Thoughts on SharePoint development

Calculating CSS Specificity Value

2015-02-20T08:27:00.000+01:00

Why is that our first attempt at changing the color and font-weight failed? As we learned, it was because simply using the class name by itself had a lower specificity value and was trumped by the other selector which targeted the unordered list with the ID value. The important words in that sentence were class and ID. CSS applies vastly different specificity weights to classes and IDs. In fact, an ID has infinitely more specificity value! That is, no amount of classes alone can outweigh an ID.

Let's take a look at how the numbers are actually calculated:

In otherwords:

If the element has inline styling, that automatically1 wins (1,0,0,0 points)
For each ID value, apply 0,1,0,0 points
For each class value (or pseudo-class or attribute selector), apply 0,0,1,0 points
For each element reference, apply 0,0,0,1 point

You can generally read the values as if they were just a number, like 1,0,0,0 is "1000", and so clearly wins over a specificity of 0,1,0,0 or "100". The commas are there to remind us that this isn't really a "base 10" system, in that you could technically have a specificity value of like 0,1,13,4 - and that "13" doesn't spill over like a base 10 system would.

Sample calculations

Update: The :not() sort-of-pseudo-class adds no specificity by itself, only what's inside the parens is added to specificity value.

Important Notes

The universal selector (*) has no specificity value (0,0,0,0)
Pseudo-elements (e.g. :first-line) get 0,0,0,1 unlike their psuedo-class brethren which get 0,0,1,0
The pseudo-class :not() adds no specificity by itself, only what's inside it's parentheses.
The !important value appended a CSS property value is an automatic win. It overrides even inline styles from the markup. The only way an !important value can be overridden is with another !important rule declared later in the CSS and with equal or great specificity value otherwise. You could think of it as adding 1,0,0,0,0 to the specificity value.

IE9 & IE8 Intranet compatibility mode in Intranet websites

2014-02-03T14:24:00.000+01:00

So you have written an HTML5 site on your local intranet with some lovely CSS3 and run it up in Firefox and you feel smug, all your HTML and CSS are perfectly formed, but you run it up in IE9 and all the CSS3 goodness has gone away leaving your lack luster IE7 version of your site.

Why is IE9 and IE8 running in IE7 compatibility mode?

IE9 has a hidden setting that forces it to run in compatibility mode when it encounters any intranet websites. Microsoft have detailed this behaviour in a Blog about what they call Smart compatibility mode.

You can easily switch off the compatibility mode for specific machines using the internet tools mentioned in the article above, but most of the time developers do not have the luxury of applying corporate wide settings of this nature.

Avoiding Smart compatibility with X-UA-Compatible

Luckily there is a single line of HTML you can that you can use to override this behaviour:

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge,chrome=1">

OK I did this but it is still not working!

If like me you implemented this code and IE9 tormented you by continuing to display in compatibility mode then perhaps my investigation can help you. I discovered 2 quirks in IE9 that can cause compatibility mode to remain in effect.

1. The X-UA-Compatible meta element must be the first meta element in the head section.

2. You cannot have condtional IE statements before the X-UA-Compatible meta element.

This means that if you use Paul Irish's wonderful HTML5 Boilerplate then on an Intranet with default IE9 settings your website will display in compatibility mode. You need to change the start of the boilerplate from the following:-

<!doctype html>
<!--[if lt IE 7]> <html class="no-js ie6 oldie" lang="en"> <![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 7]> <html class="no-js ie7 oldie" lang="en"> <![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 8]> <html class="no-js ie8 oldie" lang="en"> <![endif]-->
<!--[if gt IE 8]><!--> <html class="no-js" lang="en"> <!--<![endif]-->
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge,chrome=1">

to:

<!doctype html>
<html class="no-js" lang="en">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge,chrome=1">
<meta charset="utf-8">

Hope this has helped your IE9 intranet website up and running in shiny new HTML5.

To fix the ie8, ie7, ie6 and oldie class on the html tag you could use the next javascript to add some css classes to the tag. This script only works if you use jquery 1.*

if($.browser.msie) {
var globalHtml = $('html');
if ($.browser.version < 9) globalHtml.addClass('lt-ie9');
if ($.browser.version < 8) globalHtml.addClass('lt-ie8');
if ($.browser.version < 7) globalHtml.addClass('lt-ie7');
}

How do you know if the SharePoint page is in Edit Mode from JavaScript?

2013-12-02T08:08:00.000+01:00

Is there a way to find out if a SharePoint page is in Edit Mode from JavaScript?
Yes there is.

Look for the MSOLayout_InDesignMode attribute in the javascript.

var inDesignMode = document.forms[MSOWebPartPageFormName].MSOLayout_InDesignMode.value;

if (inDesignMode == "1")
{
    // page is in edit mode
}
else
{
    // page is in browse mode
}

This will refer to value of the following html input control, which is rendering on the page when it is in edit mode:

For wiki pages, you will need _wikiPageMode parameter

var wikiInEditMode = document.forms[MSOWebPartPageFormName]._wikiPageMode.value;
if (wikiInEditMode == "Edit")
{
    // wiki page is in edit mode
}
else
{
    // wiki page is not in edit mode
}

Solution> Restore-SPSite : The site collection could not be restored.

2013-03-04T10:51:00.000+01:00

The next problem i have got when i tried to replace the backup from a SharePoint Site.

The problem i'v got is "Restore-SPSite : The site collection could not be restored." what you can see in my powershell dump below.

The problem is that in the contentdatabase on the url a site is registered.
You read allot of person the describe to restore a database backup to fix this problem. This is not necessary.

There is a easier way.

This is my powershell dump.

**********************

Windows PowerShell Transcript Start

Start time: 20130228153052

Username  : {COMPUTERNAME}\SPadministrator

Machine  : {COMPUTERNAME} (Microsoft Windows NT 6.1.7601 Service Pack 1)

**********************

Transcript started, output file is siteRestore_2013-02-28_15-30-52.log

Creating site collection: https://backup-spsite.fastlane2.local

Site collection creating. Restoring backup D:\Backup\{COMPUTERNAME}\backup.site to site collection https://backup-spsite.fastlane2.local

Confirm

Are you sure you want to perform this action?

Performing operation "Restore-SPSite" on Target

"https://backup-spsite.fastlane2.local".

[Y] Yes  [A] Yes to All  [N] No  [L] No to All  [S] Suspend  [?] Help

(default is "Y"):y

Restore-SPSite : The site collection could not be restored. If this problem per

sists, please make sure the content databases are available and have sufficient

 free space.

At D:\Backup\{COMPUTERNAME}\Restore-FastlaneSite.ps1:50 char:16

+     Restore-SPSite <<<<  -identity $siteUrl -path $restoreFileFullPath -HostH

eaderWebApplication $webApplication -ContentDatabase $contentDatabaseName -forc

e

    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidData: (Microsoft.Share...dletRestoreSite:

   SPCmdletRestoreSite) [Restore-SPSite], SPException

    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell.SPCmdletRestoreS

   ite

Backup D:\Backup\{COMPUTERNAME}\backupsite.site is restored to https://backup-spsite.fastlane2.local

**********************

Windows PowerShell Transcript End

End time: 20130228153056

**********************

The problem is that in the contentdatabase on the url a site is registered.
You read allot of person the describe to restore a database backup to fix this problem. This is not necessary.

Solution:

If you fix the database by the following steps you can restore your backup-spsite on the same url you used before.

Get the database with powershell and the database guid.

GET-SPDatabase (gives a list af content datbases)

$db = Get-SPDatabase 9a96829a-fc28-4ce7-98d3-481297044663

$db.Repair($true)

  

$db.Update();

Restore your backup again

To backup and restore your SharePoint site there are some tools for. One of those tools is the Backup, Archive & Restore tool.

Office 365 SharePoint 2013 - Design Manager - Convert HTML to Masterpage

2012-07-21T03:28:00.001+02:00

Some of the SharePoint MVPs already blogs about a new function of SharePoint 13. This functions called Design Manager and makes it possible to convert an html page to an masterpage.

The preferred tool to create a branding SharePoint site is not anymore SharePoint Designer. You can create your pages with the more common used programs UX designers use. You can create an html pages by your UX designer en convert it to an masterpage.

If you go to the Design Manager in "Site Settings > Look and Feel > Design Manager" you see that there are 9 steps to walk through.

I came across a great TechNet article that covers most of the new Web Content Management features.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj163942%28v=office.15%29

I want to convert my own site in a SharePoint 15 masterpage. I went to my site http://www.mefon.nl/ and saved the page so i get a html pages offline.

Online site (mefon.nl)

First I uploaded the downloaded html file to the masterpage catlogs:
https://fontfreide-public.sharepoint.com/_catalogs/masterpage/Forms/AllItems.aspx

After uploading you can convert the html page to an masterpage. After that the page you have converted can be used as an SharePoint Masterpages. Because this site wasn't a SharePoint site the pages is missing the SharePoint components as an Breadcrumb, Navigation and more. If you click the masterpage it's possible to add those components. I'm not going to do this now because i want to focus on converting the page with the minimal effort.

My masterpage is now created. But the created images from the download are still missing. I went to the problem that my folder name ended with "documenten" and Office 365 added an "_" after the folder name so I needed to rename the folder and the exported html file. After upload the html page again it converted automatic to the masterpage. I could upload the images, css and javascript files to the folder and i'm ready to use the masterpages.

If you look to the converted site you see some differences. This is because some of the images are placed by the css files and missed in the dump of the page.

The masterpage is converted but not yet possible to use as a correct working masterpages. This is because the component i described in the previous paragraph are not placed on the correct spot in the masterpage.

That i'm going to describe an other time.

I'm very surprised that this new functionality work so easy and very well.
Developers who like branding or not like branding you love this functionality.

Office 365 Developers Preview

2012-07-20T00:14:00.000+02:00

After a quick read of Jan Tielens his blog about `Dipping Your Toes in the SharePoint 2013 and Office 2013 Preview Goodness` i decided to create an Office 365 Developers preview.
You get a nice environment with some different sites.

https://fontfreide-admin.sharepoint.com/ (Administration Portal)
https://fontfreide.sharepoint.com/ (Developer Site)
https://fontfreide.sharepoint.com/search (Search Site)
https://fontfreide-my.sharepoint.com/ (MySite)
https://fontfreide-public.sharepoint.com/ (Public Site)

To develop apps on Office 365 there is a developer tool named "Napa" you can download it from your created Developer Site.

After some short playing of the Office 365 Developers Preview I'm excited to do more with it.
Try it: Sign up for an Office 365 Developer Site

Missing social webparts in Ribbon after migrating from SharePoint 2007

2012-04-19T08:21:00.001+02:00

After migrating our SharePoint 2007 envoirement to SharePoint 2010 we where missing the new cool webparts SharePoint 2010 gave us. The following webparts are missing in the updated site:

Dual Chinese Search
Note Board
Organization Browser
People Refinement Panel
Refinement Panel
Tag Cloud

After some research we found out that those webparts are missing in the "webpartdwpfiles.xml". The reason this file is out of sync is because the PortalLayouts feature already is installed in SharePoint 2007 but has changed in SharePoint 2010.

If we look at the differents we see that the six webparts i mentioned above are missing in the 2007 version of the "webpartdwpfiles.xml" and there are three webparts deleted form the xml file. The following webparts are not in the 2010 version.

I need to… (TaskAndTools.webpart)
This Week in Pictures (ThisWeekInPictures.dwp)
Top Sites (TopSitesWebPart.webpart)

When u do an update you still have the removed webparts in the webpart gallery.

We’re interested in adding the new SharePoint 2010 web parts to the site collection’s web part gallery. You can manually upload them if you so choose. However, I’m not really a fan of that solution, but it will work in a pinch. Instead my solution now is to activate the PortalLayouts feature again. The feature is hidden, so your best bet to do this is with PowerShell. We do this with the Enable-SPFeature cmdlet. Since the feature was technically already activated in SharePoint 2007, we have to use the –force parameter. Here is the complete command for a root site located at http://sharepoint2010.

Enable-SPFeature –Identity PortalLayouts –url http://sharepoint2010 –force

If the command worked successfully, you should receive no errors and another command prompt. At this point, you can add your new web parts to an existing page. You should see three new ones in the Social section.

MCTS .NET Framework 3.5, ASP.NET Applications

2012-03-09T17:00:00.000+01:00

Today i have taken the 70.652 Microsoft exam. This exam called ".NET Framework 3.5, ASP.NET
Applications".

It was nessesary to get a minimal of 700 points of the 1000 point you can get. My score was 842 so this is a nice score.
Up to the next exam.

Visio stencils for SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2013

2012-03-07T01:00:00.000+01:00

Visio stencils

After looking around on the internet I found two really great visio stencils for SharePoint 2013.
This one is created by Stefan Roks and can be found at: Visio stencils for SharePoint 2013
or
the two really great visio stencils for SharePoint 2010.
This one is created by John Chapman and can be found at: Visio stencils for SharePoint 2010.

Alternative is to generate this for your entire farm. Download SharePoint Documentation Toolkit to document your SharePoint solution.

MXP case

2011-08-25T08:00:00.001+02:00

Microsoft heeft een case op de website gezet van het MXP programma.

Achmea is voortdurend op zoek naar ondernemende mensen, die weten hoe je technologie in dienst stelt van de organisatie, die aan een paar woorden genoeg hebben om vervolgens een heel proces vorm te geven.

Het vinden van de juiste mensen is vandaag de dag een hele opgave. Daarom heeft Microsoft samen met Achmea een aantal initiatieven ontwikkeld, die het werken bij Achmea voor IT'ers heel aantrekkelijk en spannend maken. Een van die initiatieven is het Microsoft Excellence Programma (MXP).

Wil je meer lezen ga dan naar de volgende link.

http://www.microsoft.com/netherlands/referenties/detail.aspx?id=259

MXP gaat nu echt beginnen.

MXP technical lead. I'm In

2011-05-12T16:07:00.002+02:00

I have got my assessment for the MXP (Microsoft Excellence Program).
After my presentation they are going to discus if I'm in.

The result of my assessment is that I'm in and follow the program for the next 2 years.

Click here for a PDF about the program. (it's in dutch)

Technet_Live Session online

2011-05-05T11:29:00.036+02:00

My Technet_Live Session is available online.
You can find a movie of my presentation here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/nl-nl/edge/ultieme-styling-van-sharepoint-2010-websites

My slidedeck you can find here:
http://static.techdays.nl/Speakers/Presentations/Paul%20Font%20Freide%20-%20Ultieme%20Styling%20van%20Sharepoint%202010%20Websites.pdf

Good news came yesterday (MXP)

2011-04-16T18:48:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I've got good news from my boss.

I'm selected as youngest from 40 other colleagues to get a intake for the Microsoft Excellence Program - Technical Leader.

What is a Technical Leader.
A Technical Leader acts as a leader from different disciplines, and provide quality assurance in development teams, technical innovations cost effective.

You are an expert in your field. Able technical progress - projects to pull out of the mud. You take ownership of technical innovations. You're visible internally and externally. Finally, you're the technical beacon and inspiration for others!

Next
In the coming weeks i will receive an invitation from Microsoft for an interview.
The intake will consist of a presentation (30 min) and questions & answers (30 min).

I'm looking forward to the interview.

Cannot insert duplicate key row in object

2011-04-13T10:39:00.002+02:00

Problem: Error occurred in deployment step 'Add Solution': Cannot insert duplicate key row in object 'dbo.Solutions' with unique index 'Solutions_BySiteAndSolutionId'.

Initial Hypothesis: Sandbox solution wsp deployment is causing the error. I delete and created a new site collection with an identical url.

Solution:
for the see the solution see next blog ->
http://blog.sharepointsite.co.uk/2010/12/cannot-insert-duplicate-key-row-in.html

Starting to create my presentation for Technet_Live 2011

2011-04-01T10:00:00.007+02:00

Today i have made a start to make my presentation for the TechNet_Live session on 27 April 2011. Link to presentation profile: http://www.techdays.nl/SessieDetails.aspx?cid=1554.

In my session i'm going to talk about branding, theming and styling of an SharePoint 2010 site.

If you have questions you want to be answered ask them. Maybe i can add it to my presentation on TechNet_Live 2011

Presentation Agile software development

2011-03-29T10:39:00.007+02:00

Today its time to give a presentation about Agile software development and how we used it by the development in the project RAIS.

The project RAIS at Achmea has combined SENS (Samen Effectief Naar Succes) with Agile. We have looked at the thing SENS is giving us to work on a better way. And look backwards where we could do it better next time.

We have used a whiteboard to give everybody information who is walking on the floor to see witch work we already have done.
Thing that are put on the board are:

Some time management. When is witch developer not available.
All the tasks of the iteration and who is working on a tasks.
A burn down chart.
Some charts of the bugs who are found.
Feedback from the customer every 2 weeks when they have a demo.

SharePoint 2010 Training Day 5

2011-03-18T18:23:00.003+01:00

Today the fifth day of the Developing Solutions with SharePoint 2010 training.
We discussed today chapter 12, 13 and 14.

SharePoint 2010 Developer Roadmap
SharePoint Foundation Development
SharePoint Developer Tools in Visual Studio 2010.
Creating Sandboxed Solutions
Pages and Navigation
Developing Web Parts
Creating Fields, Site Columns & Content Types
Creating Lists & Event Handlers
Accessing Data using LINQ to SharePoint
Client Object Model
Developing SharePoint 2010 Workflows
Business Connectivity Services (BCS)
Web Content Management (WCM)
Enterprise Content Management (ECM)

Twelfth Chapter
With the Business Connectivity Service is it possible to bring data from external systems into SharePoint and Office, interact with it, reuse it, and empower end users to gain insight into the underlying data in a reusable way. You can create a connection with some easy wizard in SharePoint designer 2010 or SharePoint Workspace 2010 or Visual Studio 2010. You can edit the items directly in SharePoint 2010 after you have render some Query's with the wizard. For the security you need to add the allowed users for editing in SharePoint 2010 Central Administrator. Because this is needed its safe to use and not all users can edit your external data.

Thirteenth Chapter and Fourteenth Chapter
I describe this two chapters together because they are very similar too each other. If you are going to create some website SharePoint give some very nice webarts to edit or create a website. SharePoint has directly a content management tools into the edit mode of a page. Something what is better in SharePoint 2010 are the Analytics options they give you. It is possible to get information of usage of pages and webparts directly in SharePoint.
It is possible to change the look and feel of the SharePoint site by editing or recreating a masterpage from the minimal.master.
Nice pages who are build in SharePoint are:

In SharePoint 2010 there are some new things added to a standard site. Tagging of sites and the i like button are items that are added. Those items give users an idea if other users like the site. The sites that are tagged or liked can come higher in the search results of the site. The tags also can help you to find similar information of a project or product on the site.
New in SharePoint 2010 is the Document Sets with can be used as an folder in a list. It is possible to send a link to a other user like you already could do by a file. It's now also possible to make an unique Id for a document or set. Those unique id's are needed if you need to save contracts digital and you need to let see that the documents not are changed.

This day was the end of my training by Twice.

SharePoint 2010 Training Day 4

2011-03-17T11:55:00.017+01:00

Today the fourth day of the Developing Solutions with SharePoint 2010 training.
We discussed today chapter 10, 11 and 12.

SharePoint 2010 Developer Roadmap
SharePoint Foundation Development
SharePoint Developer Tools in Visual Studio 2010.
Creating Sandboxed Solutions
Pages and Navigation
Developing Web Parts
Creating Fields, Site Columns & Content Types
Creating Lists & Event Handlers
Accessing Data using LINQ to SharePoint
Client Object Model
Developing SharePoint 2010 Workflows
Business Connectivity Services (BCS)
Web Content Management (WCM)
Enterprise Content Management (ECM)

Tenth Chapter
There are 3 different Client Object Models. Each Client Object Model is created for a other language, .NET, Silverlight, EXMAScript (Javascript). The client object model provides an abstraction layer so process off the SharePoint server can interact with SharePoint using a consistent API that is very closely matched to the familiar server API.

Client	Server
ClientContext	SPContext
Site	SPSite
Web	SPWeb
List	SPList
ListItem	SPListItem
Field	SPField

The Member names mostly the same from server to client. "SPWeb.QuickLaunchEnabled = Web.QuickLaunchEnabled"

The diagram displays how the transport mechanism works.
Before you execute the ExecuteQuery method, you need to indicate which data you want to retrieve from the server. You van use the ClientContext.Load method for this purpose. You cannot only retrieve data using the ClientOM, but you also create object using specific classes.

ListCreationInformation:
- using this class to create a new list. You can set properties like Title and TemplateType before calling the web.Lists.Add method, pasasing the ListCreationInformation object as argument.
ListItemCreationInformation
- using this class to create a new list item on an existing list. The AddItem method on the List object accepts the ListItemCreationINformation argument and returns the new item of type ListItem. You van fill out the list item using the listItem["Title"] syntax for the different columns on the list, and calling the Update() method on the list item.
WebCreationInformation:
- if you want to create a new SharePoint site, instantiate an object of the type and pass it to the Webs.Add method of a Web object.
NavigationNodeCreationInformation
- use this class to create a new navigation node.

Eleventh Chapter
In SharePoint 2007 you can attach workflows to list items and documents. Additionally, in SharePoint 2010 you can add workflows to document sets and sites. If you look in SharePoint 2010 to the monitoring of the workflow process you can see a nice picture of which path the workflow has taken to complete.
New in 2010 is that you can use Visio to build the first workflow. Your manager can build the screens en export it for you. You can import it into SharePoint Designer 2010 en edit it further. On your time you can edit it in Visual Studio 2010 to fine tune it for the SharePoint site or list you are going to add the workflow.

Twelfth Chapter
This chapter we have got the theory. Tomorrow we have to do the labs so a write something about this chapter tomorrow.

SharePoint 2010 Training Day 3

2011-03-16T16:38:00.014+01:00

Today the third day of the Developing Solutions with SharePoint 2010 training.
We discussed today chapter 7, 8 and 9.

SharePoint 2010 Developer Roadmap
SharePoint Foundation Development
SharePoint Developer Tools in Visual Studio 2010.
Creating Sandboxed Solutions
Pages and Navigation
Developing Web Parts
Creating Fields, Site Columns & Content Types
Creating Lists & Event Handlers
Accessing Data using LINQ to SharePoint
Client Object Model
Developing SharePoint 2010 Workflows
Business Connectivity Services (BCS)
Web Content Management (WCM)
Enterprise Content Management (ECM)

Seventh Chapter
This chapter shows us how we can create field, site columns & content types. If you need to create a site column with a feature you need to give the fields an unique id by a GUID. We have seen how you can create fields, site columns and content types by a xml file and in the browser with an user interface.
If you create a custom field control you need to create a rendering control and field values of the control in classes and usercontrols. It is also possible to create a Mobile Rendering control that works for a mobile phone. The usercontrol needs a tag for wich you have to set the ID attribute to a unique value. The FieldRenderingControl property you need to override in the custom field type.
Reviewing all the Moving Parts.

Field type class (ie: SPFieldText)
- Contains definition of custom field type
Field value class (ie: SPFieldMultiColumnValue)
- Contains custom data structure serialization / deserialization
Field Control class (ie: BaseFieldControl)
- Contains Server-side logic for the rendering contgrol
Field control rendering (ie: litware.ascx)
- ASXC file containing new / edit form
Field type definition (ie: fldtype_Litware.xml)
- Contains definition and metadata of the field type

Eighth Chapter
The most parts of this chapter are the same as in SharePoint 2007. Something that is added to the events are the WebAdding, WebProvisioned, ListAdding, ListAdded, ListDeleting and the ListDeleted events. The "-ing" events are triggerd before the action and the "-ed" events are triggerd after the the action. You can use the AfterProperties or BeforProperties in the events to get information of the changed or changing fields.

Ninth Chapter
New in SharePoint 2010 is LINQ to SharePoint. Before you can use LINQtoSharePoint you need to use SPMetal.exe to create DataContext class. This class you need to import in your project and you can use LINQ within your project. If you make a chang in the SP lists or Type you need to run again SPMetal.exe.

SharePoint 2010 Training Day 2

2011-03-15T20:22:00.016+01:00

Today the second day of the Developing Solutions with SharePoint 2010 training.
We discussed today chapter 4, 5 and 6.

SharePoint 2010 Developer Roadmap
SharePoint Foundation Development
SharePoint Developer Tools in Visual Studio 2010.
Creating Sandboxed Solutions
Pages and Navigation
Developing Web Parts
Creating Fields, Site Columns & Content Types
Creating Lists & Event Handlers
Accessing Data using LINQ to SharePoint
Client Object Model
Developing SharePoint 2010 Workflows
Business Connectivity Services (BCS)
Web Content Management (WCM)
Enterprise Content Management (ECM)

Fourth Chapter
In this chapter we discussed about Sanboxed Solutions. SharePoint 2010 makes it possible to deploy and maintained customizations at site collection level. Because it's possible to deploy on the site collection level we don't need the administrator to deploy. We can do it if we are a site collection owner. A sandboxed solution can do most things we also can with a full solution, as long as it scoped to the site collection where the solution is deployed. A restriction of using Sandboxed solution is that we cannot access external data from web services or databases. You can use in a Sandboxed solution a subset of the SPSite Object Model, excluded SPSecurity, SPSite construction an no access to Web application or farm.
SharePoint 2010 monitored the Sandboxed Solution. With different Metrics the solution can get points. Those points grow every time a actions is started. By default there is a maximum of 300 points. If the solution reach the 300 point the solution is turned down for the rest of the day. A list of how you get the points is listed in the table below.

Resource	Description	Units	Resources per Point	Limit
AbnormalProcessTerminationCount	Abnormally terminated process	count	1	1
CPUExecutionTime	CPU Execution Time for site	seconds	3,600	60
CriticalExceptionCount	Critical Exception Events	Events	10	3
InvocationCount	Solution Invocation Events	Events
PercentProcessorTime	% CPU usage by solution	%	85	100
ProcessCPUCycles	Solution CPU cycles	cycles	1 x10^11	1 x10^11
ProcessHandleCount	Windows handles count	items	10,000	1,000
ProcessIOBytes	Windows handles count	items	0	1 x10^8
ProcessThreadCount	Thread count in overall process	Thread instances	10,000	200
ProcessVirtualBytes	Memory consumed	Bytes	0	1.0x10^9
SharePointDatabaseQueryCount	Number of SharePoint database queries	Query instances	20	100
SharePointDatabaseQueryTime	Elapsed time to execute query	seconds	120	60
UnhandledExceptionCount	Number of unhandled exceptions	Unhandled exception instances	50	3
UnresponsiveProcessCount	Number of unresponsive processes	Unresponsive process instances	2	1

A view of the monitoring screen.

Fifth Chapter
In SharePoint 2010 there is some changes in the Master page. In 2007 we had a "default.master" for the site pages and a "*.master" in the _layouts hive for the application pages. The changes in SharePoint 2010 is that we use for the v3 UI a "default.master", and for the v4 UI a new master page named "v4.master". If you want to make your own master page SharePoint 2010 delivered a "minimal.master" file where only the minimal placeholders are added so you can change it how you want.

The most important

tags in "v4.master" are:

s4-ribbonrow: this is the container for the server ribbon and the site actions menu.
s4-titlerow: this is the container for the title, tags and main navigation.
s4-leftpanel: this is the container for the left navigation and displays the Quick Launch.
mso-contenttable: this is the container for the content of the page instance.

To add a custom action to the Site Administration in Site Settings you can add some CustomAction element to the "elements.xml". Information you need to add in the CustomAction element are a Id, GroupId, Location, Richts, Sequence, Title, Description and in the element you can add a UrlAction element with an url. There are some more items you can fill in the element, if you want to know with see: "http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms460194.aspx". It is also possible to build your custom action in codebehind and add it to the flyout menu.

If you add a Customized site pages it runs in Safe Mode. Those Customized site pages don't support inline code. You van only add controls that are registered as Safe Controls in the web.config. If you add a Module section in the "elements.xml" and put in a set of File elements each File element provisions a instance of a page.

Finally the last part of this chapter. New in SharePoint 2010 is the Ribbon and you can extend the Ribbon with customactions. On the same way as you add Custom Actions to the Site Settings you can add customactions to the ribbon. For the button on the Ribbon you need to define a CommandUIHandler that specifies the name of the Command and the javascript to execute or you have to create a custom page component with JavaScript that executes the necessary JavaScript and eventually executes calls to the server.
You can send a message to the statusbar or notification area of the Ribbon. If you want to use those elements you have to use some javascript calls like:
SP.UI.Status.addStatus('Hello World Status Message'); // shows the status bar
SP.UI.Notify.addNotification('Hello World Notification Message'); // shows the notification area

Sixth Chapter
In this chapter we discussed how to make Custom Web Parts. Most of this chapter was already in SharePoint 2007 and we looked only as a reminder to this part.

SharePoint 2010 Training Day 1

2011-03-14T19:16:00.006+01:00

Today the first day of the Developing Solutions with SharePoint 2010 training.
We had got today 3 of the 14 chapters.

SharePoint 2010 Developer Roadmap
SharePoint Foundation Development
SharePoint Developer Tools in Visual Studio 2010.
Creating Sandboxed Solutions
Pages and Navigation
Developing Web Parts
Creating Fields, Site Columns & Content Types
Creating Lists & Event Handlers
Accessing Data using LINQ to SharePoint
Client Object Model
Developing SharePoint 2010 Workflows
Business Connectivity Services (BCS)
Web Content Management (WCM)
Enterprise Content Management (ECM)

First Chapter
In the first chapter the trainer has talked about the Architecture of SharePoint 2010. He also told us what the is difference of the Architecture of SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010.
Something what was new for me was the PowerShell Primer that can be very useful to create some installing packages of an environment system. PowerShell is like a DOS-promt screen. You can use commands to read from a SharePoint Farm. What lists are there, witch services are installed. But also to install parts on your farm and activate them. The trainer told us that we use PowerShell on every lab to configure a default situation.
As Last in this chapter said something about the SharePoint Designer 2010 that can be used to see a summary of page or SharePoint objects.

Second Chapter
The second chapter brings information how the Server-side Object Model looked like.
It also said how we can use The Developer Dashboard so we can find with calls where make and what time it cost to run each call.
The book also told something about Developing of Features and Solutions. New in SharePoint 2010 are the Sandboxed Solutions. We had looked how the 14 hive looked like and where all the files where placed. Looked like some xml files give us some information witch information is needed in the feature.xml, element.xml and the manifest.xml.
A new item in a feature solution is that is is possible to upgrade a feature. By adding Upgradeactions in the feature.xml it is possible to configure witch features has to be upgraded. By running a PowerShell script it is possible to activate a upgrade action.

Third Chapter
The third chapter of today has talked about introduction of some SharePoint 2010 Tools, How to create a SharePoint 2010 project, Adding SPIs to a SharePoint project and SharePoint Tools Extensibility.

The first day was very interesting and i like it that we have tomorrow an other day of SharePoint 2010

Things you can do to make development in SharePoint faster

2010-12-14T19:47:00.008+01:00

Yesterday i have a course from Bas Lijten -> Blog . The course give some information to make your develop environment faster. We work within Achmea-IT Mscc with an virtual pc. Because our environment is not working directly on the hardware of the pc we loss a lot of speed. So one of the options we could do is to delete the virtual pc from our environment. The problem is that there is a part of our company that is responsible for the hardware and wants only 1 workstation (also called 1WS). That means that a developer has the same hardware and basic software as an manager or other employee. We have got an virtual pc image to make our system ready to develop software in Visual Studio 2010.

One of the options we now are going to try is to give the SharePoint developers a new laptop with 8 in stead of 4 Gb Memory, also is in the new hardware a solid state disk (SSD) that makes our system a lot faster. The department that is responsible for 1WS gives us a go because our solution is not the final one. Because a other solution cost a lot of time to do research the are okay. The other solution is to make a develop environment is to going to work within a software cloud.

This action is something that need some time to buy and configure the software. So now some other things you can do now to make your development faster.

You can use a tool like ramdisk that enables some hard-disk space directly to a part of the ram memory. If you bind the virtual directory in the ram space the rendering of the SharePoint portal gives a speed-up from x2. Before it was like 54 seconds to start the portal for the first time. After we bind the space to the ram memory the first time to start the portal it was started in a small 30 seconds.

Workshop Feedback

2010-12-13T20:00:00.002+01:00

Today have got a workshop how to give feedback. The workshop feedback is given by a SENS expert because give feedback makes a higher quality of the product we deliver. Give feedback is necessary to have a continue improving of quality.

There are 2 different ways to give feedback.

positive feedback

Constructive feedback

The workshop was very interesting. They give information how you can give feedback. Also must we give some feedback to a other employee and try it in the real world. Now its nessesery to use it in the real world.

Microsoft Certified Professional

2010-04-16T13:55:00.006+02:00

Vandaag een examen gemaakt voor het MCTS/MCPD traject wat ik volg bij Achmea IT.

Je moest van de 1000 punten die je kan behalen 700 punten halen voor het ontvangen van het certificaat.

De vorige keer kwam ik 26 punten tekort voor het behalen van het eerste examen (70-536). Maar deze keer had ik een mooie score van 861 punten. Dit betekend dat ik nu Microsoft Certified Professional ben en het logo mag gaan vermelden bij mijn contactgegevens.

Nu gaan we verder met studeren voor het volgende examen (70-562) waardoor ik mijn MCTS certficaat compleet heb.

Nieuwe identiteit YIP

2010-04-01T21:00:00.005+02:00

Het is 1 April en nee het is geen grap.

YIP was een groep medewerkers van Achmea die de leeftijd van 35 nog niet gepasseerd zijn. Het was al enige tijd geleden dat YIP iets georganiseerd had maar dat had een reden.

Vandaag is de nieuwe identiteit van YIP gepresenteerd in Zeist. Om tot de nieuwe identiteit te komen hebben ze enige maanden samen met een bureau dat hierin gespecialiseerd is een nieuwe identiteit neergezet. Met deze nieuwe identiteit werd er ook een nieuwe naam geïntroduceerd. YIP word vervangen door JA "Jong Achmea". De identiteit bestaat uit 4 blokken.

Hoger doel
Gewaag doel
Kernwaarde
Kernkwaliteit

Tijdens de presentatie in Zeist werden deze blokken uitgelegd met de waarde van elk blok.

Hieronder heb ik elk van deze punten uitgewerkt staan.

Hoger Doel:
Jong Achmea verbindt en is een bron van inspiratie om het beste uit jezelf en Achmea te halen.

Ons hoger doel geeft aan waarom wij bestaan!

Jong Achmea:

Wij zijn de jongeren die werkzaam zijn binnen Achmea;
Wij zijn de vereniging voor jonge Achmeanen tot en met 35 jaar.

Verbindt:

Wij zijn divisieoverstijgend en daarom een verbindend element, wij zijn daarmee een toevoeging op en gaan hierin verder dan bestaande
gremia;
Wij brengen jonge Achmeanen bij elkaar die elkaar normaliter niet treffen;
Wij bundelen onze krachten, wij zijn samen meer dan 1;
Wij wisselen kennis uit en delen ervaringen. Hierdoor leren wij van elkaar.

Is een bron van inspiratie:

Wij nemen energie op en stralen het ook uit, we hebben er plezier in;
Wij hebben een open vizier, wij wakkeren het vuur aan, wij prikkelen;
Wij voegen iets toe aan Achmea, wij hebben zowel onszelf als de organisatie veel te bieden;
Wij hebben een frisse blik, onafhankelijk van dogma’s in de organisatie, los van de ‘kokers’ zoals die binnen de organisatie bestaan (binnen divisies, binnen afdelingen, binnen teams). Wij laten ons niet terughouden door ervaringen uit het Achmea-verleden en willen juist vooruit kijken. Wij zijn jong en ambitieus.

Het beste uit jezelf en Achmea halen:

Wij halen continu het beste uit onszelf en uit elkaar;
Wij willen, door het beste uit ons zelf te halen, ook het beste uit Achmea halen;
Wij willen, vanuit onze eigen ambitie, ons potentieel ontdekken en benutten;
Wij leveren iets extra’s; vanuit een ‘eagerness’ willen wij meer doen dan alleen ons werk;
Wij willen focussen op wat we goed kunnen (onze kernkwaliteiten) en ons doorontwikkelen binnen Achmea;
Bij de evenementen / activiteiten die wij organiseren streven wij altijd naar een element van ontwikkeling;
Wij beschikken over up-to-date kennis en kunnen deze inzetten voor de organisatie.

Kernwaarden:
Relevant Verbindend Energiek

Onze kernwaarden geven aan waar wij voor staan!

Relevant:

We dragen iets bij aan onszelf, anderen en de organisatie;
Wij hebben een frisse, onafhankelijke blik. Wij denken niet in vaste patronen;
Wij willen meepraten, meedenken en concreet bijdragen aan maatschappelijke issues waarop Achmea een rol wil spelen.

Verbindend:

We staan samen sterk;
We zijn sociaal, inlevend en grensverleggend;
Wij brengen de jonge Achmeanen samen, divisie- en functieoverstijgend.

Energiek:

We hebben plezier, de drive om meer uit onszelf te halen en we zijn ambitieus;
Als individu beschikken we over veel energie. Door samen te komen vermenigvuldigen we dat (energie2);
Bij onze evenementen / activiteiten ontstaat energie. Het plezier dat we met elkaar hebben tijdens deze evenementen / activiteiten is hierbij een katalysator.

Kernkwaliteiten:
Daadkracht Lef Nieuwsgierig

Onze kernkwaliteiten geven aan waar wij in uitblinken!

Daadkracht:

Daadkracht staat voor ambitie en snelheid;
Wij hebben een doel voor ogen en gaan ervoor zonder op te geven.

Lef:

We zijn brutaal en anders;
We durven te vernieuwen en zijn innovatief;
Wij steken onze nek uit en durven buiten de gebaande paden te treden;
Wij durven de uitdaging aan te gaan.

Nieuwsgierig:

Wij kijken vaak net even anders tegen zaken aan. Dit mede dankzij onze positief kritische manier van denken die wij hebben ontwikkeld;
We zijn fris, onbevangen, eager, en leergierig;
Wij zijn er niet de persoon naar om alles klakkeloos aan te nemen, maar hebben een eigen mening / standpunt over zaken.

Gewaagd doel:
In 2014 wordt Jong Achmea door de organisatie benut om talenten aan zich te binden.

Ons gewaagd doel geeft aan waar wij (Jong Achmea) voor gaan!

In 2014 wordt

We willen ons doel verwezenlijken binnen vier jaar.

Jong Achmea

Wij zijn de jongeren die werkzaam zijn binnen Achmea;
Wij zijn de vereniging voor jonge Achmeanen tot en met 35 jaar.

Door de organisatie benut

Verschillende onderdelen van de Achmea organisatie zetten ons in. Denk aan de Executive Board, HR, de divisies etc. Dit kan zijn bij verschillende trajecten en/of vraagstukken;
Ook de leden van Jong Achmea zelf benutten de vereniging. Om een netwerk op te bouwen en kennis te delen;
Het feit dat de organisatie Jong Achmea benut, wil zeggen dat Jong Achmea een vereniging is om rekening mee te houden. Oftewel een vereniging met actieve leden die een waardevolle bijdrage leveren aan elkaar en aan de organisatie.

Om talenten aan zich te binden

Jong Achmea zorgt ervoor dat talenten bij Achmea blijven werken. Jong Achmea bindt talenten aan de organisatie;
Achmea trekt nieuwe talenten aan door Jong Achmea. Zo wordt Jong Achmea gebruikt in de arbeidsmarktcommunicatie van Achmea om talenten binnen te halen;
Jong Achmea is een omgeving waarbinnen iemand zich kan blijven ontwikkelen en groeien en daarom binnen Achmea wil blijven.

Nadat we een goede presentatie van het bestuurd hadden gehad kregen we nog een mooie presentatie van een 3tal personen die op hun eigen wijzen ons enthousiast moesten maken voor het nieuwe JA.