This week I am in Seattle with some colleagues at the SharePoint Conference 2008. There have been many great sessions with a lot of good information. Here are some tidbits that I found most helpful. See below for some info about my four favorite sessions from days one and two. Where available I have included links to the session presentations as well as links to helpful tools or code that were mentioned during the sessions.
I particularly enjoyed the sessions presented by Andrew Connell and Todd Baginski. Andrew mentioned a number of great tools that will help us to take advantage of the power of the SharePoint feature/solution framework by streamlining the process of generating and deploying the required files. Todd gave a great overview of the BDC and mentioned a few tools that will generate the metadata needed create BDC applications and entities.
I plan to post again later in the week with highlights from days three and four, so check back for additional links and updates.
Silverlight BluePrint for SharePoint (Patrick Tisseghem)
Learn how to leverage Web 2.0 technologies to build a rich and interactive end-user experiences for SharePoint sites and content using the Microsoft Silverlight Blueprint for SharePoint. Topics covered are: building ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 enabled Web Parts; creating and consuming SharePoint Web Services that are AJAX-enabled; Web Parts hosting Silverlight applications; techniques to have the Silverlight applications communicated back and forth with SharePoint content such as items in lists and libraries, user profile information and search results; samples of how publishing portals can be enriched with Silverlight navigation controls and enhanced page layouts; demos on how to build Windows Vista Gadgets that display SharePoint content using traditional UI techniques as well as using Silverlight.
Download Presentation
Links to more information about the blueprint:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/cc303301.aspx
http://www.ssblueprints.net/sharepoint/
How to Manage Deployment for Multi-Project MOSS Solutions (Ben Robb)
If you are planning on using SharePoint to run a large intranet or public-facing website that has ongoing maintenance and multiple projects with different release cycles, you will be faced with challenges around how to successfully manage this in a Microsoft Office SharePoint Server environment. Learn how to leverage industry-standard processes for continuous integration and automated builds to streamline your deployment process between different environments, using MSBuild, Team Foundation Server and the SharePoint Solution, Feature and Content Deployment frameworks.
Download Presentation
Stay tuned for more information to be posted on the presenter’s blog:
http://www.sharepointblogs.com/benrobb/default.aspx
Structured Approach to Building MOSS 2007 Publishing Sites (Andrew Connell)
“SharePoint doesn’t support source control.” “SharePoint doesn’t follow good SDL or change control processes.” “Developers have to use SharePoint Designer to create Publishing sites.” Heard these before? Guess what? All these myths are completely untrue. Unlike many traditional SharePoint projects, Publishing sites frequently require following an organization’s change control process, software development lifecycle processes, and integration within source control. Not only is it possible to follow all of these common development guidelines in SharePoint, it is a lot easier than you may think. In this session take a look at how this is possible by obtaining a better grasp of the inner workings of SharePoint, how you can make sure your development team leverages this, as well as some tips and tricks in how to achieve it.
Download Presentation
Tools for feature/solution creation and management:
AC’s CodeRush/Refactor Tools for SharePoint Devs
“Additions for CodeRush & Refactor! Pro Visual Studio productivity add-ins. These include a dynamic list for SharePoint types, XML templates addressing the various XML files we use in SharePoint (eg: Feature schema, solution schema, field type definitions, *.webpart files, etc) as well as some refactorings.”
http://andrewconnell.com/blog/archive/2007/08/21/6095.aspx
http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog/articles/ProductivityToolsForSharePointDevelopers.aspx
STSDEV: Simple Tools for SharePoint Development
“STSDEV is a proof-of-concept utility application which demonstrates how to generate Visual Studio project files and solution files to facilitate the development and deployment of templates and components for the SharePoint 2007 platform including Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS). Note that the current version of the stsdev utility only supports creating projects with the C# programming language.”
http://www.codeplex.com/stsdev
Registry settings for right-click to add solution
“To save a bit of time I’ve created a simple .REG file, which when merged into your regsitry allows you to right-click the .WSP and choose Add Solution.”
http://www.harbar.net/archive/2007/04/25/Rightclick-a-.WSP-to-Add-Solution.aspx
AC’s WCM Custom Commands for STSADM
“In the process of developing a Publishing site (aka: WCM site) in MOSS 2007, I’ve been building a few utilities that have helped me in accomplishing my goal, and I’ve decided to share these. This page contains my custom STSADM.EXE commands I’ve written for Web Content Management (WCM) developers. I’ll use this page to serve as my documentation, making available the latest build of my custom commands, etc.”
http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog/articles/MossStsadmWcmCommands.aspx
Exporting List Definitions
“I have created a custom StsAdm command called ocdexportlist (ocd stands for One Click Deployment – the development strategy we have designed and developed together with some custom tools. More about OCD coming soon). I will try to publish the command before I go to the Microsoft Office System Developer Conference 2008. Stay in touch for updates.”
http://www.sharepointblogs.com/tmt/archive/2008/02/04/exporting-list-definitions-in-a-development-environment-using-visual-studio-2008.aspx
Creating Solutions with the Business Data Catalog (Todd Baginski)
Learn what the Business Data Catalog (BDC) is, why you would want to use it, and how to create applications that leverage the BDC. This session demonstrates what functionality the out-of-the-box BDC Web Parts provide and shows how they can be leveraged to quickly create applications inside SharePoint without writing a line of code! The session also demonstrates how custom Web Parts and Windows Forms Applications may be used to access BDC data when the out-of-the-box BDC Web Parts don’t meet the needs of a project.
Download Presentation
Links to BDC metadata generators recommended by the presenter:
