SharePoint Development Environment

I have seen multiple questions posted to several of the forums I participate in concerning how to begin developing against SharePoint 2007. They usually come from users who are copying assemblies from the SharePoint server to their development box and then attempting to develop against it. While this will work in many cases, most developers will find this to be a very difficult approach to development. Others have installed Windows Server 2003 on their desktops and begun developing solutions, but if they accidentally do something unexpected through code, they have to end up rebuilding their machine or reinstalling SharePoint -- thus wasting valuable time.

Since I have gone multiple routes with my development environment, I decided that I would share what has been the best environment thus far (and is recommended standard from Microsoft).

I have a standard desktop with the following configuration:

• Hardware
• Intel Core 2 Duo 6700
• 4GB Memory
• 250 GB Primary Hard Drive (SATA)
• 500 GB Secondary Hard Drive (SATA)
• Software
• Windows XP Professional, 32-Bit
• VMWare Workstation 6.0

I have created a virtual machine using Windows Server 2003 R2 and installed MOSS 2007 Enterprise Edition, Visual Studio 2005 and Office 2007 Enterprise Edition. I now do all of my development inside of the virtual machine. This affords me two tremendous benefits: 1) If I accidentally break a machine, I can restore to a previous snapshot and 2) I can perform local debugging and step through the code. From here, I complete the entire development of the new feature or solution and then create a solution file to deploy to a development network running SharePoint in a similar configuration as our production systems. This gives me a chance to work with real data in a scratch-pad environment.

The final step occurs after testing and Q&A have been completed on the newly developed solution in the development network. This is where we deploy the solution to production servers and begin using it.

If you don't have the capability of using VMWare Workstation 6.0, you can substitute either Microsoft Virtual PC or Microsoft Virtual Server R2. Both of these are solid products and will still allow you to build a virtual environment for development.

If a team based development environment is needed, I would highly recommend reading this MSDN article by Eric Charran. It details the concepts needed for creating a team based development strategy.

Information Architecture Planning Sheets

It's not often that you come across tools that can be used to both educate users and plan implementation at the same time, however, Mark Miller has successfully accomplished this with his Site Planning Worksheets. I am beginning to explore the use of these with the training department at my place of work for both their educational and developmental potential.

My organization has been offering training to our users for around two months now, and each time they leave a training session, new ideas are hatched that could be implemented in SharePoint. These ideas range from simplistic site designs with a few standard lists and attached workflows to entire systems that are supported and maintained through SharePoint. However, after a few weeks, the "new" wears off and the user forgets the original idea.

With these worksheets, I hope to capture these ideas and place them into a queue for better analysis of the business problems my users are attempting to solve. This way -- even if the new wears off -- our development team can better serve the user community with timely and accurate solutions. Through the process of requirements gathering, we will refine the final solution and be better able to deliver a solution that is up to the expectations of the user.

I would highly recommend to anyone that is involved in a roll-out of SharePoint to review these worksheets. They have benefits to all levels of user -- administrator, developer and end-user.

Event Receiver Values

For those of you that need a quick conversion of the event receiver types, here they are:

• SPEventReceiverType.ItemAdding = 1
• SPEventReceiverType.ItemUpdating = 2
• SPEventReceiverType.ItemDeleting = 3
• SPEventReceiverType.ItemCheckingIn = 4
• SPEventReceiverType.ItemCheckingOut = 5
• SPEventReceiverType.ItemUncheckingOut = 6
• SPEventReceiverType.ItemAttachmentAdding = 7
• SPEventReceiverType.ItemAttachmentDeleting = 8
• SPEventReceiverType.ItemFileMoving = 9
• SPEventReceiverType.FieldAdding = 101
• SPEventReceiverType.FieldUpdating = 102
• SPEventReceiverType.FieldDeleting = 103
• SPEventReceiverType.SiteDeleting = 201
• SPEventReceiverType.WebDeleting = 202
• SPEventReceiverType.WebMoving = 203
• SPEventReceiverType.ItemAdded = 10001
• SPEventReceiverType.ItemUpdated = 10002
• SPEventReceiverType.ItemDeleted = 10003
• SPEventReceiverType.ItemCheckedIn = 10004
• SPEventReceiverType.ItemCheckedOut = 10005
• SPEventReceiverType.ItemUncheckedOut = 10006
• SPEventReceiverType.ItemAttachmentAdded = 10007
• SPEventReceiverType.ItemAttachmentDeleted = 10008
• SPEventReceiverType.ItemFileMoved = 10009
• SPEventReceiverType.ItemFileConverted = 10010
• SPEventReceiverType.FieldAdded = 10101
• SPEventReceiverType.FieldUpdated = 10102
• SPEventReceiverType.FieldDeleted = 10103
• SPEventReceiverType.SiteDeleted = 10201
• SPEventReceiverType.WebDeleted = 10202
• SPEventReceiverType.WebMoved = 10203
• SPEventReceiverType.EmailReceived = 20000
• SPEventReceiverType.ContextEvent = 32766
• SPEventReceiverType.InvalidReceiver = -1

This was something I had to do in order to build my ElementManifest.xml file for a feature that I was recently developing. In the SDK it mentions that I need to use the integer value of the SPEventReceiverType enumeration. When you click on the provided hyperlink, you see a list of the enumerations without an integer value -- hopefully this will help those needing this list.

My First Custom Site Definition

Another recent project has lead me down the path of creating custom site definitions for use within my organization. My requirements are as follows:

1. Must be based off the current team site definition
2. Must include a PowerPoint slide library with example slides (required MOSS standard)
3. Must include a picture library with example photographs
4. Must remove SharePoint branded logo and use company logo instead
5. Should include custom announcements on the front page
6. Should provide links to common staff resources

So, the first thing I did was to download the VS 2005 Extensions for SharePoint Services 3.0. Once installed on my development server, I created a new project based off the Team Site Definition included as part of the newly installed VS 2005 Extensions for SharePoint Services 3.0.

When the project is created, the project automatically opens up the onet.xml file that needs to be modified to create the additional lists. I need to include two new lists that are not part of the original definition for a team site. This includes a picture library and a slide library. Find the Lists element in the onet.xml file and add two new entries:

<List Title="Shared Pictures"
         QuickLaunchUrl="Pictures/Forms/AllItems.aspx"
         Url="Pictures"
         Type="109"
         FeatureId="00bfea71-52d4-45b3-b544-b1c71b620109"/>
<List Title="Shared Slides"
         QuickLaunchUrl="Slides/Forms/AllItems.aspx"
         Url="Slides"
         Type="2100"
         FeatureId="0BE49FE9-9BC9-409d-ABF9-702753BD878D"/>

The first list item is based on type 109 which is the default picture library that is included as part of SharePoint. I have to include the feature that the list is based on as the FeatureId attribute. Notice that I have given a custom url instead of a url that includes a space. This should help my users with navigation to these libraries.

The second list took a little investigation. I opened up an explorer window and viewed the contents of <Program Files>/Common Files/Microsoft Shared/web server extensions/12/FEATURES folder and looked for the Slide Library feature. I opened the folder and then viewed the contents of the feature.xml file. I copied the GUID that was in the file and placed this as my GUID on the new list. I also noticed that the list type (from opening the referenced files in the elementmanifests node) was 2100. Now I have all I need to create a new Slide Library.

The next step was to add the necessary features to the WebFeatures node of the onet.xml file. Since both features need to be activated at the site level (and not the collection), I ignore the SiteFeatures node and made sure that my WebFeatures node included the following:

<WebFeatures>
     <Feature ID="00BFEA71-4EA5-48D4-A4AD-7EA5C011ABE5"/>
     <!-- TeamCollab Feature -->
     <Feature ID="F41CC668-37E5-4743-B4A8-74D1DB3FD8A4"/>
     <!-- MobilityRedirect -->
     <Feature ID="00bfea71-52d4-45b3-b544-b1c71b620109"/>
     <!-- Picture Library -->
     <Feature ID="0BE49FE9-9BC9-409d-ABF9-702753BD878D"/>
     <!-- Slide Library -->
</WebFeatures>

Now I have everything set up and can provision a site that will automatically include both a slide library and a picture library by default.

Next, I need to include some sample photos and slides for both of these new libraries. This is done using modules. You will notice there are two places in the onet.xml file that include a Modules node. The first one is included in the Configuration node and the second is in a Modules node outside of the Configuration Node. We need to include references to the new modules inside the Configuration node first.

So, simply add a new Module node for each of the new libraries. You can use the model already in-place for the Default module (this module includes the default.aspx page for the site and it's included web parts). I called my modules Images and Slides.

<Modules>
        <Module Name="Default"/>
        <Module Name="Images"/>
        <Module Name="Slides"/>
</Modules>

Now I move to the Modules node and define the contents of the Images and Slides modules.

    <Module Name="Images" Url="Pictures" Path="" List="109">
      <File Url="coastaltown.jpg" Type="GhostableInLibrary">
        <Property Name="Title" Value="Coastal Town"/>
        <Property Name="ImageCreateDate" Value="<ows:TodayISO/>"/>
        <Property Name="Description" Value="A nice quiet view of a coastal village as one might view on the Mediterranean sea."/>
      </File>
      <File Url="steamshed.jpg" Type="GhostableInLibrary">
        <Property Name="Title" Value="Old Steam Shed"/>
        <Property Name="ImageCreateDate" Value="<ows:TodayISO/>"/>
        <Property Name="Description" Value="An old logging shed powered by a steam furnace"/>
      </File>
    </Module>
    <Module Name="Slides" Url="Slides" Path="" List="2100">
      <File Url="SharePoint_Overview_Training_011.ppt" Type="GhostableInLibrary">
        <Property Name="Presentation" Value="SharePoint Overview Training" />
        <Property Name="Description" Value="What is the SharePoint?" />
      </File>
      <File Url="SharePoint_Overview_Training_174.ppt" Type="GhostableInLibrary">
        <Property Name="Presentation" Value="SharePoint Overview Training" />
        <Property Name="Description" Value="SharePoint Team Site Layout" />
      </File>
      <File Url="SharePoint_Overview_Training_175.ppt" Type="GhostableInLibrary">
        <Property Name="Presentation" Value="SharePoint Overview Training" />
        <Property Name="Description" Value="Global Links Bar" />
      </File>
    </Module>

You must set the file type attribute to GhostableInLibrary or the items will not be displayed in your libraries. Also, each Module node gives the files their destination location. This is done view that url attribute and the list attribute. I then set some properties on each of the items that I am including in these libraries using the Property nodes.

Now, to remove the SharePoint logo and add your own, I just need to make changes to the Default module. See the changes below:

    <Module Name="Default" Url="" Path="">
      <File Url="default.aspx" NavBarHome="True">
        <View List="$Resources:core,lists_Folder;/$Resources:core,announce_Folder;" BaseViewID="0" WebPartZoneID="Left"/>
        <View List="$Resources:core,lists_Folder;/$Resources:core,calendar_Folder;" BaseViewID="0" RecurrenceRowset="TRUE" WebPartZoneID="Left" WebPartOrder="2"/>
        <AllUsersWebPart WebPartZoneID="Right" WebPartOrder="1">
          <![CDATA[
                   <WebPart xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebPart/v2" xmlns:iwp="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebPart/v2/Image">
                        <Assembly>Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c</Assembly>
                        <TypeName>Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.ImageWebPart</TypeName>
                        <FrameType>None</FrameType>
                        <Title>$Resources:wp_SiteImage;</Title>
                        <iwp:ImageLink>/PublishingImages/norm_logo.png</iwp:ImageLink>
                        <iwp:AlternativeText>Company Logo</iwp:AlternativeText>
                   </WebPart>
                   ]]>
        </AllUsersWebPart>
        <View List="$Resources:core,lists_Folder;/$Resources:core,links_Folder;" BaseViewID="0" WebPartZoneID="Right" WebPartOrder="2"/>
        <NavBarPage Name="$Resources:core,nav_Home;" ID="1002" Position="Start"/>
        <NavBarPage Name="$Resources:core,nav_Home;" ID="0" Position="Start"/>
      </File>
    </Module>

Now I have created the site definition, all I need to do is copy the files referenced in my modules to the Site Definition folder of my project. This will be compiled into the WSP solution file by the project. Keep in mind that these files will increase the overall size of your WSP solution file.

Now, I deploy the solution by right clicking on the project and choosing Deploy.

This will build my project files and automatically deploy it to the local sharepoint server. When I navigate to my site and choose to create a new site, my custom site definition is included under a newly created category, Development. When I provision the new site, it includes my new libraries and example files.

If you want to make changes to the category, just right click on the project and choose properties. Then you can click on the SharePoint Solution tab and make modifications to the solution and site definition files from here.