Cincinnati SharePoint User Group Meeting

http://cincyspug.securespsites.com  6:00 PM 9/3/09 at MAX Technical Training

SharePoint -- Externalizing Content BLOBs to a NAS, SAN CAS or to the Cloud 
        Brian Battah, Senior Architect at BlueThread Technologies, will
provide an overview of the performance, security and scalability
benefits of SharePoint BLOB storage. He will also discuss how
BlueThread’s StoragePoint solution can be leveraged to externalize
SharePoint content to different endpoints including Windows Azure BLOB
Storage, EMC Atmos Online, and Amazon S3 Cloud storage.

 

We have a door prize!  WIN A DELL - INSPIRON MINI NETBOOK WITH INTEL® ATOM™ PROCESSOR

SharePoint: Code Snippets in SharePoint Designer!

Visual Studio has a large number of “canned” blocks of code that can be quickly added to a project using a shortcut key. These are call Snippets. Turns out that SharePoint Designer has them too. But only a few…

Inserting a Snippet:

Click in the code window where you want the Snippet and press Ctrl-Enter (or click Edit, IntelliSense, List Code Snippets):

   

 

Creating your own Snippets:

You can create your own Snippets either by using a shortcut or by going to Tools and Page Editor Options.

Shortcut:

1. Select existing text you would like to use for a Snippet
2. Right-click and select Create Code Snippet

Or go to Tools, Page Editor Options:

   

 

.

SharePoint: Change the “No Items” message in a discussion web part

 

Yet another Content Editor Web Part (CEWP) trick…

But you can also add it to the master page!

 

When you create a new team site or add a new discussion list to a site the discussion web part displays a "no items" message. If you would like to change this message all you need is a little JavaScript added to the web part page or to the master page. If you would rather hide this web part anytime there are no discussions then see the previous customization: "Hide a web part with zero rows".

Before:

     

After:

   

 

Steps:

Add a Content Editor Web Part to the page with the discussion web part and using the Source Editor button (2007) paste the following JavaScript.  For 2010 or 2007 create a text file in a library with this JavaScript and link to it from the Content Editor Web Part.

<script  type="text/javascript">

function ChangeDiscussionMessage()
{

  var a = document.getElementsByTagName("TD");
  for ( var i=0; i<a.length; i++ )
  {
    if (a[i].className=="ms-vb")
    {
      if (a[i].innerHTML.indexOf("There are no items to show in this view")>-1 &&
          a[i].innerHTML.indexOf("discussion board")>-1)
      {
         a[i].innerHTML = "There are no active discussions";
      }
    }
  }
}

_spBodyOnLoadFunctionNames.push("ChangeDiscussionMessage"); 

</script>

 

.

 

 

.

SharePoint: Tricks for web part customizers

 

Trick 1: Deleting a bad web part

If you have just added a web part to a page and you get the dreaded error page as a result, add ?Contents=1 to the page’s URL.

    http://……./default.aspx?Contents=1

You can now delete the offending web part.

 

Trick 2: Getting to web parts when there is no “Edit Page” in Site Actions

Add &ToolPaneView=2 to then end of the URL. This example will let you see the web parts on a list’s NewForm page.

   http://……./NewForm.aspx?……..&ToolPaneView=2

 

.

SharePoint: Shortcut keys!

 

Did you know that SharePoint has shortcut keys? Most Windows applications have a standard set of well known shortcut keys. While most web applications do not, SharePoint has a large number of shortcut keys, and a few like the OK and Cancel shortcuts can save you a lot of scrolling up and down the page after each edit..

 

Here are a few samples:

Alt-1 + Enter    Goto Home page (same as clicking Home tab)
Alt-6 + Enter    Help
Alt-l + Enter     Welcome menu
Alt-o                  OK or Create
Alt-c                  Cancel
Alt-s                 Search - move cursor to Search text box

 

For a complete list see:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA101733621033.aspx 

 

 

.

SharePoint: Missing Content Query Web Part (CQWP)

Many blog articles offer the Content Query Web Part as a solution to a lot of custom web part query problems. But, most users cannot find it as it is only displayed by default in Publishing template sites.

 

To enable the CWQP:

First of all, the CWQP is a MOSS web part and is not available in WSS. WSS users can use SharePoint Designer and the DataView web part to do similar rollups.

You get access to the CWQP you will need to turn on "Office SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure" in Site Actions, Site Settings, Site Collection Features (last column). You will then find the CWQP in the Default section of the web parts popup.

 

Enabling "Office SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure" will also add:

• additional lists and libraries: Site Collection Documents, Site Collection Images, Style Library, Content and Structure Reports, Reusable Content, Workflow Tasks
• new items in Site Actions, Site Settings:
       Removes: Quick Launch, Top Link Bar
       Adds: Navigation, Searchable Columns, Content and Structure, Content and Structure Logs, Variations, Variation lables, Variation logs, Translatable columns
• new items in Site Actions, Create: Adds: Publishing Site, Publishing Site with Workflow
• new Web Parts:
     Content Query Web Part
     Summary Link Web Part
     Table of Contents Web Part

One side effect of the above is a big change in the way you edit the Top Link Bar (tabs) and Quick Launch. Both are now maintained in a single option call Navigation, and are called “global navigation” (tabs) and “current navigation” (Quick Launch). There is a bonus though… you can now create dropdowns from the tabs!

 

.