Point Out Hidden Sharepoint Features

Set the audience of a publishing page programmatically

2009-09-10T07:11:00.000-07:00

Most of the time we want to add publishing pages to pages document library on feature activation for that we normally use module tag to specify file. In file tag we can specify all details, but Target audiance value we can't specify as value is not static like Title and all other properties.
whenever we add custom pages inside pages library from UI, we set properties. to do same things using feature, on feature activation add following code.
In this code block i made every page to be accessable to owner group of site only.
//curWeb is SPWeb object
PublishingWeb pubWeb = PublishingWeb.GetPublishingWeb(curWeb);

PublishingPageCollection Pages = pubWeb.GetPublishingPages();

foreach (PublishingPage Page in Pages)

{

Page.CheckOut();

Page.Audience = ";;;;"+ curWeb.AssociatedOwnerGroup.Name;

Page.Update();

Page.CheckIn("Target audiance updated");
}

Whether to use RunWithElevatedPrivilege or not

2009-06-11T03:10:00.000-07:00

Deactivate a Feature when Retracting a Solution in SharePoint

2009-05-20T05:00:00.000-07:00

Features are force un-installed on solution retraction. When features are force un-installed, no attempt is made to deactivate them (unless they are Farm or WebApplication scoped). For Site and Web scoped features, they are not auto-deactivated because there might be thousands of feature instances across all existing sites\webs, and it would be too risky to perform the deactivation (Performance, memory, un-intended action that is hard to reverse).

Thus, you might want to manually deactivate the features, or create OM code to do the deactivation (and probably call the OM code from FeatureUninstalling event). Here is how you can deactivate all Web\Site feature instances on feature un-installation. If you have many features in your solution, this might get really high in terms of performance\memory, and it would be better to create a small console app that handles the deactivation of all the features.

public override void FeatureUninstalling(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties)
{
// Get feature Guid
Guid featureId = properties.Definition.Id;

// Create web service
SPWebService webService = SPFarm.Local.Services.GetValue("");

// Deactivate all feature instances at Site or Web scope
foreach (SPWebApplication webapp in webService.WebApplications)
{
foreach (SPSite site in webapp.Sites)
{
if (properties.Definition.Scope == SPFeatureScope.Site)
site.Features.Remove(featureId, true);

foreach (SPWeb web in site.RootWeb.Webs)
{
if (properties.Definition.Scope == SPFeatureScope.Web)
web.Features.Remove(featureId, true);

web.Dispose();
}

site.Dispose();
}
}
}

The best solution I see here is NOT to auto-deactivate the features on un-installation. Safest method is to manually deactivate.

IS SPList exists function

2009-05-20T04:46:00.000-07:00

public static bool ListExists(SPWeb web, string listName)
{
return web.Lists.Cast<SPList>().Any(list => string.Equals(list.Title, listName));
}

Bulk list update in wss 3.0

2009-01-01T01:09:00.000-08:00

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc404818.aspx

Retrieve the “Top 5” items from a SPList

2009-01-01T01:08:00.000-08:00

using (SPSite Site = new SPSite("YourSite"))
{
using (SPWeb Web = Site.OpenWeb())
{
SPQuery DemoQuery = new SPQuery();
DemoQuery.RowLimit = 5;
DemoQuery.Query = "";
DemoQuery.ViewFields = "";
SPListItemCollection ResultingItems = Web.Lists["YourList"].GetItems(DemoQuery);
foreach (SPListItem Item in ResultingItems)
{
//get Item["Title"];
}

}
}

Maximum workflows that can be executed per list

2009-01-01T01:00:00.001-08:00

Maximum workflows that can be executed per list are 15. After that, the workflow events get queued up as timer jobs, to be picked up by SPTimer service (OWSTIMER.exe)

workflow-eventdelivery-throttle is main server property that can be set to change the throttling of workflows.

STSADM.EXE -o getproperty -pn workflow-eventdelivery-throttle

by default 15 different workflows can be processed at the same time, When the 16th workflow comes in for an auto start or task completion, then it will go to the timer job to be processed later when the job-workflow timer runs.

Due to memory,load,processing power you may find that the server is unable to sustain workflow traffic, then you can decrease this amount to force things to the timer job more frequently.

With this feature manual starts of workflows and workflow modifications do not get throttled. Rest all get throttled.

IncludeTimeValue="TRUE"

2008-11-28T01:26:00.000-08:00

By default in CAML query for date column time is not considered for comparison.
If you want to compare time of date column in CAML query, you have to include IncludeTimeValue="TRUE" in CAML query.

So caml query should look like:

Domain Changed results in Some or all identity references could not be translated

2008-07-21T23:31:00.000-07:00

This is common problem if you have made Virtual image for sharepoint site it might happen if you install your image on pc with different domain.

In such case your site will not work as expected.
You will get following error from Central Administration site and SSP site
"Some or all identity references could not be translated"

Exact detail about error : NTAccount 'DOMAIN\User could not be translated to a SID. Exception: System.Security.Principal.IdentityNotMappedException: Some or all identity references could not be translated.

Solution that i used to resolve this issue was stsadm command line utility

stsadm.exe -o updatefarmcredentials -userlogin -password

use above command with new domain\username.

Refer: KB934838

Use of AAM for internet facing sharepoint web application

2008-06-06T01:55:00.000-07:00

For internet facing installation of Form based site in sharepoint, if you are accessing site with IP address it will result in following error:

Object reference not set to an instance of an object

[NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.]
Microsoft.Office.Server.Administration.SqlSessionStateResolver.System.Web.IPartitionResolver.ResolvePartition(Object key) +77
System.Web.PartitionManager.GetPartition(IPartitionResolver partitionResolver, String id) +244........

Steps to resolve:
1. Access central administration site
2. Click on Operations tab
3. Click on Alternate access mappings from Global Configuration Group
4. Click on Add Internal URLs or click on Internet zone URL to update it,Provide IP address as shown in Fig below...

5. Now your site can be accessed using internet facing IP address.

Mapping of obsolete class,properties,methods of WSS2.0 to Wss 3.0

2008-03-18T23:44:00.000-07:00

As SharePoint 2007 (new version) has became successful in market, many of us wants to migrate sites from WSS 2.0 to Wss 3.0 . Also most of the documentation available on internet is about WSS 2.0 hence some examples on internet suggest classes to achieve something which are obsolete. Using obsolete class will throw warning: Class that you are using is obsolete, use classA or classB. Now when you start looking for classA and ClassB many times you won’t get what you want. So I’m starting Post with mapping of each property, method, class for which change is made in WSS 3.0

Sr#	Obsolete Class/Property/Method	New Replacement Class/Property/Method
1	BlockedFileTypes	BlockedFileExtensions

PerForming query across multiple Lists in site collection

2008-02-01T09:21:00.000-08:00

Many times we need to search on all lists available within any specific site collection, instead of iterating through all web and then all lists we can use SPSiteDateQuery class.

If you want to perform search across multiple lists, which may be located in multiple Web sites in the same Web site collection then look at SPSiteDataQuery class available with wss 3.0 .

Refer Michael Hofer - SharePoint Blog for Implementing SPSiteDataQuery

With properties available with this class you can limit search to specific list type for example

Generic list or Document library. Also it support limiting to specific SPWeb or Site Collection.

Result can be limited to required fields.

Handling FormDigest failing Error

2008-01-30T02:52:00.000-08:00

Issues faced

I was creating new site in siteCollection programmatically from site which is present in another site collection, at that time i got following error message

System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an
object.
at Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.SPUtility.ValidateFormDigest()
at ...........

To solve this problem i added following code in create childcontrol function of webpart

Code Snippet

SPGlobalAdmin globalAdmin = new SPGlobalAdmin();

Context.Items[SPGlobalAdmin.RequestFromAdminPort] = true;

Page.RegisterHiddenField("__REQUESTDIGEST", globalAdmin.AdminFormDigest);

after that i added following line of code before performing create new site action

Code Snippet

Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.SPUtility.ValidateFormDigest();

One more thing that i did was, i ran my code of creating new site with Elevated Privileges.

after that code is working properly. you can try this approach

The other approach is just to disable form digest validation while your code is running

Something along the lines of:

Code Snippet

SPWebApplication webApp = currentWeb.Site.WebApplication;
bool formDigestEnabledStatus = webApp.FormDigestSettings.Enabled;
webApp.FormDigestSettings.Enabled = false;

//Do stuff to create sites here!

webApp.FormDigestSettings.Enabled = formDigestEnabledStatus;

Running with elevated permissions should be done with care and is a good idea in some cases.

Creating custom timer job in sharepoint

2008-01-30T02:26:00.000-08:00

Andrew Connell, has posted another excellent article on Creating your own Timer Jobs in MOSS.
Links :

http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog/articles/CreatingCustomSharePointTimerJobs.aspx

http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog/archive/2007/01/10/5704.aspx

Update List Item without updating Modified and Modified By

2008-01-30T00:56:00.001-08:00

Sometimes we want to update List Item without updating ‘Modified’ and ‘Modified By’ properties.

For Eg. While Updating List Item Properties from Workflow will update ‘Modified’ and ‘Modified By’ Properties to System Account as workflow runs in system account context.

So to update the database with changes that are made to the list item without effecting changes in the modified time or modified by fields.
we can use SPListItem.SystemUpdate() or SPListItem.SystemUpdate (Boolean)

When the SystemUpdate method is implemented, events are triggered, the modifications are reported in the Change and Audit logs, but alerts are not sent and properties are not demoted into documents.

Refer : MSDN

How to use MOSS “dialog.master” for custom dialog pages in Ur application

2008-01-30T00:45:00.000-08:00

MOSS 2007 has one master page named as dialog.master , used by selectpicture.aspx , .. pages. It has Ok and Cancel button. So if you want to use this master page for your dialog page then you have register Ok button event in your .aspx page. Hence whenever Ok button on master page is clicked, raised event is handled by your method in .aspx page.

Event can be registered as shown below: (Here aspx page is application page which is located inside Layouts directory)

<script
runat="server">

protected
override
void OnInit(EventArgs ea)

{

((DialogMaster)this.Page.Master).OkButton.Click += new
EventHandler(this.btnOk_Click);

base.OnInit(ea);

}

protected
void btnOk_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

//Your Custom code to handle Ok_Button event

}

</script>

This method can also be used to register any event from current page's master page control.

Sharepoint 2007 and PDF integration for indexing

2008-01-30T00:44:00.001-08:00

Installing The PDF Ifilter In SharePoint and Registering the PDF Icon with step-by-step instructions on the install process:

1. Install iFilter: Download Adobe PDF iFilter

2. Restart PC

3. Add pdf icon to the images folder : Copy the ICPDF.GIF file (look in Google Images if you don’t have it) to “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\Template\Images”

4. Add pdf type in site config and xml doc for mapping :
Open the SharePoint Central Administration page, and then navigate to shared services and then click on Search Settings
Under Crawl Settings click File Types, Click New File Type and add pdf …
Later,Edit the “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\Template\XML\DOCICON.XML” file and add this entry in the setting with the others

5. Reindex site: From shared services link click on search settings and under crawl setting click Content sources and crawl schedules and click on Start Full Crawl for specific site , here “local office SharePoint server sites”

Form based authentication in SharePoint 2007

2008-01-30T00:30:00.000-08:00

For moving SharePoint site in internet zone, first thing required is changing “Authentication Provider”; given below are links that I found on internet regarding Form Based Authentication in MOSS.

Form Authentication for MOSS 2007 Site - The Code Project - SharePoint Server

The purpose of this document is to provide the step by step information about enabling the Form Based Authentication (FBA) for MOSS 2007 site.

Forms Base Authentication Tools and Utils for SharePoint 2007 - Home

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007) Features, tools and utilities supporting Forms Based Authentication.

SharePoint Unplugged : Forms Based Authentication in MOSS

There have been a lot of great posts in the blogosphere on how to setup forms based authentication. Some of them: SharePoint Product Group Blog by Steve Peschka Nick Swan [non-MS] What I want to put forth in this post, is a reference on the web.config

SharePoint/MOSS 2007 Forms Based Authentication Login/Registration Web Part - Paul Ballard’s WebLog

http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2006/08/16/702010.aspx : Configuring multiple authentication

http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog/articles/HowToConfigPublishingSiteWithDualAuthProvidersAndAnonAccess.aspx : How To Configure Publishing-Site With Dual AuthProviders and AnonAccess

Few more links:

http://robgarrett.com/cs/blogs/software/archive/2007/09/18/sharepoint-2007-web-services-and-forms-authentication.aspx

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb977430.aspx

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb852172.aspx

http://www.devcow.com/blogs/jdattis/archive/2007/02/23/Office-SharePoint-Server-2007-Forms-Based-Authentication-FBA-Walkthrough-Part-1.aspx