Without a doubt, SharePoint 2007 or MOSS 2007 is the most popular and sought-out skill from Microsoft Gold Partners and Customers across various industry sectors.

Eventhough, Microsoft has been constantly upgrading lot of new features with latest service pack releases, there are still some features & utilities which are desired by sharepoint developers.However, Codeplex contains many tools and utilities which are not only helpful for developers but to all people involved with Sharepoint portal. The following are some tools and utilities which caught my eye:

Community Kit for SharePoint 2007

The Community Kit for SharePoint is a set of best practices, templates, Web Parts, tools, and source code that enables practically anyone to create a community website based on SharePoint technology for practically any group of people with a common interest.

Vision / Scope:
The latest version of the Vision/Scope document, click here!

Import data from Spreadsheet into Sharepoint Lists

Import from Spreadsheet is the missing facet to the SharePoint 2007 List features. SharePoint let’s a user create custom list from a spreadsheet, but lacks the ability to import data to an existing SP list. This feature developed in C# .Net and easy to install will do just that.

Sharepoint Solution Installer

Sharepoint Solution Installer is a Windows application for an eased and more user friendly installation and deployment of SharePoint 2007 solution files to a SharePoint server farm. Distribute your SharePoint solution files with this installation program instead of a raw script using STSADM.EXE to install and deploy the solution.

SharePoint Branding Tool

To have a tool that can help ease up the effort required to manually change branding on multiple sites.

Functionality:
This tool can be used modify the following for multiple sites:
* Themes 
* CustomMasterUrl/MasterUrl (Master Page) 
* CSS and SiteImage Paths
* …and more

SharePoint Cross-Site Configurator

This tool automates the process of deploying the MOSS site settings in all or selected sites in a server farm as shown in the following list:

Note The Tool also enables IT administrators to customize the site settings to be deployed.

• Applying Master Pages across a SharePoint server farm.
• Setting up Web Titles for all or selected site collections across the farm.
• Applying audit control settings to all or selected sites.
• Adding advanced settings such as “Allow content type management” to all types of lists.
• Adding a new Expiration Policy at the site collection level.
• Adding a new Expiration Policy to content types, lists, and documents.

SharePoint 2007 Multiview Webpart

The Multiview webpart allows you to display data dynamically from different views or even different sharepoint lists or libraries based on certain conditions.

Currently, it supports two types of conditions:

1) Group Membership – You can show a particular view based on the Group Membership of the current user.

2) QueryString – You can pass a parameter (say ViewCase) in the Querystring to specify the particular view to show.

You can also opt to use both the above conditions to create another condition.

SharePoint Shared Services Search Provider

This is a neat little command utility that lets you do four things when moving a database from development environment to production environment.

- Accept  relevant inputs from the user

- Export all Managed properties

- Export Crawl properties and relevant categories

- Import Managed properties and map relevant crawl properties.

The above utility is more useful when migrating data from intranet website into extranet website.

Read more on this scenario from Sahil Malik’s blog from here

Keep watching this space for more…

automates the process of deploying the MOSS site settings in all or selected sites in a server farm as shown in the following list:

Note The Tool also enables IT administrators to customize the site settings to be deployed.

Applying Master Pages across a SharePoint server farm.

Setting up Web Titles for all or selected site collections across the farm.

Applying audit control settings to all or selected sites.

Adding advanced settings such as “Allow content type management” to all types of lists.

Adding a new Expiration Policy at the site collection level.

Adding a new Expiration Policy to content types, lists, and documents.

Recently, i heard one of my colleagues enquire about MVVM model. MVVM stands for Model-View-ViewModel in WPF framework (also called as Onyx).

Onyx is a framework that aids in the development of WPF applications that follow the Model-View-ViewModel pattern. The biggest reason for following this pattern is to allow you to unit test as much of your presentation logic as possible, without having to resort to fragile and difficult UI automation. What this generally means is that as much of the code as possible should be moved out of the View and it’s codebehind, and into the ViewModel. Unfortunately, it can often be very difficult to move logic into the ViewModel while not creating a tight coupling to the specific View, or to any UI framework code, which would cause unit testing to become much more difficult. Onyx uses a novel approach based on IServiceProvider which allows the ViewModel to interact with the View in an entirely decoupled and testable manner.

For more information about how to use Onyx, see the Introduction.

To read what others have said, see SeenOnWeb.

Enjoy…

Facebook.NET provides a .net library for use in developing Facebook applications and accessing Facebook APIs. The library primarily geared around and optimized for developing ASP.NET-based Web applications, both FBML and IFrame-based Facebook applications through an intuitive API and small set of server controls. It does support the use of the Facebook API from desktop applications as well, and will eventually enable Silverlight application usage.

The library is built on .NET 2.0, but should run on future versions of the .NET framework as well. Applications using Facebook.NET can be written in either C# or VB.NET.

The library is still in early form (some APIs haven’t been implemented yet, there are only a couple server controls: FacebookApplication, and FqlDataSource at the moment, etc.) but the intent is to grow this over the course of building some Facebook applications, and through community usage/feedback as well. Please help improve this project by submitting bugs and feature suggestions through the issues list, or if you have ideas that need more discussion, please submit them on the discussions forum.

Check out more information on this framework from here!

Steve Trefethen has posted a VS Starter Kit for getting started with Facebook development using Facebook.NET.

May be we can get Twitter.net next…:-)

Hi,

Microsoft has released Service Pack 2 for Microsoft Office system 2007 and the list of packages available can be found here:

http://blogs.technet.com/office_sustained_engineering/archive/2009/04/23/service-pack-2-for-the-2007-microsoft-office-system-available-today.aspx 

Enjoy!

Hi All,

Microsoft has recently announced Microsoft Office System Service Pack 2 (includes MOSS 2007 SP2) which is due to be released on 28th April 2009.

You can get more information on the new features and updates available in MOSS 2007 SP2 from here:

http://blogs.technet.com/office_sustained_engineering/archive/2008/10/22/announcing-service-pack-2-sp2-for-the-2007-microsoft-office-system.aspx

and here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/dmahugh/archive/2008/05/21/office-support-for-document-format-standards.aspx

Keep watching this space for more…

MSDN has released a new set of virtual labs for Visual Studio 2008 & .Net framework 3.5 for anyone willing to get their hands dirty with silverlight, wcf, wpf, rest and more. Check them out from below:

• Build Data-driven Web Applications – Fast

             ASP.NET Dynamic Data provides a framework that lets you quickly build a functional data-driven application, based on a LINQ to SQL Server or Entity Framework data model. It also adds great flexibility and functionality to the DetailsView, FormView, GridView and ListView controls with smart validation and the ability to easily change the display of these controls using templates. In this lab you’ll learn how to create a data-driven web application, add validation to the data model and customise ASP.NET Dynamic Data rendering, pages and fields.

• ASP.NET AJAX – Back / Forward Navigation

An inherent problem with AJAX-style applications is browser navigation. If users click the browser’s Back button, the browser doesn’t return to a previous state of the page by default. Instead, it unloads the page entirely and returns to the page that was displayed before your page was started. Usually, that’s not what the user intended. You can manage history (Back and Forward button navigation) to provide a more logical and natural navigation model in your web application. As the page developer, you control the state required to recreate the page, by managing history navigation in both server and client code, just by defining points in your application that act like bookmarks.

• Introduction to the .NET Framework Client Profile

The .NET Framework Client Profile was created in response to feedback from many customers that indicated that a smaller framework was needed specifically for client applications. The Client Profile is a subset of assemblies already contained within .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 (SP1). After completing this lab, you’ll be better able to target your client projects to the .NET Framework 3.5 Client Profile and verify which assembly references are not included in the Client Profile.

• Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and REST

WCF simplifies development of connected applications through a service-oriented programming model. WCF supports many styles of distributed application development by providing a layered architecture. WCF features support for the RESTful design of web services within the unified WCF programming model. Support for REST and POX style services are now directly supported by the .NET Framework version 3.5.

• Develop an Outlook Add-in

Create applications that are more familiar to end-users with Microsoft Office applications. Add-ins make it a snap to build your own features into Microsoft Office applications. Visual Studio Tools for Office, an integral technology of Visual Studio 2008, includes features that simplify add-in development. Once you’ve completed this lab, you’ll know how to bind Ribbon Events to WCF Service methods, create form regions and host a Windows Presentation Framework Custom Control.

• Build Outstanding End-user Experiences with Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)

WPF provides a unified framework for building applications and high-fidelity experiences in Windows that blend together application UI, documents and media content, while exploiting the full power of the local computing hardware. WPF was created to allow developers to more easily build the types of rich applications that were difficult to build with Windows Forms, the type that required a range of other technologies that were often hard to integrate.

Work through this lab, and you’ll learn how to use Visual Studio 2008 Designer to build a WPF client application, see how LINQ features can be used against a Microsoft SQL Server database, see how to access a WCF-based service after generating a Service Reference and put some of the new language features of C# to work.

• Using LINQ to SQL Server with the .NET Framework 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008

LINQ is a set of extensions to the .NET Framework that encompasses language-integrated query, set and transform operations. It extends C# and Visual Basic with native language syntax for queries and provides class libraries to take advantage of these capabilities. LINQ to SQL Server provides a runtime infrastructure for managing relational data as objects without losing the ability to query. Your application is free to manipulate the objects while LINQ to SQL Server stays in the background, tracking your changes automatically. Complete this lab and you’ll be able to:

• Use the LINQ to SQL Server Designer to create LINQ to SQL Server entity classes and associations (relationships) based on tables in a database
• Manage the DataContext and ‘how-to-use where’ clauses, perform joins, order the results and handle conflict detection
• Use LINQ to SQL Server to implement a resource access layer that interacts with an existing Microsoft SQL Server database.

• Build AJAX/JSON Services with WCF

JavaScript Object Notation (or JSON), an open and text-based data exchange format that provides a standardised data exchange format better suited for Ajax-style web applications. This lab will show you how to create and configure a WCF service that uses JSON serialization, in addition to demonstrating how to consume the WCF service from client-side code, including ASP.NET AJAX controls and JavaScript that you write.

• Silverlight Monster Factory – Using a XAML Template

Microsoft Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET-based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the web. Silverlight offers a flexible programming model that supports AJAX, Visual Basic, C#, Python and Ruby, and integrates with existing web applications. Silverlight supports fast, cost-effective delivery of high-quality video to major browsers running on the Mac OS or Windows.

In this lab, you will use Expression Design and Visual Studio 2008 to build a monster factory website, and also learn how to create XAML pictures and consume them using Silverlight and Javascript from a website.

Enjoy!

Main advantages of using Bizmock:

BizMock is a new framework used for quick testing of BizTalk orchestrations, maps and more.Create unit tests with regular C# MS tests, enhanced with a fluent interface API and a TDD approach. Use its mocking capabilities, to avoid relying on dependent infraestructure like web services or DBs.

The following list shows all the standard artifact types that BizMock offers:

•  
  • One way Receive location
  • One way send port
  • Request Response receive location
  • Solicit Response port
  • Message instance
  • Message verifier
  • Map
  • Database
  • Event log
  • Business rule
  • Pipeline

• Rapid testing of Biztalk scenarios ( no more excuses to not test biztalk code)
• No need to leave the Visual Studio IDE
• We use regular Visual Studio C# Unit Tests code ( no puzzling xml) .
• Type Safe API
• Favors agile iterative development cycles with continous Integration.
• No need to rely on real implementations of dependent infraestructure like web services, Databases, etc. ( isolated on the developer machine or build server )
• Increasead level of abstraction thanks to its Domain Driven Design approach and fluent interface.
• Rapid and guided development thanks to intelisense and its fluent interface API.
• Reusability of domain artifacts across tests, like ports, messages, verifiers etc.
• Extensibility model to allow the creation of new artifacts, actions, and expectations types over time and reused across solutions
• Leverages DDT ( Data Driven Test)

Download this TDD framework from here.

Enjoy!

Microsoft Press is giving away 40% Discount on selective 25 books to celebrate their 25th Anniversary.

Some of the books include:

Introducing Microsoft Silverlight 2.0 2nd Edition

Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Step by Step 3rd Edition,

Programming Microsoft ASP.NET 3.5

MCTS Self Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-503): Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Windows Communication Foundation Book/DVD/CD Package

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 T-SQL Fundamentals

Check this offer from here.

Enjoy!

Microsoft has released WCF Champ which not only contains all information for beginners, intermediate and experts on WCF, WCF Services, etc but also contains information about REST, Azure .Net Services, WCF and WF in .Net 4.0 and more…

 

Check out WCF Champ from here.

 

Enjoy!

Microsoft has released the much talked about version of BizTalk Server 2009 (previously known as BizTalk Server 2006 R3) for MSDN subscribers on friday.

The following are the different versions available on MSDN:

• BizTalk Server 2009 Branch Edition (x86) – DVD (English)
• BizTalk Server 2009 Developer Edition (x86) – DVD (English)
• BizTalk Server 2009 Enterprise Edition (x86) – DVD (English)
• BizTalk Server 2009 Line of Business Adapters (x86) – CD (English)
• BizTalk Server 2009 Accelerators Standard Edition (x86) – CD (English)
• BizTalk Server 2009 Accelerators Enterprise Edition (x86) – CD (English)
• BizTalk Server 2009 Adapters for Host Systems 2.0 Developer Edition (x86) – CD (English)
• BizTalk Server 2009 Adapters for Host Systems 2.0 Enterprise Edition (x86) – CD (English)

Whats news in BizTalk Server 2009?

This version of BizTalk Server now provides support to 

• Windows Server 2008
• Visual Studio 2008 SP1
• SQL Server 2008
• .Net Framework 3.5 SP1

In particular this version has greater scalability and reliability, new Hyper-V virtualization support, and many advances in the latest developer tools

BizTalk Server 2009 also provides support for some top features including a

• new UDDI v3-compliant services registry,
• new and enhanced LOB adapters (Oracle E-Business Suite, SQL Server),
• enhanced host systems integration (updates to MQ, CICS, IMS, CICS),
• a new Mobile RFID platform and management tools,
• enhanced B2B capabilities (updates to EDI, AS2, SWIFT),
• enhanced support for Business Activity Monitoring (BAM)
• enhanced developer and team productivity through ALM (Application Lifecycle Management) integration with Team Foundation System andVisual Studio, and 
• new release of ESB Guidance 2.0 patterns and practices.

BizTalk Server 2009 also adds a new Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) WebSphere MQ channel by providing the transport, data formatter and encoder to integrate directly with WebSphere MQ via WCF and a new WCF Service for Host Applications has been added to expose the traditional Transaction Integrator to .NET Framework developers.  

Burley Kawasaki who is director of product management in the Connected Systems Division at Microsoft, said future releases following BizTalk Server 2009 will address enterprise connectivity, enterprise visibility and support for the latest platform technologies. Future releases will feature developer productivity enhancements such as complex mapping, enhanced B2B support, complex trading partner management, expanded industry standards and schemas and low-latency messaging enhancements and ESB guidance. Future releases also will feature enhanced device support, business intelligence and BAM enhancements and will continue to take advantage of the latest advances in the .NET Framework, Visual Studio, and Windows Server, Kawasaki said.

Keep watching this space for more…