http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee554869%28office.14%29.aspx

Add the following snippet in the xsl file, for example one of your custom style in the itemstyle.xsl file.

<span class="presence-status-icon">
              By: <a href="http://[MySharePoint]/sites/intranetbelgium/_layouts/userdisp.aspx?ID={$AuthorID}">
                <xsl:value-of select="concat($AuthorName,’ ‘)" />
              </a>
              <img src="/_layouts/images/blank.gif" onload="IMNRC(’{$AuthorEmail}’)" alt="" id="{concat(’MWP_pawn_’,$ClientId,’_',@ID,’type=sip’)}" /> 
  </span>

Tips: you can add "ShowOfflinePawn=1” before the add property in the img tag, this will show the offline picture of OCS if the “AuthorName” is offline. I personnally prefer to remove it, I found that cleaner.

The problem: Microsoft provide a way to create custom headers using the file Header.xsl but doesn’t provide the same kind of file concerning the footer. So how to create a style containing a footer and a header?

Inside your new style in the file itemstyle.xsl add the following snippet:

For a header add a test to check if there is a preceding sibling:

<xsl:if test="count(preceding-sibling::*)=0">
This is the header !
</xsl:if>

For a footer add a test to check if there is a following sibling:

<xsl:if test="count(following-sibling::*)=0">
     This is the footer !
   </xsl:if>

That’s pretty easy to do and I hope it can help.

Our action will appear on the display page of all the items of a custom list. By clicking on it, the user will be redirected to google. A custom action has to be included in a feature, meaning, we will create a standard feature and add code in it to define that we want to create a custom action.

So now let’s get started, you will need to create a new WSPBuilder project (without workflow), when the new project is loaded, choose Add->WSPBuilder->Blank Feature. The system will ask you a name and to choose a scope, in my example the scope choosen is web (for website). If you have done a mistake about the name or the scope, that’ not a problem, you will be able to modify those directly in the XML files.

Now that you’ve created your new feature, you will have in the document explorer an hierarchy like the following picture.

Now you have all your structure done, here is the code to include.

The feature.xml file will contains all information about the feature (title, ID, scope,…), use the intellisense to check what is proposed. The important thing is the link to the manifest, in our case, “elements.xml”.

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

<Feature  Id="0FE81D03-6AE0-48a0-BBF7-88A1DAA9B04A"

          Title="Import UP"

          Description="Description for Import User Profiles"

          Version="12.0.0.0"

          Hidden="FALSE"

          Scope="Web"

          xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">

    <ElementManifests>

        <ElementManifest Location="elements.xml"/>

    </ElementManifests>

</Feature>

The elements.xml file define the content of the feature, in our case a custom action. To find the required fields refer to that MSDN link: CustomAction Element (Custom Action) . What is really interesting is the registrationtype, you can register to some different contents in our case the lists and the registrationID refers to the type of list (100=custom list) we want to add the action in. But you can choose a registration of type content type and give the name of it, so that action will be relevant only for that content type. An important thing is to define the location of the action, where it will appear. The URL define where the users will be redirected when clicking on it, it can be, and probably will be in the real life a custom ASPX page.

Refer to that MSDN link to find all the location and GroupID (in the comments too!):  Default Custom Action Locations and IDs

You will see the 2 first columns, location and GroupID, if the GroupID is not empty or not contains N/A, you will have to include it in your custom action element, an example is done at the end of the post.

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

<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">

    <CustomAction

        Id="CustomActionGetUerProfiles.CustomAction"

        Location="DisplayFormToolbar"

        Title="Import Users"

        RegistrationType="List"

        RegistrationId="100"

        Sequence="10"

         Description="The description" RequireSiteAdministrator="FALSE">

        <UrlAction Url="http://www.google.com"/>

    </CustomAction>

</Elements>

Now that you have your two files, your custom action is ready to be deployed, using WSPBuilder, simply choose, “Deploy”. Refresh the page and go to a custom list, if everything goes well when you will click on the view item button, on the next page, above, you will see our “Import user” action. By clicking on it you will be redirected to google.

If in the elements.xml you change the location to Location=”Microsoft.SharePoint.StandardMenu” and include GroupID=”ActionsMenu”, your action will be now on the toolbar of the list in the Action menu and the click will redirect you again to google.

Have a nice day !

• When updating a value of a profile your changes won’t be applied until you make a commit, it can be so frustrating when you forget it…..

   1: UserProfile u;

   2: u[property].Value = "My string";

   3: u.Commit();

• Maybe the user will not have the rights to edit profiles, the current user has to get the "Manage user profiles" right, you can set it up in the SSP.
• If the users cannot have the rights to edit profiles and can’t have it through SSP, because of security or business reason you can run your code with elevated privileges using the object SPSecurity. In that case the user that will run the code will have the same rights as "SYSTEM\Administrator", so be careful. I have to admit I’m not a big fan of it. More information on MSDN: SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges Method .You can use the impersonation too: a good post about it: Impersonation in Event Handlers by Ishai Sagi

   1: SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(delegate()

   2: {

   3:     using (SPSite site = new SPSite(web.Site.ID))

   4:     {

   5:     // your code

   6:     }

   7: });

• Like always use some safe code, like testing if your user exist if not you can raise an exception

   1: try

   2: {

   3:    if (profileManager.UserExists("MOSS\\andy"))

   4:    {

   5:          //Do something

   6:    }

   7: }

   8: catch (UserNotFoundException ex)

   9: {

  10:     //Do something                

  11: }

For my current development, one of the requirements is to be able to make some search through the Moss API or web service, so after some search on the web I discovered a really nice tool.

The SharePoint Search Services Tool, which allow you to directly do your request on the web services.

That tool is really awesome!

Make a request on a web services consist on 4 steps:

Get the value and scope you want to search on, generate the "Query Packet", which is simply create an XML formatted to be understood by the web service, make the request to it (via Query or QueryEx method), get the answer.

With that tool you will be able to:

• Define your query text
• Define the sort method
• Choose the properties to define in the XML answer
• Query the Query or QueryEx methods
• See the results in XML or in datagrid view
• …

The request window:

The Links

Download the SharePoint Search Services Tool from Codeplex: http://www.codeplex.com/SharePointSearchServ

Visual How-To access to the SharePoint wseb services: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb625950.aspx

The QueryPacket element on MSDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms451565.aspx

That patent ("Simplified search interface for querying a relational database") covers the Query, KeyWordQuery class and more.

An extract from the abstract:

Methods and computer-readable media are provided for performing a search on a relational database. According to one method, a query class is provided that includes properties that specify how a query is to be performed and how results from the query are to be returned, and an execute method that is called to perform the actual query. A keyword query class derived from the query class is also provided that includes keyword query properties and an execute method for performing the keyword query.

Link to the full patent: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2008/0114745.html

Since the 03/31/2009, you can freely download it directly from the microsoft site, link is below.

After the news about setting a part of the BI stack of Microsoft, PerformancePoint, for free to the enterprise CAL customers, it’s now the turn of the SPD 2007 to be free.

That will probably leverage again a bit higher the reasons to go for SharePoint for the futures customers.

For the time being saying to  them:"Ok you’ve bought an expensive piece of software even if it’s a killer-app, now you have to buy for each of you’re developers or designers a new office 2007 licence".

The answer is rather often:"Oh, it’s not included in SharePoint or Visual Studio ?"

And now I’m waiting for Infopath for free

The download link:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=baa3ad86-bfc1-4bd4-9812-d9e710d44f42

That functionality isn’t provided OOB in Sharepoint 2007, but can be really useful when you get a lot of security groups and some issues about them. It can be used for auditing, debugging …

Here is an example:

The user enter the account "MYDOMAIN\MyAccount" click on the link and get:

• Group Name: Group1
• Group Decription: Description of Group1
• Group Name:Group2
• Group Decription:Description of Group2

Implementation

For doing it, I will use a JavaScript library, which is in fact a proxy class, which means that our code will be easier to write, maintain and debug, all the boring stuff are already done for you

Here is the link to the site of Darren which contain the library in the Download section. http://darrenjohnstone.net

Here is some examples http://darrenjohnstone.net/2008/07/22/examples-for-the-sharepoint-and-office-live-javascript-api/

To include the library in your Sharepoint site, please follow Darren’s advices:

If you have full control of your server:

1) Locate the C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS folder.
2) In there create a new folder called JSAPI.
3) Place the extracted .js files in there.

If you don’t have full access:

1) Open SharePoint Designer and connect to your site.
2) Create a new folder called JSAPI at the root of the site.
3) Copy the extracted .js files to the folder by dragging them from Windows Explorer to SP Designer.

Where to put code ?

• In a html file, and show it in a page viewer webpart or
• Insert it in a page layout, or even master page.

Coding

First of all, you will need to make some include to be able to use the web proxy class:

   1: <script type="text/javascript" src="/_layouts/JSAPI/SPAPI_Core.js"></script>

   2: <script type="text/javascript" src="/_layouts/JSAPI/SPAPI_Lists.js"></script>

   3: <script type="text/javascript" src="/_layouts/JSAPI/SPAPI_UserGroup.js"></script>

We need to create a simple form, containing

• A textbox: the user will type the username(with domain) in it.
• A link: to start the job.

   1: <form method="post" action="">

   2: <input id="Text1" type="text" />

   3: <a href='#' onclick="javascript:start()">Start the search</a>

   4: </form>

   5: <div id="username_div"></div>    

And now the interesting part, I will shortly explain the JavaScript methods below:

• Start: We get the user name from a textbox and call the getGroupCollection and Formatresult methods.
• getGroupCollection: Receive the username by parameter. The method will use a SPAPI_UserGroup object and request the groups that the users belongs to, through the getGroupCollectionFromUser method. The result will be put in two arrays, the first containing the names of the groups, the second one containing the descriptions.
• FormatResult: The arrays containing the groups names and descriptions are  parsed. The content is formatted in a more friendly way.

   1: <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">    

   2:  

   3: function getGroupCollection(userName)

   4: {

   5:     var groupName = new Array();

   6:     var groupDescription = new Array();

   7:     var arrGroup = new Array(groupName,groupDescription);

   8:     

   9:     var userGroup = new SPAPI_UserGroup('');

  10:     var groupItems = userGroup.getGroupCollectionFromUser(userName)

  11:     

  12:     if (groupItems.status == 200)

  13:     {

  14:             var groupTags = groupItems.responseXML.getElementsByTagName('Group');

  15:     

  16:             for(var i=0;i<groupTags.length;i++)

  17:             {

  18:                 groupName.push(groupTags[i].getAttribute("Name"));        

  19:                 groupDescription.push(groupTags[i].getAttribute("Description"));        

  20:             }

  21:     }

  22:     return arrGroup;

  23: }

  24:  

  25: function formatResult(groups,username)

  26: {

  27:     var result=""; 

  28:     result = "The user " + username + " belongs to: </br>";

  29:     for(var i=0;i<groups.length;i++)

  30:     {        

  31:         result+= "<b>Group name: </b>" + groups[0][i] + "<br />";                       

  32:         result+= "<b>Group Description: </b>" + groups[1][i] + "<br /> <p> </p>";

  33:     }

  34:  

  35: return result;

  36: }

  37:  

  38: function start()

  39: {

  40:     var userName = document.getElementById('Text1').value;

  41:     var groups = getGroupCollection(userName);

  42:     document.getElementById('username_div').innerHTML = formatResult(groups,userName);     

  43:     

  44: }

  45: </script>            

If you have questions, please ask them!

The error appear only on one site “SiteA”.

Description of the error:

By going on the Site settings on the top of the page you have a breadcrumb, by clicking on the over right site in it (SiteA), the destination was supposed to be(http://mysite/SiteAA/SiteA/), which in fact is resolved by Sharepoint to http://mysite/SiteAA/SiteA/Pages/Home.aspx but in our case the result was a nice error 500 page.

Resolution:

No real solution because I didn’t get the real explaination on that error, the workaround was to go the site permission and to inherit the rights of the parent site and re-setup the rights after.

I don’t get the real reason on that error but a hotfix exist for that: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936867