Before and After Screenshots

Here’s a site with bad colors before the fix:

Here’s the same site with smart code to give a different background-color driven by “ShowInGrid” URL:

Option #1 – Server Side – Master page with C# code

A brief snippet of ASP.Net code written in C# can be inserted into the master page.   The server side rendering will look for a “ShowInGrid” URL parameter. 

Pro

• Fast
• No client browser “blink” that JS has
• Foundation for writing other Dot Net server side code  (“smart” master pages)

Con

• Requires [web.config] edit

Action Steps

1. Open site with SharePoint Designer
2. Open Master page with Edit in Advanced Mode
3. Add the below code just before the </HEAD> tag
4. Open INETMGR and locate the website
5. Open [web.config] from the IIS website folder with Notepad
6. Add the below <PageParserPath> tag.   NOTE – be sure to update the site collection relative URL to match your environment.   Enabling this for all pages (/*) is not generally recommended unless the only people with SP Designer also are trusted developers.
7. Repeat steps #4 – #6 on each web front end server

<% if (Request["ShowInGrid"] == null) { %>

    <style type="text/css">

    /* ShowInGrid - URL parameter not found. black default. */

    body { background-color: #000; }

    </style>

<% } else { %>

    <style type="text/css">

    /* ShowInGrid - URL parameter found. white DataSheet support. */        

    body { background-color: #FFF; }

    </style>

<% } %>    

<PageParserPath VirtualPath="/_catalogs/*" CompilationMode="Always" AllowServerSideScript="true" IncludeSubFolders="true" />

Option #2 – Client Side – Master page with JavaScript code

A brief snippet of ASP.Net code written in C# can be inserted into the master page.

Pro

• Does not require any server access

Con

• Slow
• Client browser will “blink” when JS changes the color changes from light to dark

Action Steps

1. Open site with SharePoint Designer
2. Open Master page with Edit in Advanced Mode
3. Add the below code just before the </BODY> tag

<script type="text/javascript">

    //change background color to black, unless DataSheet view

    if (document.location.href.indexOf("ShowInGrid") == -1) document.body.style.backgroundColor = "#000";

</script>

Summary

Blending anonymous and authenticated users on a single site can be challenging.  Enable anonymous read on all site content is generally not appropriate.  Anonymous users should only be granted a bare minimum set of permissions.  Enabling read on the “Site Pages” library works well to enable homepage viewing.  However, the challenge with this approach is that anonymous users then cannot “see” the root site (/) in order to be properly redirected with HTTP 302 (/SitePages/Home.aspx) to the homepage.

I recommend leveraging IIS 7 URL Rewrite to handle this direct at the IIS tier before SharePoint sees the HTTP request.   This way all root site (/) requests are correctly sent to the homepage – for both anonymous and authenticated users.

Action Steps

• Allow Anonymous on the Web Application
• Create root site collection (/)
• Enable Welcome homepage
• Enable Anonymous Access on “Lists and Libraries” under Site Settings
• Grant “View Items” permission on the Site Pages library
• Install IIS 7 URL Rewrite .MSI
• Create a new rule with Regular Expression (^$) and 302 Redirection (SitePages/Home.aspx)

Screenshots

Allow Anonymous on the Web Application

Create root site collection (/)

Enable Welcome homepage

Enable Anonymous Access for “Lists and Libraries” under Site Settings

Grant “View Items” permission on the Site Pages library

Install IIS 7 URL Rewrite .MSI

Download MSI from http://www.iis.net/download/urlrewrite and install on all web front ends (WFE)

Create a new rule with Regular Expression (^$) and 302 Redirection (SitePages/Home.aspx)

Hope that helps!

• Downloaded Windows Installer Clean Up utility (msicuu2.exe)
• Highlight any rows beginning with “Microsoft Office Web App …” and click “Remove”
• Reboot
• Run SharePoint 2010 install again

Error

• The install in progress conflicts with a previously installed Microsoft Office 2010 Server product.
• This product installation has been corrupted. Run setup again from the CD, DVD, or other original installation source.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dhirajm/archive/2010/06/20/how-to-manually-uninstall-the-microsoft-sharepoint-server-2007.aspx

Welcome Page

Clean easy to follow layout.  Standard stuff overall, but I like the use of icons and right hand side navigation pane.  Less is more.  Oh, and everything I did was with FireFox!  Full browser compatibility, not even a single hiccup.   The getting started documentation is concise, yet complete.   Everything I needed was only a click or two away.  Billing, licenses, and user accounts are all easy to find under the “Admin” tab.

Email is about what you’d expect.  Outlook Web Access 2010 with some 365 branding.

SharePoint Team Site to start with.   Pretty normal stuff here also.

For the full experience you’ll want to download Lync and other desktop MSI/EXE packages.

Service Health is a nice feature that shows a timeline of each cloud feature and status icon.

Microsoft Online Services Sign-in Assistant

You have to first download http://g.microsoftonline.com/0BX00en-US/427 for everything to work locally.   Full desktop applications (Lync, Access, Word, Excel, etc.) work best when they are integrated to your SharePoint site.   Generally corporations use Active Directory and this is already done, but with Office 365 we need an extra program to handle login.   Installation was quick and easy.

Access Services

I figured this was only SharePoint Foundation, and was really happy to see the various templates for “web databases” available.   Integration with Access 2010 locally was smooth and appears fully featured.  The only hiccup was authentication. 

Lync 2010

This is pretty cool stuff and worth more than $6/month by itself.   IM, video, live meetings, and desktop sharing. 

You also have granular control over which features are visible per user.  That could be handy for small businesses with fewer IT staff.

Internet Site

This feature I found to be the most interesting and it still seems to be a work in progress.   These aren’t normal Web Part Pages … nor are they HTML … they’re a new animal.   “Gadgets” replace web parts, but yet we still have zones.  Overall page editing seems reduced to a few basic toolbar buttons.   Probably still evolving, but I would guess this was done to reduce support calls (“I broke my page”).

Invite More Users

Few sales pitches are more compelling than a referral from a happy customer.   On several menus you’ll find a convenient place to invite more users to participate on the site.   That’s great from an ease of use perspective.   However, I’m not yet clear on how this dovetails into licensing costs.   You probably have to create user accounts and pay up first … then double back to grant permissions.

SharePoint Designer

Yes, SPD is available.  As best I can tell it hasn’t been restricted with the SharePoint web application controls available in 2010.   That’s good and bad.   It allows for flexibility, but you have to be careful not to break customized ASPX pages.   Workflows, permissions, and data connections are all here.

One important thing to notice on the overall tenant architecture is how the root site collection is basically just a placeholder for:

• Internet Pages (gadgets, about company, etc)
• Site Collection Features
• Other admin menus

Most all of the real content work happens on the /TeamSite/ child web.   However, if you want to manually type the URL suffix “/_layouts/viewlsts.aspx” and see the all site content for the root you can do that.   This might be a good trick to know for creating more sibling child webs.   For example, a local Access database could be published to “/Database” for a cleaner simpler URL.

Office Web Applications

We have Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote available.   Just click any icon on the “Home” tab to start a new document.  Easy enough.  Having an Office 365 P1 license doesn’t give me any desktop applications, but still this can be a great way to build a simple document from any PC.   Just like with on-premise OWA, some of the fun features are only available in the full desktop application.  Excel, for example, could not make a chart in the web browser.   However, after making a chart with desktop Excel I was able to view it from the browser.

• Download Windows 8 Developer Preview ISO 64-bit / 32-bit Now!
• Hands on: Windows 8 review

Add-SPSolution: Failed to extract the cab file in the solution.

References

• http://thorprojects.com/blog/archive/2008/01/21/stsadm-strikes-again-failed-to-extract-the-cab-file-in-the-solution-.aspx
• http://darrinbishop.com/blog/2008/08/failedtoextract

The instructions are pretty clear except for where to find the “rssrvpolicy.config” file.  Mine was under C:Program FilesMicrosoft SQL ServerMSRS10_50.MSSQLSERVERReporting ServicesReportServer.   Hope that helps.  If you’d like to learn Access Service 2010 on your system be sure to check out the Northwind 2010 Web Database at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/results.aspx?qu=northwind&ex=1    

Successful Report

Error Detail

• An error has occurred during report processing. (rsProcessingAborted)
  An attempt has been made to use a data extension ‘ADS’ that is either not registered for this report server or is not supported in this edition of Reporting Services. (rsDataExtensionNotFound)
• An error has occurred during report processing. (rsProcessingAborted)
  The Group expression for the grouping ‘Group1’ contains an error: Request for the permission of type ‘Microsoft.Office.Access.Server.Security.AccessServicesPermission, Microsoft.Office.Access.Server.Security, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c’ failed. (rsRuntimeErrorInExpression)

I still see the messages, but they come across less like a blaring three alarm fire and more like a gentle reminder. 

The SharePoint Health Analyzer has detected some critical issues that require your attention. View these issues. 

Before

After

CSS Code

Below is the internal code for a Content Editor Web Part to apply more calm color styling. 

   1: <style type="text/css"> 

   2: .s4-status-s4 

   3: { 

   4:     background-attachment:scroll; 

   5:     background-color:rgb(246, 246, 246); 

   6:     background-image:url("/_layouts/images/selbg.png"); 

   7:     background-position-x:left; 

   8:     background-position-top:top;    

   9:     background-repeat:repeat-x; 

  10:     border:1px 1px 1px 1px; 

  11:     border-color:#e0e0e0; 

  12: } 

  13: .s4-status-s4 a 

  14: { 

  15:     color:inherit; 

  16: } 

  17: .s4-status-s4 a:visited 

  18: { 

  19:     color:inherit; 

  20: } 

  21: </style>

For the really ambitious admin, you can hide the entire thing with a one liner.

   1: <style type="text/css">#s4-statusbarcontainer {visibility:hidden;display:none;}</style>

Download .DWP Web Part

Then you can easily import to your environment.