Code Sample:

The below method takes the ClientContext object and the name of the page to be created as parameters. It gets the reference of publishing web from the current web and creates a publishing page in the web.

public void AddPublishingPage(ClientContext context, string pageName)

{

// Get current web

Web webSite = context.Web;

context.Load(webSite);

PublishingWeb web = PublishingWeb.GetPublishingWeb(context, webSite);

context.Load(web);

if (web != null)

{

// Get Pages Library

List pages = context.Site.RootWeb.Lists.GetByTitle("Pages");

ListItemCollection existingPages = pages.GetItems(CamlQuery.CreateAllItemsQuery());

context.Load(existingPages, items => items.Include(item => item.DisplayName).Where(obj => obj.DisplayName == pageName));

context.ExecuteQuery();

// Check if page already exists

if (existingPages != null && existingPages.Count > 0)

{

// Page already exists

}

else

{

// Get Publishing Page Layouts

List publishingLayouts = context.Site.RootWeb.Lists.GetByTitle("Master Page Gallery");

ListItemCollection allItems = publishingLayouts.GetItems(CamlQuery.CreateAllItemsQuery());

context.Load(allItems, items => items.Include(item => item.DisplayName).Where(obj => obj.DisplayName == "BlankWebPartPage"));

context.ExecuteQuery();

ListItem layout = allItems.Where(x => x.DisplayName == "BlankWebPartPage").FirstOrDefault();

context.Load(layout);

// Create a publishing page

PublishingPageInformation publishingPageInfo = newPublishingPageInformation();

publishingPageInfo.Name = pageName;

publishingPageInfo.PageLayoutListItem = layout;

PublishingPage publishingPage = web.AddPublishingPage(publishingPageInfo);

publishingPage.ListItem.File.CheckIn(string.Empty, CheckinType.MajorCheckIn);

publishingPage.ListItem.File.Publish(string.Empty);

publishingPage.ListItem.File.Approve(string.Empty);

context.Load(publishingPage);

context.Load(publishingPage.ListItem.File, obj => obj.ServerRelativeUrl);

context.ExecuteQuery();

}

}

}

The alerts can be set at Item level or the list level.

But, this will send the notification to only the user who is logged in.

But always there would be a requirement to send alerts multiple users. How to achieve them OOB?

Good news!!! :-)

In SharePoint 2013, this feature has been enhanced and alerts can be sent to multiple users.

Connecting to a WCF Service Using Business Connectivity Services in Office 2010

How to: Create External Lists in SharePoint

Creating a View:

Creating a View to an external list is a 2 step process. First step is to create a view and add it to the view collection of the external list. Second step is to update the created view to set the Method XML.

Let us consider that we are creating a view for an external list named Customer. The Customer list is linked to the Customer_ECT external content type. This ECT has the following operations defined.

1. GetCustomerById - Fetches the customer item based on the customer ID

The SP.ViewCreationInformation class will be used to create views for SharePoint Lists.

var listName = "Customer";
var viewName = "Customer_123";
var viewCollection;
function createView() {
    var clientContext = new SP.ClientContext.get_current();
    if (clientContext != undefined && clientContext != null) {
        var web = clientContext.get_web();
        var listCollection = web.get_lists();
        var list = listCollection.getByTitle(listName);
        viewCollection = list.get_views();             
        var viewInfo = new SP.ViewCreationInformation();
        viewInfo.set_title(viewName);
        viewInfo.set_rowLimit(2000);
        viewInfo.set_personalView(true);
        viewCollection.add(viewInfo);
        clientContext.load(viewCollection);
        clientContext.executeQueryAsync(Function.createDelegate(this, this.onViewCreationSucceeded), Function.createDelegate(this, this.onViewCreationFailed));       
    }
}

function onViewCreationSucceeded() {
    this.clearViewNamesCache();
    var clientContext = new SP.ClientContext.get_current();
    if (clientContext != undefined && clientContext != null) {
        var view = this.viewCollection.getByTitle(viewName);
        var query = "<Method Name='GetCustomerById'><Filter Name='customerID' Value='123'/></Method>";
        view.set_method(query);
        view.update();
        clientContext.executeQueryAsync(Function.createDelegate(this, this.onViewUpdateSucceeded), Function.createDelegate(this, this.onViewUpdateFailed));
    }
}

function onViewUpdateSucceeded() {
    alert("View Created Successfully");   
}

function onViewUpdateFailed(sender, args) {
    alert('An error occurred while updating the view');
}

function onViewCreationFailed(sender, args) {
    alert('An error occurred while creating the view');
}

Now, call the createView method to create a view for the external list Customer. Thats it!