SharePoint Classes at MAX Technical Training

 

As you probably know, I'm a senior instructor at MAX Technical Training. As I'm starting my ninth year at MAX this week I thought I should plug a few of my upcoming classes!

You can attend these classes at our Cincinnati area training facility in Mason Ohio or attend remotely from anywhere in the world.

SharePoint 2010 Development

MS-10175 Developing and Customizing Applications for MS SharePoint 2010 (aligns with exam 70-573)
January 6-10

 

Do you have a governance plan? A real governance plan?
MA-1040 SharePoint Governance, Planning and Oversight (one of my favorite topics and one I often present on at SharePoint events.)
January 16-17

 

Are you ready for SharePoint 2013 development?

MS-20488 Developing Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 Core Solutions (aligns with exam 70-488)
February 10-14

MS-20489 Developing Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 Advanced Solutions (aligns with exam 70-489)
January 27-31

If you are interested in SharePoint 2013 Developer Certification then you will also need exams 70-480 and 70-486…

MS-20480 Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3 (aligns with exam 70-480)
January 20-24

MS-20486 Developing ASP.NET MVC 4 Web Applications (aligns with exam 70-486)
February 17-21

When you register… tell'm that Mike sent you and you might get an extra donut or something

Is VB.Net dead?

 

Just a random thought at the start of a new year… Is VB.Net dead? Deprecated? Just not interesting to Microsoft Learning?

It seems the newer 204** series Microsoft MOC classes only cover C# (and JS / HTML5). I've also been reading that C# is the only language option in most of the newer certification exams.

On the other hand, it looks like Visual Studio is still treating VB as an equal to C#. There are no new VB and C# language features in VS 2013, but VB is still there. The VB team blog says "We are actively working on the next versions of Visual Basic and C#" (*).

What about VBScript? As of Internet Explorer 11, VBScript is considered deprecated. (MSDN article)

This will be entertaining to watch as many of my web and SharePoint class attendees are still working in VB shops!

Mike

Add a SharePoint "New" icon anywhere!

 

Would you like to flag a paragraph or an item in a bulleted list on your home page as "new" and then have the new flag disappear after a certain date? While it would be nice if we could reuse the new item functionality found in SharePoint lists and libraries, we will have to write our own. As we want to keep this as simple as possible we will add the expire date as the image's "Alternate text" attribute, which is easy to do while inserting images into a page.

In a nut shell, the basic steps for your users are:

1. Edit the page or the web part
2. Insert the NewFlag.jpg image (you will need to tell them the location or the URL)
3. Add the expire date as MM/DD/YYYY as the "Alternate Text"

Step 1 – get an image

You can't just use the SharePoint New icon as it is stored as a sprite and not a simple image. We could use a SPAN tag, an IMG tag and a CSS class, but that's too much HTML for our site owners to add each time they want to flag something as new. So we need to find or create an image… you can draw your own in Windows Paint or you could capture the image from a SharePoint page.

Capture the image:

1. Add a new item to a list or library (so we can see the New icon)
2. Capture the current screen  (press PrtSc on your keyboard or use a screen capture tool)
3. Open Windows Paint and paste the screen capture
4. Use the Select tool and select just the New icon
               (for 2013)         (for 2010)
5. In the Paint Home ribbon click Crop and then save the file as NewFlag.jpg
6. Upload this file to a SharePoint library such as Site Assets, or if you have access to the server, upload the file to c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\15\Template\Images   (use 12 for 2007, 14 for 2010 and 15 for 2013)

Step 2 – add some JavaScript to the master page

1. Open your site in SharePoint Designer (2007 for SP 2007, 2010 for SP 2010, etc.)
2. Find and edit your master page (default.master for 2007, v4.master for 2010 and seattle.master for 2013 – note that the your master may be different!)
3. Scroll to the end of the master page and find the </body> tag
4. Add the JavaScript from below, depending on the version, just in front of the </body> tag
5. Save your master page

Step 3 – test it

1. Go to the home page of a test site and edit the page
• for 2010 and 2013 home pages: Site Actions, Edit Page
• for 2007 basic pages: Site Actions, Edit Page
• for all web part pages: add a Content Editor Web Part and get it in text edit mode
2. Add the new text   ("Free laptops until Tuesday!")
3. 2013
• Insert the NewFlag.jpg image from wherever you uploaded it next to the new text
  
• Set the Alt text to the expire date (i.e. 12/24/2013)
  
4. 2010
• Insert the NewFlag.jpg image and add the expire date as the Alternative Text:
  
  
  
• For testing, add one image with past date and one with a future date.
  
  
5. Save your changes – expired "new item" flags should now disappear

 

 

The JavaScript code:

For 2007 and 2010

<script type="text/javascript">
// TechTrainingNotes.blogspot.com

function TTNNewFlags()
{
  var TTNimgs = document.getElementsByTagName("img");
  for (var i=0; i<TTNimgs.length; i++)
  {
   if (TTNimgs[i].src)
   {
    if (TTNimgs[i].src.indexOf("NewFlag")>-1)
    {
       var TTNflagdate = new Date(TTNimgs[i].alt);
       if (TTNflagdate < new Date())
       {
         TTNimgs[i].style.display="none";
       }
    }
   }
  }
}

// for 2007 and 2010
_spBodyOnLoadFunctionNames.push("TTNNewFlags()");


</script>

---

 

For 2013

<script type="text/javascript">
// TechTrainingNotes.blogspot.com

function TTNNewFlags()
{
  var TTNimgs = document.getElementsByTagName("img");
  for (var i=0; i<TTNimgs.length; i++)
  {
   if (TTNimgs[i].src)
   {
    if (TTNimgs[i].src.indexOf("NewFlag")>-1)
    {
       var TTNflagdate = new Date(TTNimgs[i].alt);
       if (TTNflagdate < new Date())
       {
         TTNimgs[i].style.display="none";
       }
    }
   }
  }
}

// for 2013
ExecuteOrDelayUntilScriptLoaded(function () {
      if (typeof asyncDeltaManager != "undefined")
        asyncDeltaManager.add_endRequest(TTNNewFlags);
      else TTNNewFlags();
  }, "start.js");


</script>

---

Thanks to Daniel Laksana for his tip for delayed load of JavaScript in SP 2013: http://blog.symprogress.com/2013/09/sharepoint-2013-execute-javascript-function-after-mds-load/

 

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Cincinnati SharePoint User Group 10/24/13

 

I'll be speaking at the Cincinnati User Group this Thursday, 10/24/13. See you there!

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The Cincinnati SharePoint User Group will now be meeting on the 4th Thursday of each month. The next meeting is 10/24/2013. Same location and same time, just a different day!

Speaker: Mike Smith

MVP SharePoint, Senior instructor at MAX Technical Training, Computer professional (computer nut) since 1980, Courseware author, Book author (SharePoint 2007 & 2010 Customization for the Site Owner), Speaker at SharePoint events, toy airplane pilot..

Topic: Using PowerShell, and a web service call or two, to Administer SharePoint Office 365

In this presentation we will combine the recently released SharePoint Online Management Shell PowerShell module, the Microsoft Online Services PowerShell module and a few PowerShell web services calls to management SharePoint Online. By the end of the session we will have a complete script to create a SharePoint classroom or team collaboration environment in the cloud!

We will use the Microsoft Online Services to add users, passwords and manage licenses.

We will use the SharePoint Online Management Shell to create Site Collections, add users and add groups.

We will use web services to create subsites, lists and libraries.

And of course... there will be food, door prizes and networking!

http://www.CincinnatiSPUG.org