Share via


Learning SharePoint – Part I

I am on a special project that requires I do a deep dive into SharePoint and fast.  I told my director that I would be blogging as I learn, if only to force me to repeat everything I learn so it all sticks!  

I have been using SharePoint since its inception and have done a bit of development, primarily consuming SharePoint web services to integrate list data with other system. Aside from one experiment webpart, I haven’t done much else.  I have a lot to learn.

So, I am starting this Learning SharePoint series today.

Manually Building and Deploying a Webpart

My first task, after reading over 100 articles last week and yesterday, is to build a web part.  There are tools in Visual Studio and elsewhere that automate much of the construction and deployment, but using these tools in the beginning means I never really understand the internals.  I am building a web part from scratch and deploying it manually.

My reading has taught me that the right way to deploy a web part is to deploy it to the Bin directory and setup CAS, but for getting started, I am using the “Ghetto Deploying” method, as Corey Roth calls it.  A Ghetto Deploy is a GAC deployment.  Later in the post, I will talk about doing deployment using a SharePoint solution.

I created my basic web part class library, created a .webpart file, and compiled the project.  Great, no problems.  I use a handy post-build event to register the build output in the GAC:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\bin\gacutil.exe" /f /i $(TargetPath)

I could use IISRESET to purge the webpart, but that is a bit brutal.  Instead, I use another handy utility called “iisap.vbs” to simply recycle the SharePoint app pool from the post-build event.  That looks like this:

cscript.exe c:\windows\system32\iisapp.vbs /a "SharePoint - 80" /r

Next, I have to add the webpart assembly to the safe control list in web.config.

I got hung up here for about ten minutes. 

image

I got that resolved by namespacing the webpart type correctly.  Here is the final entry in web.config

    1: <SafeControl 
    2:     Assembly="Mcs.Epm.Ipm.WebParts.IdeaBrowser, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=24e5f12c55dad2a2" 
    3:     Namespace="Mcs.Epm.Ipm.WebParts" 
    4:     TypeName="IdeaBrowser" 
    5:     Safe="True" />

Remember, attribute names are CASE SENSITIVE.

I am able to preview the webpart in the gallery:

image c

Debugging a Webpart

Debugging webparts is easy enough; just attach to the correct instance of w3wp.exe.  I am going to write a better macro which attaches to the correct instance, but for now I am using Steve Connell’s macro to attach to all instances:

    1: Sub AttachTo_ASPNETWP()
    2:  
    3:     Dim attached As Boolean = False
    4:     Dim proc As EnvDTE.Process
    5:     Dim processToAttachTo As String
    6:  
    7:     ' name of the process to attach to 
    8:     processToAttachTo = "w3wp.exe"
    9:  
   10:     ' iterate through all processes running on the local machine 
   11:     For Each proc In DTE.Debugger.LocalProcesses
   12:         ' if the last [X] characters of the process name = name of the process... 
   13:         WriteLine(proc.Name)
   14:         If (Right(proc.Name, Len(processToAttachTo)) = processToAttachTo) Then
   15:             ' appach to the process 
   16:             proc.Attach()
   17:             ' set a flag that we've attached to the process & exit the for loop 
   18:             attached = True
   19:         End If
   20:     Next
   21:  
   22:     ' if macro didn't find process running, notify user 
   23:     If attached = False Then
   24:         MsgBox(processToAttachTo & " is not running")
   25:     End If
   26: End Sub

Deploying a Web Part using SharePoint Solutions

This has been written about a ton, so I am not going to repeat the instructions I found here.

After going through this manually a few times, I started to automate the process

I created four batch files, the first is build.bat:

    1: call deletesolution.bat
    2: call createsolution.bat
    3: call deploysolution.bat
    4: copy "C:\MCS EPM Global Practice\Projects\Internal\Innovation Process Management\Web Parts\Idea Browser\Idea Browser\bin\Debug\Mcs.Epm.Ipm.WebParts.IdeaBrowser.pdb" "C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\80\bin\Mcs.Epm.Ipm.WebParts.IdeaBrowser.pdb"

The deletesolution.bat file looks like this:

    1: @SET STSADM="c:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\bin\stsadm.exe"
    2:  
    3: %STSADM% -o retractsolution -name Ipm.IdeaBrowser.wsp -immediate -allcontenturls
    4: %STSADM% -o execadmsvcjobs
    5: %STSADM% -o deletesolution -name Ipm.IdeaBrowser.wsp

And createsolution.bat file looks like this:

    1: @echo off
    2: if EXIST package\Ipm.IdeaBrowser.wsp del package\Ipm.IdeaBrowser.wsp
    3:  
    4: makecab /f cab.ddf

And finally, the deploysolution.bat file looks like this:

    1: @SET STSADM="c:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\bin\stsadm.exe"
    2:  
    3: %STSADM% -o addsolution -filename package\Ipm.IdeaBrowser.wsp
    4: %STSADM% -o deploysolution -name Ipm.IdeaBrowser.wsp -immediate -url "https://portal.fabrikam.com/" -allowCasPolicies
    5: %STSADM% -o execadmsvcjobs

The output looks like this:

    1: ------ Rebuild All started: Project: Idea Browser, Configuration: Debug Any CPU ------
    2: C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Csc.exe /noconfig /nowarn:1701,1702 /errorreport:prompt /warn:4 /define:DEBUG;TRACE /reference:"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\ISAPI\Microsoft.SharePoint.dll" /reference:C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\System.Data.dll /reference:C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\System.dll /reference:C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\System.Web.dll /reference:C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\System.Xml.dll /debug+ /debug:full /filealign:512 /keyfile:key.snk /optimize- /out:obj\Debug\Mcs.Epm.Ipm.WebParts.IdeaBrowser.dll /target:library IdeaBrowser.cs Properties\AssemblyInfo.cs
    3:  
    4: Compile complete -- 0 errors, 0 warnings
    5: Idea Browser -> C:\MCS EPM Global Practice\Projects\Internal\Innovation Process Management\Web Parts\Idea Browser\Idea Browser\bin\Debug\Mcs.Epm.Ipm.WebParts.IdeaBrowser.dll
    6: cd C:\MCS EPM Global Practice\Projects\Internal\Innovation Process Management\Web Parts\Idea Browser\
    7: call build.bat
    8: call cscript.exe c:\windows\system32\iisapp.vbs /a "SharePoint - 80" /r
    9:  
   10:  
   11: Timer job successfully created.
   12:  
   13:  
   14: Executing .
   15: Executing solution-deployment-ipm.ideabrowser.wsp-0.
   16: Operation completed successfully.
   17:  
   18:  
   19: Operation completed successfully.
   20:  
   21: Microsoft (R) Cabinet Maker - Version 5.2.3790.0
   22: Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved..
   23:  
   24: Parsing directives
   25: Parsing directives (cab.ddf: 1 lines)
   26: 20,103 bytes in 6 files              
   27: Executing directives
   28:   0.00% - manifest.xml (1 of 6)
   29:   0.00% - Mcs.Epm.Ipm.WebParts.IdeaBrowser.dll (2 of 6)
   30:   0.00% - Mcs.Epm.Ipm.WebParts.IdeaBrowser.pdb (3 of 6)
   31:   0.00% - Ipm.IdeaBrowser\Elements.xml (4 of 6)        
   32:   0.00% - Ipm.IdeaBrowser\Feature.xml (5 of 6) 
   33:   0.00% - IdeaBrowser.webpart (6 of 6)        
   34: 100.00% - IdeaBrowser.webpart (6 of 6)
   35:   0.00% [flushing current folder]     
   36:  93.01% [flushing current folder]
   37:   5.88% [flushing current folder]
   38: 100.00% [flushing current folder]
   39: Total files:              6      
   40: Bytes before:        20,103
   41: Bytes after:          4,153
   42: After/Before:            20.66% compression
   43: Time:                     0.04 seconds ( 0 hr  0 min  0.04 sec)
   44: Throughput:             490.80 Kb/second
   45:  
   46: Operation completed successfully.
   47:  
   48:  
   49: Timer job successfully created.
   50:  
   51:  
   52: Executing .
   53: Executing solution-deployment-ipm.ideabrowser.wsp-0.
   54: Operation completed successfully.
   55:  
   56: Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.6
   57: Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 1996-2001. All rights reserved.
   58:  
   59: Connecting to server ...Done.
   60: Application pool 'SharePoint - 80' recycled successfully.
   61: ========== Rebuild All: 1 succeeded, 0 failed, 0 skipped ==========

So, at the end of build, I have my webpart deployed and read for debugging.

More later.