Not sure what it fixes - but it's gotta help!

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=B57C805D-2821-4625-A6F1-80725267F887&displaylang=en

I truly wish you haven't been wasting as much time as I have this week with SharePoint anonymous access and a custom master page.

I have a site that uses a custom membership provider, forms authentication, anonymous access and a custom master page.  My problems were many but in the end the main one was getting anonymous access to the home page.  This would always give me an ugly 401 error.

After a good nights sleep and with a clear head, I finally realised that the problem was not with Pages/default.aspx but with it's masterpage which as not deployed correctly.  I had missed putting type="GhostableInLibrary" into the file node of the module:

  <Module Name="MasterPages" Url="_catalogs/masterpage" Path="" RootWebOnly="TRUE" >
    <File Path="mine.master" Url="mine.master" Type="GhostableInLibrary" IgnoreIfAlreadyExists="FALSE" />
  </Module>

It's the little things that can really screw you!

TGIF.

If you are having problems creating a State Machine workflow for SharePoint in VB (and I really dont know why you would want to use VB but... :) then you may see an error about missing files, Workflow1.layout and Workflow1.resx.  If this is the case then you need to copy these files from the C# Project Tempalte zip to the VB version.  Full details are in the following blog post comments- it's a long one so search for workflow1.layout to find it.

http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2006/06/07/introduction-to-sharepoint-workflow.aspx

A blog-less colleage of mine, Bryce, just discovered redirects in IIS 6, which is something new for me also.  Bloody useful if you are moving site content around, moving servers or just want to make URL's more friendly.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/WindowsServer2003/Library/IIS/41c238b2-1188-488f-bf2d-464383b1bb08.mspx?mfr=true

This is particularly relevant for sites with really long and complex URL's, e.g.: SharePoint, in which case you should also read:  http://www.toddklindt.com/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=48

To create a forms library definition with VSeWSS 1.1 is very easy.  You can similarly create a list definition based on a content type.  However, you cant automatically create a forms library with an attached content type.

This is how I did it.

1. Create your content type
2. Create a temporary list based on the content type
3. Create a form library list
4. Edit the forms lib schema.xml
1. Copy the content type fields from the temporary list schema to the <Fields> node.
2. Update the <List> node, adding:
   
   

3. BaseType="1"
   Direction="0"
   EnableContentTypes="TRUE"

4. In <ContentTypes> optionally remove the base Form content type reference if you only want to allow the specific content type:

   <ContentTypeRef ID="0x010101"> ... </ContentTypeRef>

5. Add a new <ContentTypeRef> that has the ID that matches the content type you created in step 1.

5. Delete the temporary list definition
6. Deploy and cheer!

 

Here's a small trick that confused me for a while this morning.  VSeWSS creates a setup.bat & .wsp file that will deploy a site definition into a specified server.  Running setup.bat from the command prompt appears to be the obvious way to do that.  You can also override the default web and site urls, e.g:

setup /weburl http://myserver /siteurl http://myserver

The default being localhost (or whatever you developed against).

However, this was failing for me becuase the specified web did not yet have a root site collection and some part of the site definition (web parts) were scoped to the site.

The solution is to create a blank site using stsadm thus:

stsadm -o createsite -url http://myserver -ownerlogin administrator -owneremail me@myemail.com

Then you can deploy the site defintion using setup.bat. When you browse to the new site you will be prompted with a list of possible site definitions.

Like all things SharePoint this is easy and obvious when you know...

 

No, not mine, but this one.  http://nickgrattan.wordpress.com.  There is lots of useful material here on many SharePoint topics.

Does anyone have a list of quality SharePoint blogs?  Maybe I'll start one here...

When deploying a solution to a site you can sometimes get errors that are not picked up during compilation.  For example, we created a Content Type that contained a field with an inccorrect BaseType of "Person" rather than "User".  This compiled just fine but fails on the first deploy.  It then failed to compile after deploying.

To fix this is easy enough - remember to update the content type xml as well as the generated schema.xml - but Visual Studio can get it's nickers in a knot and will not be able to deploy the corrected solution.

You need to manually remove the solution using the setup.bat that is created during deployment. Run setup.bat from the bin\debug or bin\release folder thus: 

    setup /u

Then IISReset.

If you try to redeploy with Visual Studio you may now get an error that talks about an "invariant language"  - sorry, I didn't save this error message when it happened.  You will need to restart Visual Studio to clear this error.

I'm in lovely sunny Wellington this week working on some WSS samples using the Visual Studio Extensions for Windows SharePoint Services 1.1 (or more easily pronounced VissyWiss).  One of the samples requires the use of a Module Project Item.  There is surprisingly little documentation - official or otherwise - on what a module does and how to use it - at least, not that we can find.  So, here's my contribution - hopefully correct.

A Module Project Item is used to deploy files to any(?) part of your WSS installation.  You specify the source of the item to copy as a file path relative to the module, and the destination as a url path relative to the site root.  This all sounds very simple, but the problem is that there are 2 urls and 2 paths so there are several permitations possible and not all of them work!

When you add a Module Project Item to your project (Site def, Empty def etc) you will get an XML file called Module.xml in a folder.  Our one looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Elements Id="b43cb805-eebf-421a-83d3-c2a6cb8afa10" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
  <Module Name="module_training" Url="images">
    <File Url="WORD_icon.jpg" Path="module_training\WORD_icon.jpg" Type="Ghostable" />
  </Module>
</Elements>


Module Url: This is where the files will be copied to.  The url is relative to the site root.
File Path: Path to the file relative to the project in Visual Studio.
File Type: This can only be Ghostable or GhostableInLibrary.  You can only use GhostableInLibrary if the module Url is for a List, such as Shared Documents.

<Module> also has a Path attribute but we dont need it for this operation.

The module will create folders if they dont exist so in the above example we are copying an image to the root images folder, but this could easily be "customimages" and the folder will be created.

There's more to Modules but that is all I have for now.  I'll update when I know how to do Wildcards :)

Rod is a frequent poster on the subject of broadcast TV. I agree totally with his latest comments and suggestions, but I'd just like to add my little bit.

I dont have an AppleTV or an iPod or iTunes stuff but I do have a Media capable PC connected to a 42" LCD TV.  I dont use Media Center as a) I dont have TV tuners in the PC and b) there are no guides for TV programmes (yes you can hack it but Ive tried and got too frustrated) and c) Media Center just gets in the way when your downloading stuff - you still have to revert to Windows Explorer and a browser.

I also dont like the idea of paying for TV so I dont have Sky (plus all the repeat screenings and self promotion drive me nuts). 

However, I do pay for RapidShare which is were I get all my downloads from. Yes, this a moral disgrace and while I can't legally justify it, in my defence I would like to say that I mostly download TV shows that are (or one day might be :) free to air in New Zealand.  I also don't give away stuff I've downloaded - at least not too often, maybe 10%.

So, it occurs to me that if TV NZ, or whoever has the balls, wants to charge a reasonable amount for access to full legal ondemand TV then I'd probably sign up.  I might even consider tollerating a few advertisements - like 1 per half hour.  And they should also have a great selection of program - not the usual crap that passes as quality TV (CSI, Boston Legal, Lost etv (OMG dont get me started)).

Of course 'reasonable amount' is a very subjective term. For me this would have to be a lot less than Sky but could be more than RapidShare - say $15 or $20 a month.  I think this is very unlikely in over priced New Zealand so I'll continue to infringe copyright until broadcast TV dies and/or I run out of disk space or bandwidth.

Today I received a correction to a post I did on SharePoint last year.  My erroneous statement was causing a few queries to be sent to Microsoft.  For this I am truly sorry, but in my defense I did check my facts first - like all good reporters I blame my sources!

Anyway, that got me thinking about correcting blog posts.  I've seen debate about this in the past and my philosophy has always been:

• correct only factual errors but leave the original text intact
• never delete a blog post unless under court order
• be careful what you say BEFORE you post

My temper and inpatients often get me into trouble so there are a few blog posts here that I could remove or edit, yet, I wont.  Better to see me warts and all I think. 

What do you thnk?

Microsoft have just release v 1.1 of the Visual Studio Extensions for WSS - VSEWSS.  These work with Visual Studio 2005 and offer a few enhancements of the 1.0 release.  There will be another release mid year that will add support for VS08.

WSS dev is a huge hairy beast and it can be hard to get started - or even figuring out where to start. The best part about new release is the user guide that is provided with VSEWSS.  This is something that some clever chaps at Intergen have been working on.  I provided some very minimal input reviewing their work which is basically providing me with some free training in exchange for fixing a few typos!  The user guide will improve over the next few months as we add more sections so keep checking for updates.

Get it here:

VSeWSS 1.1

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3E1DCCCD-1CCA-433A-BB4D-97B96BF7AB63&displaylang=en

 

User Guide

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=a8a4e775-074d-4451-be39-459921f79787&DisplayLang=en

Lately, I often find myself repeating a little mantra:

   Keep it simple
   Keep it simple
   Keep it simple

   Ohhhhmmmmmmmmm.

This usually happens when it's too late, when I'm bogged down 5 layers deep in SQL or CAML, when Ive spent 3 hours googling for a solution to a problem and only found half answers in Polish.

Some observations:

• Complexity is often the result of too much simplicity.
• Too much abstraction moves you away from a solution.
• Everyone is busy.
• You can't polish a turd.

I'm working towards a point here so stick with me. I'll be more specific.  SharePoint.

SharePoint is big.  Really big.  "So big that you can't even imagine it" big.  It's not bad, just big.  Big things tend to be more complex.  Complex is harder.  Harder takes longer and therefore costs more.

At the other end of the scale is NotePad. Anyone who can use a computer should be able to use NotePad.  It's functional, uncomplicated, stable(?) and I think elegant.

Here's some more observations:

• The world is a complex place. It's full of complex human beings.
• Business often needs solutions for humans.  These tend to be complex too. SharePoint is designed to solve complex solutions.  I'm not going to use NotePad for anything other than to edit a occasional text file.
• Clarity can only be acheived when all solutions are explored.
• Complexity and Simplicity are relative and not mutually exclusive.

My point is this.  We should not be scared of complexity.  Simlicity is an admirable goal but not when its at the cost of solving a problem.  We need a way of managing and dealing with complexity.  I'm sure there are many people much smarter than I devoting themselves to exactly this problem, but here is my small contribution.

1. Avoid complexity but don't be afraid of it.
2. Compartmentalise complex solutions into managable chuncks.
3. Focus what is infront of you. 
4. Be patient but follow the 20 minute rule (see below).
5. The next version will always be better but the previous version is often good enough.

My 20 Minute Rule

You can adjust the time up or down to suit, but my 20 minute rule is this:  If I can't figure out how to use/do something in 20 minutes - without a manual  - then it's too hard or complex.

This doesn't mean I give up, it just means I need to learn more before attempting it again.

If you are a regular reader of my blog - and I think there is still one person - Hi Mum! - then you will have noticed that my blogging frequency and quality has been very low for quite a while.  The truth is I have lost some enthusiasm to blog.  I've often started to write blogs and think "what a load of twaddle" and hit cancel.

My choices are to continue on drip feeding or pull finger and start writing about something useful.  My ego still enjoys seeing my face and words on the Internet so there is not way I'd pull this site :)  The only sensible thing left to do is commit to doing some regular posting.

So, to that end, I hearby declare my intention to post at least twice a week.  Topics will include anything I'm working on - Sharepoint, EPiServer, general .Net, SQL etc - community activity - user groups etc - and an occassional option or rant about something that gets me wound up - which is pretty easy to do.

If you are a regular reader (Hi Mum!!) and you noitce me slipping again, please feel free to remind me of my pledge or publically humiliate me in some non-photoshop way.

Now... off to do my first one.

It's been a while since I've blogged about EPiServer (or anything) but today I heard that Service Pack 1 for EPiServer 5 CMS has been released.  It contains quite a few bug fixes and a few minor changes.  The one new significant thing for me is the improved support for ASP.Net profiles. 

You can get the full details here.

I guess it's going to be a while yet before we need to memorise al these new tags, but there are some major changes and a lot of nice new things coming along in HTML 5. Definately worth a read.  I particularly like the things they have left out - especially framesets!

My Christmas project was to create a new house for our chickens that was easier to clean than the last one - which was realy just an oversized dog kennel - which you can see behind sticking out from behind the new version in this phone photo:

I used some plans from buildeazy.com which made things a lot simpler, but I did make a few changes.  The coop has a window at the rear which I got from a local demolition yard for $65.  There's a lot of timber in this design, probably more than the chickens appreciate, but at least it will never blow away in the strong winds we get.

All up, I think it cost about $NZ1000.  A local business sells ready made units for about $NZ800-$NZ900 but they are quite a bit smaller and nowhere as sturdy as this one.

I recently found an excellent series of posts that describe how to customise the UI in Scarepoint.

http://www.cleverworkarounds.com/category/sharepoint/

There's a LOT of other useful stuff in this blog - regular reading I think.

 

This is very cool!  The solution for my previous SharePoint Designer issue is to Extend the Web Application.

Extending is intended to allow you to have multiple versions of the same site in different zones, ie, Intranet and Internet - otherwise known as Extranet.  Each version of the web application can have it's own authentication mechanism. In my case I have the custom membership provider for the external site and the standard Windows authentication for internal users.

SharePoint Designer (and presumably InfoPath) now connects without issue.

Very very cool!

Loving Sharepoint again today :)

When using SharePoint Designer to open a MOSS site with a custom membership provider, I get this error:

Oh, that's sooo helpful!

I was commenting the other day at the office that 3 months ago, no-one was doing anything with SharePoint and now there are five of us.  Sadly, I am one of them :(

As per previous posts I tend to either love or hate SharePoint.  The cycle of mixed emotions is continuous and ever increasing in velocity.  Fairly soon, it will be a blur and I will feel either suicidal or manically happy.

However, over the last month or so I have learnt a lot about MOSS, InfoPath, Forms Services, Workflow and other related stuff.  This is the project:

1. MOSS is exposed to the Internet and the UI is customised with SharePoint Designer so it looks half decent.
2. User logs into site - site is configured with custom membership and role providers that uses a SQL database.  The database contains data from MS CRM and other stuff.  Someone else in the office has created a membership provider that talks directly the the MS CRM web services but in this case we didn't want to do this - the customer does not have the CRM Internet connector license.
3. User browses the site and clicks a button to view an InfoPath form in the browser.
4. The form displays data from web services and lists. 
5. User can save a draft of the form or submit it.  The form is submitted to a form library in SharePoint.
6. A workflow attached to the form library sends the form's xml via a custom Workflow Activity to a web service.
7. The Web Service inserts the XML into a Word DOCX file and emails the file to a couple of address.

Along the way, I've discovered a few things so I thought it was about time I documented and shared a few tips.

Today's tip follows...

Another Code Camp bites the dust. 

Things that went well:

• Great speakers and topics.  It never ceases to amaze me that these guys will give up their precious weekend and pay for themselves to travel all over the country to speak at community events like this. 
• Attendance.  This was the first 'mainland' Code Camp so our expectation were not high for a huge audience, but I was very please with the turn out.  We had 130 registrations and only 20-ish no-shows.  Anything less than 20% for a free event is pretty fantastic I think.  I also expected a lot less attendees on Sunday, but most suck around and were rewarded with some great sessions.
• Catering.  Subway was a big hit and the cost was very competitive - much cheaper than anything else we have used before.
• Volunteers.  I spent most of the weekend listening to speakers and making sure everything was running sweetly.  I had plenty of time to relax thanks to the fantastic job done by a great bunch of volunteers.  Thanks again to Dan, Bryn, Chris C, Chris F, Simeon, Dave & Gary.
• Weather.  Despite predictions of rain, the weather was lovely.

Things that went badly:

• Only thing I can think of - we ran out of milk late on Saturday :)

 

So, on balance, I think that was pretty successful!  I think a repeat next year will be possible - but I don't want to think about that just yet.

JB & JD are up on Channel 9, talking about MindScape and Lightspeed with Ron Jacobs.

Maybe I'm mistaken but it seems like there are a lot more Kiwi's doing great things with software and getting noticed more often.

I'm not a very good googler.  Others in the office seem to find the right answer quickly when I can spend an hour searching and not finding what I want. Today I spend 2 hours trying to solve this problem.

When you have a secondary data source that uses a web service, InfoPath lets you specify the input parameters.

You can set the value here to any simple data type.  However, it's not immediately apparent how you would set the value to a variable data item.  In this case I wanted to fetch some data for the currently logged in user.  This data is then used to pre-populate the form.

InfoPath has a username() function.  To use this to specify the value to the web service you need to create a rule for the Form.

1. Select Tools/Form Options.
2. Select Open and Save.
3. Click Rules.
4. Add a new rule.
5. Add an action to set a field value.
6. For the field, select your web service as the data source and the input parameter you want to set.
7. Set the value to a function or some other calculated value.
8. Add more actions if you have more input parameters.
9. Add a final rule to submit the query for the web service.

Ensure that the data connection for the web service has the "Automatically retrieve data when form is opened" option turned off.

The complete instructions for this were located here.

Scott Guthrie has blogged that MS will be releasing the source for .Net 3.5 Base Class Libraries.  He also said "later this year" which might be a hint for a release date for VS 08.

I remember back a few years when I was using Delphi. It shipped with the source for it's base libraries (VCL) and I often referred to this to find out why things worked the way they did - or not.  When I switched to .Net, I missed this for quite a while.

This is a huge  benefit to developers and will help to remove any remaining barriers that some OS zealots like to rant about. Well done!

Oh, what a difference a couple of weeks of head-bashing can make.

Last week I created a new Virtual Machine with WSS, MOSS, VS 2005, WSS SDK, MOSS SDK, Forms Services etc.  I also setup Forms authentication on this using the SQLMembershipProvider.  Sweet!  I had a few hiccups installing and configuring but that's what undo disks are for :). 

Yesterday and today I converted a 6 page word document form to InfoPath and uploaded to my forms server.  It took 10 minutes to get this working as a web enabled form.  Now I just need to create a custom workflow for WSS as an installable feature, some aspx pages, a few WSS lists, some content customisation, integration with CRM, a web service to publish submitted forms to a document management system using OpenDoc and about 20 more forms.  Piece of cake!

In the past, my attempts to us InfoPath and WSS were less enjoyable.  It turns out that a lot of my previous pain was caused by a bad WSS/MOSS install and  using InfoPath on a Virtual PC VM (copy & paste doesn't work well).  While I do still have a few grumbles, I can say that at the moment I love SharePoint - no Matt, not as much as my wife, but it's getting up there :)

There is not a day goes by where I don't use a virtual machine for development or testing.  Same goes for Remote Desktop.  I couldn't work without either.  However, remoting into a machine - be it real or virtual - means I lose the benefit of having dual monitors.  VMWare supports dual monitors I'm told but we use Virtual PC and Virtual Server.

But, never fear, /span is here!  Yes, if you launch Remote Desktop aka MSTSC.exe (Terminal Services Client) using the command line switch /span then it will extend the desktop across both monitors.  This is not the same as dual monitors - it's really just making 1 really wide desktop - but it's good enough for me.  Now I can develop on virtual machines almost as well as real machines.

Oh, and in case you didn't know, you can also use /console to connect to an existing session on a remote machine.  This is as close to a real login as you can get.  You may also find this necessary when installing software.  Some application installs will tell you it cant run when your logged in remotely - /console will bypass this.

I've been doing a bit more walking these days, trimming up for summer and saving on gas. I decided I would walk faster with some sounds. I already have my iMate SP5 with a 2 gig flash card and media player on it.  However the standard ear plugs that come with the sp5 look and feel like giant silver bolts. 

Then I saw these blue tooth stereo headsets.  

 

SP5's sourced from VodaPhone in New Zealand don't include the stereo blue tooth features that the SP5 is capable of.  For these to work, your phone must support A2DP - whatever that is.

What you'll need

1. Get the instructions and discussions here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=263735&highlight=a2dp.  The download (tornado_a2dp.zip) is linked from the first message in this lengthy discussion. 
2. Open the zip and read the readme.txt. 
3. You can get most of the tools listed in here from http://wiki.xda-developers.com/index.php?pagename=ApplicationUnlocking.
4. You may need to unlock your phone.  You can get those tools and instructions from here: http://www.spv-developers.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=620. 
5. The tornado readme says you can import the .reg file using MobileRegistryEditor, but I couldn't see how to do this - there is only an export option.  So, I had to manually edit the registry.  BE CAREFUL - BE VERY CAREFUL! Do an export of the registry before changing anything. I neglected to do this or even write down the original values before changing them but I got lucky. 

Now, I'm completely confused by most of this but I can follow instructions and thankfully, once you find the correct information and tools this works pretty well. I did have one scare.  After restarting my phone at the end of these instructions it froze while loading the SIM card pin number input.  A battery removal restart fixed this though.  Phew!

The headset has good quality sound, is very easy to use and the battery has lasted for 2 days so far.  You charge them with a USB cable and they include a nifty charger with a USB connecter and cable - useful for many USB devices I think.  The right hand ear has controls to play, pause, answer call, go back and forward a track and change the volume. 

They do cut out occasionally while I'm walking around town, but I find that if I have my phone on my right hip or in a top pocket then this doesn't happen nearly as much.  Sitting in the car or at my desk listening to music is just fine. 

I've also found that if you answer a call using the button on the headset then music will not resume after the call ends.  In fact, starting the music from the phone does not work either.  It seems to loose connection to the headset for music only.  When this happened the first time I turn off blue tooth on the SP5 and the music started playing through the phone speaker, so it was in fact running all the time.  However, if you use the phone to answer and end the call then the music restarts as you'd expect.

The quality of phone calls is also pretty good.  I do feel like a complete dweeb talking without holding a phone to my ear, but you quickly get used to this.  People I have talked to on the phone say they can hear me ok, but there is a bit of transfer or wind and traffic noise.

You can get the i.Tech BlueBand R headset for $160 from flashcards.co.nz, who, by the way, have a fantastic service.

 

And thanks to the guys at GeekZone.co.nz - it's the best resource for this sort of phone hacking.