SharePoint Config

Before getting into SharePoint 2010 I’d like to recap on some of the things I’ve learnt using SharePoint 2007. Much has progressed since I started working on SharePoint 2007 Technology Adoption Program (TAP) projects using the SharePoint 2007 Beta versions in early 2006. As a developer some of the biggest improvements I’ve noticed are the availability of tools and information.

In 2006 we were creating WSP files by manually maintaining DDF files and using makecab, a process that is now fully automatable (and integrated into Visual Studio) using freely available tools such as the brilliant WSPBuilder utility. I also remember spending two whole days trying to create a list definition as the documentation on MSDN wasn’t (and still isn’t) complete. Not surprisingly the ‘Creating a Custom SharePoint 2007 List Definition’ blog post I wrote afterwards still draws in over 1500 page views a month.

So below are a list of some of the ways I like to do things when creating custom SharePoint 2007 solutions (with a focus on Web Content Management). Continue reading SharePoint 2007 Development Tips »

I’ve recently been confirmed as a speaker at the SharePoint 2010 Evolution Conference in London. The conference has plenty of talented speakers, lots of great sessions, and promises to be the premier SharePoint event outside the US. From the www.sharepointevolutionconference.com website:

What is it?

This 3 day SharePoint 2010 Evolution Conference, consists of over 70 Sessions dedicated to IT Pro’s/Developers/Designers/Information Workers/Business Adoption and Power Users.

Performance testing can be useful exercise for many SharePoint deployments. It allows you to validate your infrastructure decisions, identify and iron out any bottlenecks, and prove that the environment can effectively handle the expected user load. It can also be useful to measure the effect of changes to the environment, and allows you to configure the environment for optimal performance. Continue reading Introducing the SharePoint performance test Codeplex project »

This post describes how to use the ContentTypeBinding element to avoid an error that can occur creating publishing pages. Continue reading Error creating SharePoint publishing pages »

To ensure that dates are formatted correctly across your WSS or MOSS site there are a couple of settings you may need to change.

First of all the regional settings should reflect the current locale. This can be changed from Site Actions > Site Settings > Regional Settings and ensuring the locale is correct. This should ensure all controls that display dates are formatted correctly.

If you are using XSLT to display dates (such as in a data view web part) you may need to update these also. One way of doing this is to take advantage of the format-date extension function provided by MSXML. This is included in the XSL for the dataview by default, but you can use this and other MSXML extension functions by including a reference to the Microsoft XPath extension functions (urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt) at the top of your XSL stylesheet. Continue reading Date Formats in SharePoint »