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MOSS 2007 Development 101 – Part 1

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So I have done quite a bit of Searching and would you believe it… There are very few articles on starting MOSS 2007 development. Well perhaps this is due to the fact that many MOSS developers are coming from SharePoint 2003 (SPS 2003). Not I, some of us actually come from the MSFT Content Management Server Background (MCMS), so this article is just an overview for those of us that say we've had enough, let's get MOSS. This article will also provide download links to get some tools that I am using. I am writing this as a series so this will be focused on tools of the trade. In a future post I will begin to write about the actual implementation.

Ok, let's get started…..

First we obviously must have a MOSS server to connect to, this is not the focus of this article but noted as a requirement.

Important:

It is important to note that when coding against much of the MOSS 2007 Object Model, that your environment be Windows Server 2003 SP1 or higher! Also at least WSS 3.0 must be installed.

   

Tools

  1. I would recommend Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer. This tool will allow the user to customize master pages, themes, layouts, create new workflows and SharePoint objects and much more. If some of you are old like me, you will remember the good old days of FrontPage. Yup, this is it, but I would say mucho better. Unfortunately, this is not a free download and must be purchased

  2. Well, you will use this quite often in your development although it is really an admin tool. stsadm.exe
    Will be a lifesaver for you and will allow you to do things such as create new sites, export, import fix mistakes, and other admin tasks. This tool is located on the MOSS server itself in most likely "c:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\bin".

    One note is that you must be local on the box in order to run stsadm.exe

  3. .NET 3.0 is It can be downloaded here: https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=10CC340B-F857-4A14-83F5-25634C3BF043&displaylang=en

  4. .NET 3.0 Extensions will allow you to create Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Presentation_Foundation and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Communication_Foundation projects. It can be downloaded here: https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=F54F5537-CC86-4BF5-AE44-F5A1E805680D&displaylang=en

  5. MOSS SDK: This tool will give you the full technical lowdown on MOSS development although it can be tricky to navigate through the hundreds of pages. The MOSS SDK can be downloaded here: https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/thankyou.aspx?familyId=6d94e307-67d9-41ac-b2d6-0074d6286fa9&displayLang=en

  6. Log Viewer is a great external tool to view the SharePoint logs. These will be extremely helpful to you in diagnosing issues. It can be downloaded here: https://www.codeplex.com/features/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=2502 In this location you can also download other features such as debugging

  7. Visual Studio 2005 – Who could forget MSFT's core IDE for development… apparently me because it's way down here. Most of the tools above will have hooks into the VS 2005 IDE. As with Designer, the VS 2005 must be purchased.

  8. WSS 3.0 SDK – This will give you the underlying SharePoint Services Framework and can be downloaded here: https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=05E0DD12-8394-402B-8936-A07FE8AFAFFD&displaylang=en

  9. Web Part Templates – MOSS is extendible through Web Parts and this tool will integrate into the VS 2005 IDE and help to build these parts. Can be downloaded here: https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=CAC3E0D2-BEC1-494C-A74E-75936B88E3B5&displaylang=en

  10. MOSS Extensions – Ok, the ever elusive development environment. These can be downloaded here: https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=19f21e5e-b715-4f0c-b959-8c6dcbdc1057&displaylang=en These will plug into the VS 2005 IDE

Updated: please find a more updated list of additional "nice to have" tools here.

Cheers!

Comments

  • Anonymous
    August 06, 2008
    This is going to be a first in a larger series related to the SharePoint provisioning concept that may