Recently I have been doing some work with the K2 guys, and have been exploring using consuming Smart Objects within custom SharePoint web parts/application pages etc.

One of the problems with deploying your webpart to the different environments (ie dev, stg, prod etc) is where do we specify the K2 host server name? Well it seems we havea few options

1. web.config file under the app settings
2. hard code into the c# code
3. property bag in SharePoint (my favourite)

Using the property bag on the root web of the site collection allows us to be able to specify different K2 servers for the different environments using the SPWeb.Current.Context.Site.RootWeb.Properties[“K2HostServer”];

Please see below for the SharePoint 2007 powershell script to add the K2 server property (please note this must be run on the SharePoint server.

[void][System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SharePoint")

$k2hostserver = "servername"

$sharepointserver = "spservername"

$site =new-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite($sharepointserver)

$spweb = $site.OpenWeb("/")

if($spweb.Properties.ContainsKey("K2HostServer") -eq $False ) { $spweb.Properties.Add("K2HostServer", $k2hostserver)} else { $spweb.Properties["K2HostServer"] = $k2hostserver}

$spweb.Properties.Update()

$spweb.Dispose()

One place I often see new developers get stuck when developing with the SharePoint Object Model is trying to get information from a document library or list field

The place they get stuck is they write

string smyField = SPListItem.Fields[“myField”].ToString();

This will return the name of the column/field NOT the value within it

The trick is to write it like this

string smyField = SPListItem[“myField”].ToString();

For many years, well since MOSS 2007 was released, I have always wanted to use the Content Query Web Part to display the results of multiple calendars.

I know there are many different projects to do this, free ones on Codeplex such as the Planet Wilson Colour Calendar and the SharePoint Enhanced Calendar by ArtfulBits  as well as the Bamboo Solutions SharePoint Calendar Plus Web Part which you can pay for. These are all great projects and solutions,

BUT

All I want is the plain old simple content query web part to work as it always has and display a calendar view. Users know how to use it and this way I don’t have to train them on a new web part.

So what I did was create a calendar view for the content query web part (or ContentByQueryWebPart). There is one change that was made from what you might expect, and that is I appended which site the calendar is from at the start of the calendar title

Please feel free to download and use this Web Part in you SharePoint environment

n.b If the calendar is not showing all the events make sure that you have increased the Item Limit under Presentation in the Web Part Properties

ContentByQueryCalendar.wsp (39.83 KB)

ContentByQueryCalendar.zip (38.31 KB)

I was recently working on a piece of code that required merging 2 DataTables based on 2 columns, however the table that I was merging the results into, I need not add the row if the columns matched. After searching around the net for a while and not really finding anything very useful I decided to write my own.

Essentially we get 2 DataTable’s and loop through the first one. If we find the where column1 and column2 in the first table row match column1 and column2 in the second DataTable row the we delete the row in the second DataTable. Finally we merge the2 tables with t duplicates removed.

The magic essentially happens with DataTable.Select and DataTable.Merge

This code is C# .NET

              //tables
that will be merged
            

DataTable table1 = new DataTable();

DataTable table2 = new DataTable(); //duplicates
will be removed

              //columns
used to store what is found in the row's column
            

              string column1
= string.Empty; 

              string column2
= string.Empty;

              //
loop through the rows in the first table and if
            

              //
the columns are found on an item in the second
            

              //table
then remove it
            

              foreach (DataRow
row in table1.Rows)

{

              //set
the column variables to what is in the 
            

              //current
row
            

    column1 = row["column
1 Name"].ToString();

    column2 = row["column
2 Name"].ToString();

              //get
an array of each of the rows that match
            

              //the
columns in the current row
            

    DataRow[] duplicateRows = table2.Select("Section
= '" + 

        column1 + "'
AND Subsection = '" + column2 + "'");

              //loop
through and remove each of the rows in the 
            

              //table
that are duplicates 
            

              foreach (DataRow
duplicateRow in duplicateRows)

        table2.Rows.Remove(duplicateRow);

}

              //merge
the tables so that we now have 1
            

table1.Merge(table2);

Today I presented SharePoint 2010 at the Australian Office Developer Conference and needed Internet access. I finally bit the bullet and bought a wireless modem. I grabbed the Virgin mobile one from some dodgy phone shop and did a remote desktop session back to the server at the office. I am surprised to say that it worked almost seamlessly for the entire demo.

Sitting at the airport I just did a speed test and was pleased to see 1.39Mb/s upload and 4.6 Mb/s download.

I am interested to see if I get this kind of network access everywhere

I have been doing a bit of work recently with the SPSiteData Query in SharePoint. Dealing with CAML with this isn't the easiest especially when it only returns a subset of information that it should from a site.

As I was developing my queries I was using the fantastic U2u CAML Query Builder and getting my queries to work perfectly. What became really annoying is that they didnt work in my custom web parts. After many hours of banging my head against the wall, I found a KB Article

Search results are incomplete when you use a CAML query that uses the SPSiteDataQuery class to search content on a SharePoint Server site or on a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 site

Reading this title I thought WOW and then realised that the update was fined in the Infrastructure Update, I am running SP2. After bashing my head against the wall a few times, I realised that the way I installed SharePoint was with SP@ slipstream media. After an uninstall of SharePoint and then a SP1 install followed by a Infrastructure update install and finally SP2 install the queries started to work

If you're having trouble with your queries that should be working then make sure that you installed the infrastructure update before SP2

Hi,

I have had the task of having to start and stop virtual machines in Windows Server 2008 Core without the use of Hyper-V Manager or VMM.

It is possible to start and stop the machines if you only have access to the command prompt through the use of WMI.

I have hacked together a script file that can start/stop/list what virtual machines are available and their current state

Instructions

download the file  VMControl.vbs (2.77 KB)

run VMControl.vbs with the following arguments

eg. "VMControl.vbs /list"

"/list" = list all VM's and their state
"/start virtualMachineName" = starts the the virtual machine
"/stop virtualMachineName" = stops the virtual machine
"/startAll" = starts all virtual machines on the host providing there is enough resources
"/stopAll" = stops all virtual machines on the host
"/help" = help information

Here is the code for it

*nb you may have to run this with admin privileges

              Option Explicit 

              'Setup
the variables
            

              Dim WMIService

              Dim VMList

              Dim Hostname

              Dim VMName

              Dim VMAction

              Dim compareType

              Dim HOST

              Dim VM

              Dim VMStatus

              Dim AllVMs

              'Used
to get all machines or just one
            

compareType = "="

              'gets
and sets the host name
            

              Set HOST
= WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Network")

              'Get
instance of 'virtualization' WMI service on the local computer
            

              Set WMIService
= GetObject("winmgmts:\\.\root\virtualization") 

              'Get
the arguments from the user input and go to the appropriate sub
            

              if wscript.Arguments.count
> 0 then

              Select
              case WScript.Arguments.Item(0)

              case
              "/start"
            

            VMName = WScript.Arguments.Item(1)

            VMAction = 2

            compareType = "="

            modifyVM

              case
              "/stop"
            

            VMName = WScript.Arguments.Item(1)

            VMAction = 3

            compareType = "="

            modifyVM

              case
              "/startAll"
            

            VMName = HOST.ComputerName

            VMAction = 2

            compareType = "!="

            modifyVM

              case
              "/stopAll"
            

            VMName = HOST.ComputerName

            VMAction = 3

            compareType = "!="

            modifyVM

              case
              "/list"
            

            VMName = HOST.ComputerName

            compareType = "!="

            listVMs

              case
              "?","/?","-?","help","Help","/help","/Help"

            helpMsg

              case
              else
            

            helpMsg

              end
              select
            

              else
            

    helpMsg

              end
              if
            

              'Message
to display when incorrect input or recived help switch
            

              sub helpMsg

    AllVMs = "usage
VMControl.vbs"

& VBCr & VBCr & "/start
<VM Name> - Starts the Virtual Machine"

& VBCr & "/stop
<VM Name> - Stops the Virtual Machine"

& VBCr & "/startAll
- Start all Virtual Machines"

& VBCr & "/stopAll
- Stop All Virtual Machines"

& VBCr & "/list
- List All Virtual Machines"

              end
              sub
            

              'used
to turn the VM on or off or saved
            

              sub modifyVM

              Set VMList
= WMIService.ExecQuery("SELECT * FROM Msvm_ComputerSystem 

WHERE ElementName" &
compareType & "'" & VMName &"'") 

              For
              Each VM In VMList

        VM.RequestStateChange(VMAction)          

              select
              case VMAction

              case 3
VMStatus = "stopped"

              case 2
VMStatus = "running"

              case 32769
VMStatus = "saved"

              end
              select
            

            AllVMs = VM.ElementName & "
is " & VMStatus

              next
            

              end
              sub
            

              'used
to get and display the VM's
            

              sub listVMs

              Set VMList
= WMIService.ExecQuery("SELECT * FROM Msvm_ComputerSystem 

WHERE ElementName" &
compareType & "'" & VMName &"'") 

              For
              Each VM In VMList

              select
              case VM.EnabledState

              case 3
VMStatus = "stopped"

              case 2
VMStatus = "running"

              case 32769
VMStatus = "saved"

              end
              select
            

        AllVMs = AllVMs + VM.ElementName & "
is " & VMStatus & VBCr

              next
            

              end
              sub
            

              'Display
a message of what happened or a help message
            

wscript.echo AllVMs

VMControl.vbs (2.77 KB)

So today I was trying to work out how to create a web part connection using pictures in one list and linking that to text in another list. Ohh and all this without having to create a custom web part!

First I tried adding a picture column to the first list, and creating the connection on various areas of the picture. No such luck.

Next I decided that I was going to have to write some code, but wanted to be able to get other people to do this as well without having to fire up Visual Studio, so I investigated a Form Web Part.

The way this works is that we upload our pictures into a library. We then need to configure the Form Web Part to use these pictures as Hyperlinks. Some JavaScript is then run to set a hidden text field to a predefined value based on the image clicked on, and finally the connection provides the data from the hidden field to a column in the other list.

Here is the code

<!-- Start JavaScript -->

<script type="text/javascript">

              //Function
to tell the page to set a hidden textbox (Resource Type) to value 
            

              //"Applications"
and then posting it to SharePoint. 
            

              //The
value in the textbox will be used to filter the 
            

              //list
that the web part is connected to
            

              function application1()

{

document.getElementById("Resource
Type").value = "Application";

_SFSUBMIT_;

}

              function tool1()

{

document.getElementById("Resource
Type").value = "Tools";

_SFSUBMIT_;

}

</script>

<!-- set up a hidden textbox that will be used to hold the --> 

<!-- filter data for the
web par connection -->

<p><input name="Resource
Type" id="Resource Type" type="hidden" /></p>

<!-- set up a hyperlink of a picture that when clicked on -->

<!-- will run the javascript to set the custom field type -->

<!-- for the
web part connection -->

<a href="javascript:application1()">

<img alt="Applications" src="/applications.jpg" /></a><br
/>

<a href="javascript:tool1()"><img
alt="Tools" src="/applications.jpg" /></a>