External SSD

Windows Server 2008R2

Active Directory

384 Memory

Server 2 – External SSD

Windows Server 2008R2

MS SQL 2008R2

Fast Search for SharePoint

3GB memory

Server 3 – Internal HD

Windows Server 2008R2

SharePoint 2010 Enterprise

Visual Studio 2010

3GB memory

As you can see on above configuration it is resource intensive environment on laptop, but everything is running smoothly although I only allocated 3GB memory for Fast and SharePoint and 384MB for AD.

And let me explain why server will running slow when running multiple servers on laptop or desktop,

High CPU usage with long queuing time, system is received a lot of request from users/other servers but cannot complete them on time.

Server’s memory is running low and the system is swapping page files on hard disk, at the same time other applications are access files on hard disk. It causing hard disk has very high activity and take long time read/write file.

Nowadays, most desktop/laptop equipped with very decent cpu, such as Intel i3, i5, i7 or AMD qual/six cores therefore issue number one should not causing too much problem. But issue number two which low on memory for most laptop or desktop, laptop beyond 8GB will be expensive and desktop’s memory is cheaper but not so portable compare to desktop if you development to be mobile. Even you have plenty of memory but running all server on same mechanical hard disk also will causing some I/O bottleneck due to low Input/Output Per Second (IOPS).

The issue can be addressed easily with separate SSD hard disk, this also cheaper compare to get super-duper machine. This is because the SSD gives better performance compare to normal hard disk, like transfer speed and random access time. The OCz Vertex 2 SSD featured with Read=285MB, write=275MB and 50,000 IOPS. The servers allocated with low memory but if it installed on SSD it will not affected that much even high on swapping page files and disk activities. The SSD works similar to memory as low on access time (less waiting time) and high transfer rate. In order to fully utilise performance of the SSD hard disk the ESATA, FireWire or USB3.0 is recommended, anything slower than those will not see significant improvement over SSD.

I had attached my laptop specification for your reference, all these cost less than GBP 1,700 (year 2010)

The laptop specification:

Sony F-Series with 16.4 inches screen.

Windows 7 64 bits

Vmware Workstation

Intel i7 CPU 740 with Qual Cores

8GB of memory

500GB internal hard disk with 7200rpm

Geforce GT 330M 1024 MB graphic card

ESATA OCZ 2.5 Vertex 2 SSD hard disk

Jmeter Stress/Load Testing for SharePoint 2007 and 2010

2010-12-30T08:48:00.000-08:00

What I want to share today is the free Java tool which can use for functional or non-functional testing on SharePoint application. The Jmeter is very powerful Java load test tool for web application or SharePoint, it is free and easy to use. Although it is Java based but it work perfectly fine on ASP .Net application with JavaScript, in this case the SharePoint 2007 or 2010.

Here the features list from offcial website.

Can load and performance test many different server types:

Web - HTTP, HTTPS

SOAP

Database via JDBC
LDAP

JMS
Mail - POP3(S) and IMAP(S)

Complete portability and 100% Java purity.

Full multithreading framework allows concurrent sampling by many threads and simultaneous sampling of different functions by seperate thread groups.

Careful GUI design allows faster operation and more precise timings.

Caching and offline analysis/replaying of test results.

Highly Extensible:

Pluggable Samplers allow unlimited testing capabilities.

Several load statistics may be choosen with pluggable timers.

Data analysis and visualization plugins allow great extendibility as well as personalization.

Functions can be used to provide dynamic input to a test or provide data manipulation.

Scriptable Samplers (BeanShell is fully supported; and there is a sampler which supports BSF-compatible languages)

So, what you can do with SharePoint using JMeter?

Stress test SharePoint farm or standalone topology.
Record and analysis the response time of SharePoint tasks, such as file upload, create a new item, read page, search and etc.
Test the SharePoint's web services.

Some of you may say creating those scripts are very hassle and may take very long time to do so, but luckily the Jmeter does support http traffic recording which can track the activities on Internet browser and replay them in future. Here the how-do-I recording file upload activities on SharePoint 2007.

Record the browser traffic events in Jmeter by registering a HTTP proxy server and recording controller in WorkBench, events captured can be re-used for repetitive testing.

Click “Start” on HTTP Proxy server and then go back to browser to upload or create a new list item on SharePoint, if Jmeter does not recording the events then change the browser to use 127.0.0.1 in connection proxy.

You might have this certificate error, but that is normal due to Jmeter issued a temporary certificate when using a proxy.

Once completed the recording your Jmeter should be look like this.

Delete unwanted items from list and copy/move them to your test plan.

In your test plan, add appropriate reports for analysis, like View Result Tree, Summary report and etc.

Before run any recorded test, make sure you have Security validation check switch off in Web Application -> General Settings under Central Administration. Otherwise it will caused test failed to run.

SP2007

SP 2010

Enable the Item Count for SharePoint 2010 Search Refiner

2010-12-28T12:10:00.000-08:00

In SharePoint 2010 you can modify the search refiner's xml text to show count on each category, the links listed at below which show you step-by-step for configure the refiner webpart.

http://www.sharepointanalysthq.com/2010/06/showing-items-counts-in-sharepoint-2010-search-refiners/ or http://httpcode.com/blogs/PermaLink,guid,935719ed-8d5d-4206-b7e9-de1c2dd72f65.aspx.

But one thing have to bear in mind the SharePoint 2010 item count does not same as Fast Search for SharePoint's deep refiner, the SharePoint item count will shown only 50 items by default and hard limit to 500 items. What this mean is the item count will not go beyond limit even if search results have more than 500, the system only update counting when user select next page or next result set.

As told by relevant personnel who work in Microsoft, it is because of SharePoint search index not same as Fast Search advance index algorithm.

Migrate SharePoint 2010 Managed Metadata to another farm or Service Application.

2010-11-21T11:47:00.000-08:00

Managed Metadata in SharePoint 2010 is great until you want to move term groups or termsets with content types and site columns to another farm or environment. This is because the SharePoint is using GUID as reference when create a new metadata record, each GUID which used by site column will be regenerated even Import from delimiter file.

This will causing a huge problem for those develop their Managed Metadata in one environment and deploy to another for user acceptance test.

Luckily, the metadata GUID can be replicated and imported from/to Service Application by Microsoft.SharePoint.Taxonomy class. That mean implement the custom export/import process by either using .Net code or Powershell.

In this blog post I want to show you how to use the C# code with Taxonomy APIs to export and import managed metadata. At the same time I make a assumption you are experienced .Net development and with appropriate SharePoint knowledge.

First of all, ensure the account access to SharePoint has permission to read and write managed metadata store. I 'm recommend using farm account when export and import metadata from/to SharePoint.

Here the exportation of the termsets and terms to xml.

Create the SPSite object which link to managed service application which wish to export.

SPSite site = new SPSite(siteUrl)

Create a TaxonomySession and pass in SPSite created in step 1 as parameter.

TaxonomySession session = new TaxonomySession(site);

Retrieve TermStore collection from session object created in step 2.

TermStore MetadataTermStore = session.TermStores[managedMetadataServiceName];

Iterate through terms collection and extract to XML file.

foreach (Group g in MetadataTermStore.Groups)

{

// some code…….

}

And the final view of your source code.

// This is the common library for xml extraction.

ManagedMetadata metaCommon = new ManagedMetadata();

using (SPSite site = new SPSite(siteUrl))

{

TaxonomySession session = new TaxonomySession(site);

TermStore MetadataTermStore = session.TermStores[managedMetadataServiceName];

foreach (Group g in MetadataTermStore.Groups)

{

XElement metaStore = metaCommon.GenerateNode(g);

}

The ManagedMetadata is the common class which I created for managed metadata to XML string, it provides several methods to extract metadata objects to xml element. For instance, below code using Linq to XML to generate Xelement from metadata Group object.

public XElement GenerateNode(Group g)

{

XElement rElement = new XElement(GroupElementName, new XAttribute(NameKey, g.Name), new

XAttribute(GuidKey, g.Id),

from termSet in g.TermSets

select GenerateNode(termSet));

return rElement;

}

Please note when generating xml element you MUST include metadata's GUID as it is important for import process.

I also create a Winform application to help me extract the managed metadata from SharePoint.

Your extracted xml should be something looks like this.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

</Term>

</Term>

</TermSet>

</Group>

Above example shown you how to extract the managed metadata to XML, and the summary at below show you how to use Taxonomy's API to import extracted xml into managed metadata store.

Create the SPSite object which link to managed service application wish to export.

Create a TaxonomySession and pass in SPSite created in step 1 as parameter.

Retrieve TermStore collection from session object created in step 2.

Iterate through extracted xml and import into term store, then commit.

Here how it looks like when implementing in C# code.

var meta = XElement.Load(loadLocation);

using (SPSite site = new SPSite(siteUrl))

{

TaxonomySession session = new TaxonomySession(site);

managedMetadataServiceName = "Managed Metadata Service";

TermStore MetadataTermStore = session.TermStores[managedMetadataServiceName];

// My custom common library.

ManagedMetadata manageMeta = new ManagedMetadata();

manageMeta.NewNode(MetadataTermStore, meta);

MetadataTermStore.CommitAll();

}

The custom common library will takes XElement, Group, TermSet and Term object as parameter and create appropriate entry in metadata store. As above example, the library will extract Group, TermSets and Terms accordingly when pass in whole metadata Xelement.

When creating a new termset or term, you are expecting to pass in two parameters, term key and GUID. The GUID should be re-used the value extracted from managed metadata store. Example,

// t is Xelement which extracted from XML string.

// Group is Taxonomy's Group object.

Group.CreateTermSet(t.Attribute(NameKey).Value, new Guid(t.Attribute(GuidKey).Value));

// For create a new term under termset.

// ts is Taxonomy's TermSet object.

// LCID is local integer value.

// t is Xelement.

ts.CreateTerm(t.Attribute(NameKey).Value, LCID, new Guid(t.Attribute(GuidKey).Value));

// or create a new term under another term.

// ts is Taxonomy's Term object.

// t is Xelement.

ts.CreateTerm(t.Attribute(NameKey).Value, Convert.ToInt32(t.Attribute(LcidKey).Value), new

Guid(t.Attribute(GuidKey).Value));

My recommendation to seamlessly deployment for managed metadata is to using SharePoint WSP with feature, although you can write another bespoke tool for import but as best practice the SharePoint solution should always being used.

Please let me know when you need a copy of my custom managed metadata library.

Fast Search for SharePoint 2010's Document Preview is not working

2010-11-10T16:03:00.000-08:00

There are number of issues which might causing Fast's Document Preview failed to work, if one of these points is met.

1) Silverlight is not installed on machine which search performed.
Go to http://www.silverlight.net/ and download Silverlight runtime.

2) The Office Web Application for SharePoint 2010 is not installed.
Technet's step-by-step to deploy the Office Web App, http://technet.microsoft.com/library/ff431687(office.14).aspx.

3) Without run the SharePoint Configuration Wizard after setup the Office Web Application for SharePoint 2010.
Run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard on each SharePoint server in server farm.

4) Search results can be returned but "401 unauthorized" message occurred on Document Preview's ajax callback to server.
This might because of the loopback issue on SharePoint server's IIS, click here for details of how to disable loopback check on Windows Server.