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Getting started with SharePoint 2007 Web PartsBy Gavin Sinai

Four important aspects of SharePoint 2007 Web Part development

IntroductionWriting SharePoint Web Parts is one of the best ways to customize the SharePoint platform. Web Parts combine the power of ASP.NET with the flexibility of Web Part Pages. This article is intended to help you get going quickly with Web Part development. We briefly cover four topics in Web Part development:

Setting up the Visual Studio SharePoint development environment. Creating and rendering ASP.NET controls in Web Parts Accessing SharePoint data using the Microsoft.SharePoint namespace Using the settings API so that admin users can configure and manage web parts in production.

BackgroundKnowledge of SharePoint, ASP.NET and Visual Studio is required. Creating the Visual Studio SharePoint development environmentIn this section the steps to setup your development are covered. If you already have a working dev environment then you can safely skip this section.In order to follow these steps you will need Visual Studio 2005 (.NET 2.0) or later. You will also need network access to a Windows 2003/8 server with SharePoint 2007 (WSS or MOSS) - SharePoint does not run on XP or Vista. I usually use a Windows 2003 Virtual PC with .NET 3.5 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. One can also install Visual Studio 2005/8 on the development server.We assume you have administration rights on your SharePoint server and also administration rights in your target SharePoint web application. The steps to setting up your Visual Studio Web Part development environment are as follows:

1. In Visual Studio, create a new class library

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2. Add a reference to System.Web

3. In this step we create a simple Web Part that prints "Hello World!" to the screen. A Web Part is a class that inherits from the WebPart class in System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts. In order to control the rendering of the Web Part one overrides the Render method. An HtmlTextWriter instance is passed into the Render method and can then be used to write markup to the page output. The code below is an example of this:

4. using System;5. using System.Collections.Generic;6. using System.Text;7.8. using System.Web;9. using System.Web.UI;10. using System.Web.UI.WebControls;11. using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;12.13. namespace ExampleWebPartLibrary14. {15. public class MyWebPart : WebPart16. {17.18. protected override void Render(HtmlTextWriter writer)19. {20. writer.Write("Hello World!");21. }22.23. }

}24. Using Visual Studio or another suitable tool, give your class library a strong name key and get the

full name of your assembly. You can get the fullname by using "gacutil /l" in the Visual Studio Command Prompt or by using Lutz Roeder's .NET reflector.

25. In your class library properties, set the build output path to the bin directory of your SharePoint development web application. I usually share the directory on my development server as "\\SharePointDev\wss_bin" and use this directory as my build output directory. In Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 the bin directory is usually of the form "C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\[Port Num]\bin" and I share this directory as "wss_bin".

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26. Add the code statements using System.Security; and [assembly: AllowPartiallyTrustedCallers] to your AssemblyInfo.cs file.

27. Ensure that your class library builds and that Visual Studio places the DLL in the expected location on the server

28. In the web.config file on your target server, you need to add the assembly as a safe control. You can copy one of the existing safe control entries and fill that in with the details of your assembly. You will need the full name of the assembly to complete this step.

29. <SafeControl 30. Assembly="ExampleWebPartLibrary, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral,

PublicKeyToken=db485f68ad2dc0c5" 31. Namespace="ExampleWebPartLibrary"

TypeName="*" Safe="True" AllowRemoteDesigner="True" />32. You can now add the web part library to your SharePoint site. To do this, log in as an

administrator and go to the settings page. Click on "Web Part Gallery" under the "Galleries" section. Click "New" and you should see your web part in a list. Select your web part and click "populate gallery".

33. You can give your web part a friendly title and control its permissions using the edit button in the web part gallery. I have chosen to call the Web Part "My Web Part".

34. Finally you can add the web part to a web part page and you should see the web part's hard coded "Hello World!" message.

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If your build target is set to the SharePoint bin directory as per step 5 in the list above, then you won't have to redeploy when you want to test changes. Each time the class library is rebuilt, you can test the latest version of your Web Part by refreshing your Web Part page. You also do not need to repeat the above steps whenever you add a new web part to the library. Each time you add a new web part to the library you simply need to "Populate Gallery" with your new web part. Remote debugging can be used to debug the Web Part. We won't go into that here; the MSDN library has an article about this. Using ASP.NET controls in your web partIn Web Part development you don't have the luxury of Visual Studio's code generation for ASP.NET. You have to declare, initialise, configure and render the controls yourself in the correct phases of the Web Part life cycle. In this example we will create a button and a label and use the button press event to change the label text. Controls should be declared as member variables and then initialised and configured within an override of the CreateChildControls method. I usually create a separate method to setup each control and then invoke that method from CreateChildControls. It is important to add the created controls to the list of Web Part controls. If a control is not added to this list then it's events won't be raised on post back. private Button btnDemo;

private void createBtnDemo(){ btnDemo = new Button(); btnDemo.Text = "Click me"; btnDemo.Click += new EventHandler(btnDemo_Click);

// This line of code is required to trigger the click event Controls.Add(btnDemo);}

protected override void CreateChildControls(){ base.CreateChildControls(); createBtnDemo(); createLblHelloWorld();}The controls are rendered inside the Render method override. This method can be used to layout the web part it's controls. The HtmlTextWriter has many useful methods to help out, including WriteBreak() which writes a "<br />". protected override void Render(HtmlTextWriter writer){ writer.WriteBreak();

lblHelloWorld.RenderControl(writer); writer.WriteBreak(); writer.WriteBreak();

btnDemo.RenderControl(writer);}Note: A known work around to the problem of not having Visual Studio support for Web Part development is to embed UserControls in the Web Part. You can read about that in this Code Project article.

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Accessing SharePoint data in your web partThere are two steps you need to take in order to access SharePoint data from within your web part. The first is to reference Microsoft.SharePoint.dll. You can get a copy of this DLL from your SharePoint server by browsing to the directory "[Program Files]\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\ISAPI". The second step is to take care of the code access security for your web part. The easiest way of doing this is to set the target SharePoint site's trust level to "Full". This level of trust is generally acceptable in an Intranet environment. If you require that the SharePoint site be run in a minimal or medium trust level environment then you will need to configure your code access security manually. To take the easy way out and set the site trust level to "Full" find the following in your site's web.config file: <trust level="WSS_Minimal" originUrl="" />Now change this to:<trust level="Full" originUrl="" />Now you can write some code to access SharePoint data. This is just a question of learning and understanding the SharePoint API, which is worthy of several articles in its own right. Here I show a simple web part that displays the name of the presently logged in user: using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;using Microsoft.SharePoint;

namespace ExampleWebPartLibrary{ public class HelloUser : WebPart { protected override void Render(System.Web.UI.HtmlTextWriter writer) { // Get a contextual reference to the current SPWeb SPWeb currentWeb = SPContext.Current.Web;

// Write a message to the current user writer.Write("Hello " + currentWeb.CurrentUser.LoginName); } }}SPContext.Current.Web is the starting point for accessing SharePoint data. For example you can use it to access data in lists and document libraries. Using SharePoint settings to manage your Web Part

Web Parts will invariably need settings in order to be useful. There are two ways of providing your web parts with settings in run time. In a bespoke environment it may be acceptable to place the settings in the web.config and access them in the same way as you would for standard ASP.NET applications. However

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if you require that users be able to easily configure and manage the web part themselves, then you need to use the SharePoint API to give the web part settings. This will almost certainly be the case if you are an Independent Software Vendor making a packaged release of your Web Part. Fortunately it's quite easy to settings-enable your web part. The following steps assume you are starting with an existing web part, but you can skip to the listing at the end of the article if you are starting from scratch.

1. Add the required using statements 2. using System;3.4. using System.ComponentModel;5. using System.Runtime.InteropServices;6. using System.Xml.Serialization;7.8. using Microsoft.SharePoint;

using Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages;9. Change your web part to inherit from the Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPart 10. Create a new guid for your web part. Add the Guid and XmlRoot attributes to your Web Part as

follows: 11. [Guid("692b5ada-2f4c-45b0-b9a5-e718db958ae6")]12. [XmlRoot(Namespace = "ExampleWebPartLibrarySettingsDemo")]

public class SettingsDemo : Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPart13. Add the different attributes applied to the property that is used as a setting. Adjust the constant

string attribute arguments according to your needs. 14. private string mySetting;15.16. // SharePoint setting with required attributes17. [Browsable(true),18. Category("Example Web Parts"),19. DefaultValue("Default"),20. WebPartStorage(Storage.Shared),21. FriendlyName("MySetting"),22. Description("An example setting")]23. public string MySetting24. {25. get { return mySetting; }26. set { mySetting = value; }

}27. Using the setting in code (in this case, the render method).

The complete code listing is as follows: // using statements required for settingsusing System;

using System.ComponentModel;using System.Runtime.InteropServices;using System.Xml.Serialization;

using Microsoft.SharePoint;using Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages;

namespace ExampleWebPartLibrary{

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//Guid and XmlRoot attributes for a settings enabled web part [Guid("692b5ada-2f4c-45b0-b9a5-e718db958ae6")] [XmlRoot(Namespace = "ExampleWebPartLibrarySettingsDemo")] // NB inherit from SharePoint WebPart rather than ASP.NET Web Part public class SettingsDemo : Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPart { private string mySetting; // SharePoint setting with required attributes [Browsable(true), Category("Example Web Parts"), DefaultValue("Default"), WebPartStorage(Storage.Shared), FriendlyName("MySetting"), Description("An example setting")] public string MySetting { get { return mySetting; } set { mySetting = value; } } // use the setting in code protected override void Render(System.Web.UI.HtmlTextWriter writer) { writer.Write("Value of MySetting: "); writer.Write(mySetting); }

}}

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SharePoint 2007 Flash Animation Web PartBy Mahdi Abdulhamid

IntroductionI've seen that many people are using HTML content web part for displaying Flash animation. I don't recommend this approach for many reasons, one of them being you won't tell your client to edit HTML code for changing Flash properties; so it is better to have a dedicated web part for rendering Flash animation. Software Requirements

Microsoft SharePoint 2007 installed (With Site Collection created on port:80) SharePoint Services 3.0 Extensions for Visual Studio 2005 installed

Using the codeTo apply the code, you will need to create a new SharePoint Webpart Project then overrides the web part class file: using System;using System.ComponentModel;using System.Runtime.InteropServices;using System.Web.UI;using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;using System.Web.UI.WebControls;using System.Xml.Serialization;using Microsoft.SharePoint;using Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls;using Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages;using Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities;using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls;namespace FlashWebPart{ [Guid("f04fa49d-1342-4c7d-904a-c43ebc942f39")] [XmlRoot(Namespace = "FlashWebPart")] public class FlashWebPart : Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPart { public FlashWebPart()

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{ this.ExportMode = WebPartExportMode.All; } protected int flashWidth = 400; protected int flashHeight = 300; protected string flashUrl = ""; <BROWSABLE(true), Category("Flash Info"), DefaultValue(400), WebPartStorage(Storage.Shared), FriendlyName("Width"), Description("Width of the web part")> public int FlashWidth { get { return this.flashWidth; } set { this.flashWidth = value; } } <BROWSABLE(true), Category("Flash Info"), DefaultValue(300), WebPartStorage(Storage.Shared), FriendlyName("Height"), Description("Height of the web part")> public int FlashHeight { get { return this.flashHeight; } set { this.flashHeight = value; } } <BROWSABLE(true), Category("Flash Info"), DefaultValue(""), WebPartStorage(Storage.Shared), FriendlyName("URL"), Description("URL of the web part")> public string FlashURL { get {

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return this.flashUrl; } set { this.flashUrl = value; } } protected override void Render(HtmlTextWriter writer) { string outHTML = "<OBJECT classid= \"clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000\" " + "codebase= \"http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/ flash/swflash.cab#version=7,0,0,0\" " + "WIDTH=" + flashWidth + " HEIGHT=" + flashHeight + "> " + "<PARAM NAME=movie VALUE=\"" + flashUrl + "\"> " + "<PARAM NAME=WMODE VALUE=\"Transparent\">" + "<PARAM NAME=quality VALUE=high> " + "<EMBED src=\"" + flashUrl + "\" quality=high wmode=\"transparent\" WIDTH=\"" + flashWidth + "\" HEIGHT=\"" + flashHeight + "\" TYPE=\"application/x-shockwave-flash\" PLUGINSPAGE= \"http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/ index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash\"></EMBED> " + "</OBJECT>"; writer.Write(outHTML); } }}

Simple WebPart To Load UserControlBy agusto xaverius

It is a simple webpart but very usefull to load many usercontrols

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IntroductionMoss/WSS is so CMS popular currently. There are many thing can be which can be done and is modified at deep technology on that product.Work with on that solution will ever be utilize webpart. But if we develop one webpart sometimes we do ever make same old things which is make coding webpart and load the usercontrol what does we want.BackgroundThis concept is similiar with SmartPart which you just create one webpart and then it can be used to load all your usercontrol without writing webpart again. Using the CodeThe listing code is like this:

1. Write on your class solution like this. Please reference Microsoft.Sharepoint.dll component and System.Web.dll too.

using System;using System.ComponentModel;using System.Text;using System.Web.UI;using System.Web.UI.WebControls;using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;using System.Xml.Serialization;using Microsoft.SharePoint;using Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities;using Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages;

namespace WebPartLib{ public class WebPartGeneral : Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPart { private Control _childControl = null; private string _userControlVirtualPath = string.Empty; private string _errMessage = string.Empty;

public WebPartGeneral() { }

[ Personalizable(), Category("Miscellaneous"), DefaultValue(""), WebBrowsable(true), WebDisplayName("User Control Virtual Path"), WebDescription("User Control Virtual Path") ] public string UserControlVirtualPath { get { return _userControlVirtualPath; } set { _userControlVirtualPath = value; } }

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protected override void RenderWebPart(HtmlTextWriter output) { if (_errMessage != string.Empty) output.Write(_errMessage); if (_userControlVirtualPath != string.Empty || _userControlVirtualPath.Equals("") == false) RenderChildren(output); }

protected override void RenderChildren(HtmlTextWriter output) { try { this.EnsureChildControls(); if (this._childControl != null) this._childControl.RenderControl(output); } catch (Exception ex) { _errMessage = string.Format( "Exception Message (RenderWebPart) = {0}<br />", ex.Message); } }

protected override void CreateChildControls() { base.CreateChildControls(); if (_userControlVirtualPath != string.Empty) { if (_childControl != null) return; _childControl = Page.LoadControl(_userControlVirtualPath); if (_childControl != null) Controls.AddAt(0, _childControl); } }

public override void Dispose() { } }}

2. After the solution already successfully compile and the put the binary into bin folder on your MOss/Wss site. After it also make one folder by which UserControls.

1. Modify your web.config eControl Assembly="WebPartLib, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral" Namespace="WebPartLib" TypeName="*" Safe="True" AllowRemoteDesigner="True" /> and change trust level from WSS_Minimal into Full. <trust level="Full" originUrl="" />

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4. If Necesary you can client restart your IIS and the back to your site again and list the webpart into list of webpart

5. Create new website solution and create a simple usercontrol and then copy all .ascx and .cs into UserControls folder

6. Now you can utilize webpart and set the virtual path into your usercontrols and the simsalabim your webpart now load your usercontrol. You can create another usercontrol again and you can add your webpart again and set the usercontrols to load.

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WebPart Life CycleBy Fabio Barbieri

This article examines the production of a simple WebPart in C#

IntroductionIn Sharepoint 2007, a way to customize the environment pass is by building WebParts coded with one of the languages available in VS2005. In this article, we're going to examine the production of a simple WebPart in C#, to better comprehend the life cycle and later, look at events that the developer has to consider in order to get the correct execution of code. Use Case DescriptionIn this sample will be proposed a typical case where the selection of an item in a dropdown list raises the event of filling a second dropdown list (server-side event) with proper items to the value selected. Specifically, the first dropdown list contains a short nations list, the second dropdown list will be loaded with a short town list belonging to the nation selected. Besides the two dropdown lists are shown the steps regarding principal event routines and property Text of DropDownList nation. The complete Webpart will have the following rendering graphic:

The Web PartIt is interesting to note that DropDownList nation has set ViewState and AutoPostBack to true. The article scope is to highlight the WebPart life Cycle and understand when the value of a control (i.e. Text property) that has ViewState set up to be true, becomes available. In practice, this happens when the user selects a nation changing the first dropdown list item which starts the Postback event, at which point the value of the new item is available. The Code

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As is possible to understand by the shown log, there are four predefined routines that take place in a WebPart Life Cycle:

1. OnInit: Typically in this routine we define controls that will be involved with WebPart: 2. protected override void OnInit(EventArgs e)3. {4. try5. {6. _divPanel = new Panel();7. _ddlCountry = new DropDownList();8.

_ddlTown = new DropDownList(); 9. CreateChildControls: In this routine are defined control properties and methods previously

declared. In most cases, we have to initialize the control's default value (as Text, Checked, Items, and so on) and activity that is possible to call just at first WebPart load, checking PostBack:

10. protected override void CreateChildControls()11. {12. try13. {14. base.CreateChildControls();15. _divPanel.ID = "_divPanel";16. _divPanel.BorderStyle = BorderStyle.Ridge;17. _divPanel.Width = 250;18. _divPanel.Height = 300;19. _divPanel.BackColor = System.Drawing.Color.Gainsboro;20. Controls.Add(_divPanel);21. _ddlCountry.AutoPostBack = true;22. _ddlCountry.ID = "_ddlCountry";23. _ddlCountry.Width = 150;24. _ddlCountry.EnableViewState = true;25. _ddlCountry.SelectedIndexChanged +=26. new EventHandler(_ddlCountry_SelectedIndexChanged);27. _divPanel.Controls.Add(_ddlCountry);28. _ddlTown.AutoPostBack = false;29. _ddlTown.ID = "_ddlTown";30. _ddlTown.Width = 150;31. _ddlTown.EnableViewState = true;32. _divPanel.Controls.Add(_ddlTown);33.34. if (!Page.IsPostBack)

ddlCountry_Load();35. OnPreRender: This is the routine where the control's value kept by ViewState (for example Item

value set up by the user to DropDownList nation), is available. For this reason, it's normal to begin business procedure from here, and in our case we're going to load values for the second dropdown list (Town DropDownList) with the proper data:

36. protected override void OnPreRender(EventArgs e)37. {38. try39. {40. _sMex += "OnPreRender: " + _ddlCountry.Text + " ";41. string sStateSelected = _ddlCountry.Text;42. _ddlTown.Items.Clear();

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43.44. switch (sStateSelected)45. {46. case "England":47. ddlTown_Load("London", "Liverpool", "Bristol");48. break;49.50. case "Spain":51. ddlTown_Load("Madrid", "Barcelona", "Valencia");52. break;53.54. case "Italy":55. ddlTown_Load("Rome", "Milan", "Florence");56. break;57.58. default:59. ddlTown_Load("New York", "Tokio", "Paris");60. break;

}61. Render: That's the routine for HTML rendering WebPart:62. protected override void Render(HtmlTextWriter writer)63. {64. _sMex += "Render: " + _ddlCountry.Text + " <br />";65. writer.Write(" <div id='_divPanel'>");66. writer.Write(" <table style='border-right: 1px ridge; 67. border-top: 1px ridge; border-left: 1px ridge;");68. writer.Write(" border-bottom: 1px ridge; 69. background-color: gainsboro;' 70. cellpadding='3' cellspacing='2'");71. writer.Write(" width='250'>");72.73. if (_sErrDescription == "")74. {75. // dropdownlist State76. writer.Write(" <tr style='border-right: 77. 1px ridge; border-top: 1px ridge; border-left: 1px ridge;");78. writer.Write(" border-bottom: 1px ridge;'>");79. writer.Write(" <td style='height: 50px'>");80. _ddlCountry.RenderControl(writer);81. writer.Write(" </td>");82. writer.Write(" </tr>");83.84. // dropdownlist town85. writer.Write(" <tr style='border-right: 1px ridge;86. border-top: 1px ridge; border-left: 1px ridge;");87. writer.Write(" border-bottom: 1px ridge;'>");88. writer.Write(" <td style='height: 50px'>");89. _ddlTown.RenderControl(writer);90. writer.Write(" </td>");91. writer.Write(" </tr>");

}

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Developing and Deploying Custom Web Parts for SharePoint Portal 2007 

Overview and difference with SPS 2003:Developing Web Part for SharePoint Portal 2007 is different as compared to developing for SPS 2003. Web Parts Developed in .Net 1.1 for SPS 2003 used the SharePoint.WebPartPages namespace, however the Web Part in ASP.Net 2.0 is found under the System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.  Development of Web Part in VS 2005To Get Started with creating Custom Web Part for MOSS 2007 in Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, Open the IDE and create a new C# project, Select Class Library as Project Type. Name It as NewWebPart.   

 Add a reference to the System.Web  from .Net components into the project. The System.Web dll contains the required namespace of System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts . 

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   In The Project explorer view rename the Class1.cs with NewWbPart.cs to be consistent with this example; this will result in renaming the Class name as well. With the help of “using” keyword include the namespaces as shown in the code example below. Derive / Extend the NewWebPart Class from the WebPart Class ( System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebPart), and add the code as shown below. The CreateChildren Control is same as in .Net 1.1, that it would create and add controls to this Web Part Class,. In this case I have only added a WebControl.Calender Object. The RenderControl Method is an override for the WebPart Base Class and calls the RenderChildren Method, this causes the Children Controls to be rendered on the Particular HtmlTextWriter passed as a parameter to the method. 

 using System;using System.Collections.Generic;using System.Text; using System.Web;using System.Web.UI;using System.Web.UI.WebControls;using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts; namespace NewWepPart{    public class NewWebPart : WebPart    { 

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        protected override void CreateChildControls()        {            Calendar cldr = new Calendar();            cldr.Enabled = true;            cldr.ShowGridLines = true;            cldr.ShowTitle = true;            cldr.EnableViewState = true;      cldr.SelectedDate = DateTime.Now;             Controls.Add(cldr);       �          �        }         public override void RenderControl(HtmlTextWriter writer)        {             RenderChildren(writer);        }     }}  

 Build the project and on successful built you are ready to Deploy the Web Part to the Portal Site. Deployment of Web Part:In order to deploy a web part to a SharePoint portal 2007 site, we must have the URL of the site to which we want our web part needs to be deployed (displayed in fact). As it  is mentioned earlier that the Web Parts developed in .Net 2.0 environment does have a .CAB project , instead an assembly is created on build of project. Now there are two choices to deploy the assembly to the SharePoint portal directory.

Deploy the assembly to the Assembly Folder (GAC) (requires the assembly to be stron named). Put the assembly to the bin folder of the portal directory.

For the sake of simplicity, the later choice is being demonstrated in this example.

Putting Assembly in Bin Folder:The MOSS 2007 creates every portal in the inetpub\wwwroot\wss folder. The easiest way to find the bin folder from these folder hierarchies is to go from inetmgr console. Locate the appropriate portal (for which u want to deploy the web part), identified with the port number. Right click and have Properties. Under the Home Directory Tab, note the path in Local path text box. Verify if the bin folder exists in the specified path by opening it in browser. If the folder doesn’t exist then create one. Now copy the assembly form the project output folder and paste it in bin folder of portal.  

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However there is another work around for putting the assembly in to the portal’s bin folder again ad again each time the Web Part Project is built with changes.Right click on the project name (NewWebPart) in the VS.Net 2005 IDE and click properties. Under  the Build page paste the same path copied from inetmgr console into the Output Path. As shown in figure below. This will result in the latest assembly automatically deployed to the bin folder every time the project is built. 

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    Adding the Safe Control Entry:Even though the assembly is present in the Portal’s Bin folder, there is another step required to make the Control (Web Part) assembly usable on the Portal Pages. Since the control will need to render on multiple machines in different browsers with as many user accounts as the organizations have. There is a need to declare the control as “safe”. To do so open the web.config file placed under the portal’s directory in the VS.Net 2005 IDE. 

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   Then edit the file in the section of SafeControls, create a new SafeControl entry for our assembly as shown below. Save the file and close it.  <SafeControls><SafeControl Assembly="NewWebPart" Namespace="NewWebPart" TypeName="*" Safe="True" /> SafeControls>  Configuring Portal to use NewWebPartSince now the web part have been written and deployed to the desired portal’s directory. The next task is to use the web part on the Portal’s Site. The Web Part Deployed to the portal can be placed on any site within that Portal. For convenience this NewWebPart is demonstrated to be placed on the home page of default Portal.Open the portal site in the internet explorer; in this case http://oss1 is the URL for the default portal, ensuring that the current logged in user has the administrative rights on the portal site. To begin with, the first step is to add the newly deployed web to the Portal’s web part gallery, since the portal is using the configuration databases to keep record of the contents of the portal, our newly created web part’s information doesn’t exist in the database. We need to add the web part to the Web Part Gallery before we can use it. To do so, the following steps should be followed.

1. Click on the Site Actions button and then select Site Settings.

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2. On the site settings page under Galleries column click on the Web Parts.  

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3. On the Web Part Gallery Page click on the New button, to add the new web part assembly to the gallery.

 

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4. On the New Web Parts page locate the NewWebPart in the list, check the check box on the left and click on the Populate Gallery button the top of the page. This will result in the Web Part entry creation in the Web Part Gallery list, and hence it can be used from now on from the gallery. It can be notices easily that the Web Parts developed form the new Frame work of 2.0 have an extension of .webpart after their names. Whereas in earlier versions, it was a .dwp file. Both the .webpart  and .dwp  files are the XML definition of the Web Part.

 

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5. Until this step the web part is ready to be used on the site by selecting it from Web Part Gallery. Click on the Site Actions button on the page and then select Edit Page, this will modify the appearance of the page to enable the edit view. In this view Web Part Zones are highlighted so that a user can add a web part to the zone, Click on the Add a Web Part button in the left zone to add the Web Part.

 

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6. Select the NewWebPart from the web part list . it is found under the Misc section and then click on�Advanced Web Part gallery and options.

 

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7. In the�Add Web Part Pane at right , select Home  Gallery and then drag the NewWebPart from the pane into the Web Part Zone.

 

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8. Click on the Exit Edit Mode link on the page and the site will return to the view mode.

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Writing Custom Webparts for Sharepoint 2007 This is based on Sharepoint 2007 Beta1TR Posted on 7/31/2006 @ 6:38 AM in #Sharepoint | 65 comments | 63302 views As I have already indicated, and as Scott Guthrie also pointed out, Sharepoint 2007 is built upon ASP.NET 2.0. Well, so a Sharepoint 2007 WebPart is a decendant of an ASP.NET 2.0 WebPart, i.e. Your custom WebPart, inherits from Sharepoint WebPart, which inherits from an ASP.NET 2.0 WebPart. Now, as already indicated by my good friend, Andrew Connell, it is highly recommended that you should write an ASP.NET 2.0 WebPart instead of one that inherits from the Sharepoint WebPart. As Andrew mentioned on his blog, it appropriate to build Web Parts derived from the SharePoint class only when you need - Cross page connectionsConnections between Web Parts that are outside of a Web Part zoneClient-side connections (Web Part Page Services Component)Data caching infrastructure

So in this blogpost, we will see how to write the simplest possible Sharepoint 2007 WebPart and deploy it. Just for fun, we will inherit from the sharepoint webpart instead of the asp.net webpart. Begin by creating a class library project, add references to System.Web, Microsoft.Sharepoint.dll (again only because this blogpost talks about Sharepoint Webpart).Then add a class as below, which as you can tell is a hella simple WebPart.using System;

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using System.Collections.Generic;using System.Text;using System.Xml.Serialization;using System.Web;using System.Web.Security;using System.Security;using System.Security.Permissions;

using Microsoft.SharePoint;using Microsoft.SharePoint.Security;using Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages;

namespace Sahil.Sharepoint.WebPartPages{ [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlRoot(Namespace = "http://blah.winsmarts.com/demospace")] public class CustomWebPart : WebPart { private string toDisplayText = "Default Text";        [WebPartStorage(Storage.Shared), System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElement(Namespace = "http://blah.winsmarts.com/demospace")] public string ToDisplayText { get { return toDisplayText; } set { toDisplayText = value; } } protected override void RenderWebPart(System.Web.UI.HtmlTextWriter writer) { writer.Write(toDisplayText) ; base.Render(writer); } }}Great !! Now, strongly name it, Build the dll, and use sn-t or reflector to find the public key token. Then follow the following steps - 1. Locate the Sharepoint WebSite you wish to deploy this webpart in. This can be done via the IIS Manager under administrative tools. The default ones would be virtual directories that look like GUIDs under C:\INETPUB\WWROOT\WSS\<<GUID>>. In my case (yours may be different) the dir was - C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\7ee252c4-9e98-4258-a6ae-77e16a287bea\bin2. Drop the dll in the bin directory in the virtual dir.

Important: By dropping the webpart in the bin directory, you are effectively giving it partial trust. If you were writing a plain vanilla ASP.NET 2.0 WebPart, you would need to decorate the Webpart with the AllowPartialTrustedCallersAttribute @ the assembly level. You could also create a new trust policy for your WebPart (recommended), or raise the trust level in the web.config file (default is WSS_Minimal), or you could just drop the Webpart in the GAC; which again requires strong naming.3. Under the same virtual directory, find the web.config, and add the following to the SafeControls section - <SafeControl Assembly="Sahil.Sharepoint.WebPartPages, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=84da1d46719d7853" Namespace="Sahil.Sharepoint.WebPartPages" TypeName="*" Safe="True" AllowRemoteDesigner="True" />

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4. Then browse to the WebSite, and go to Site Actions -> Site Settings -> Modify All Site Settings. Under that, click on "Web Parts" under Galleries.5. Click on "New" in the toolbar, and find the Sahil.Sharepoint.WebPartPages.CustomWebPart as shown below -

6. Check the checkbox, go to the top, click on "Populate Gallery".

Getting Started With SharePoint Web ServicesPosted by Trent Swanson on Feb 06, 2008 02:50 AM Community

.NET Topics

Web Services , Application Servers , Interop

SharePoint supports interoperability and remote operations through a set of web services, and by SharePoint I am referring to WSS 3.0 (Windows SharePoint Services) and MOSS 2007 (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server). There are number of approaches for programmatic access to SharePoint, such as the object model, web services, RPC over HTTP, as well as WebDAV, all of which have their benefits and their place depending on the needs of the application. The SharePoint RPC protocols can be useful and powerful and it certainly has its strengths, especially when it comes to adding content. The object model is much more robust and feature rich than the web services, but it does not offer support for remote operations, so in order to leverage the object model your code must be running on the SharePoint server, and you must be writing .NET code in order to leverage it. There are a number of different reasons for working with SharePoint data remotely, be it administrative scripts or the need to work with SharePoint content such as tasks in an application running on a client machine, or non-SharePoint applications in the enterprise. The SharePoint web services are built on top of the object model and expose a subset of features available in the object model, and allow for remote operations and the use of any language and platform that supports the consumption of web services. For most tasks the web services that ship in SharePoint are adequate, but you may find needed operations in the object model that have not been surfaced in the web services, which will require extending the web services with a custom web service implementation. In this article we will take a look at the web services available in WSS3 and MOSS 2007 out of the box, and how to consume them from Java and .NET.RelatedVendorContent5 Myths of Agile Development Explained Profile your .NET code with ANTS Profiler – Download your free trial here Introduction to Microsoft Visual Studio Team Systems Defy all challenges. Together. Microsoft® Visual Studio Team System Agile Development: A Manager’s Roadmap for Success Web Services Architecture Overview I will not go in to the detailed differences between the WSS and MOSS, as there are a number of articles that do a very good job explaining this, only as needed and where related to the web services. Keep in mind that MOSS 2007 is built on top of WSS 3.0, which is also built on top of ASP.NET 2.0 and runs in IIS (Internet Information Server). A solid understanding of IIS and ASP.NET is important, and go long way in working with and understanding SharePoint. A majority of the SharePoint web services we will discuss are included in WSS 3.0, but there are a few additional ones that are included in MOSS 2007 to leverage the additional features that ship with it, such as the more advanced enterprise search features.

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The SharePoint web services are implemented in ASP.NET Web Services (ASMX), and you will find the physical files for most of these web services in the "Microsoft Shared" directory under "web server extensions\12\ISAPI" typically located at "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\ISAPI". The admin web service for the Central Administration tool is located in the ADMISAPI folder for which the central administration console contains a virtual directory named "_vti_adm". When a SharePoint site is created it will contain a virtual directory named "_vti_bin" that points to this location. IIS does not contain any application or virtual directories for subwebs, they do however contain mapping to the _vti_bin virtual directory through SharePoint metadata and HttpModules.

For each service you will find a *.wsdl.aspx file that generates the service WSDL (Web Services Description Language), a *.disco.aspx providing the service discovery implementation, and the actual

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*.asmx endpoint files, most of which simply contain a page directive referencing the SharePoint assembly and type containing the actual implementation for the service.

Service File Type Description

*.wsdl.aspx (search.wsdl.aspx)

File that generates the WSDL (Web Services Description Language) in SharePoint

*.disco.aspx (seach.disco.aspx)

File that provides the discovery implementation

*.asmx (search.asmx)Web services endpoint, most of which contain a page directive referencing the SharePoint assembly and type containing the actual implementation for the service

Out of the Box Services There are a number of web services implemented OOTB (out of the box) in SharePoint that will address most of the common and basic tasks, from administrative tasks to search and working with list data, and much more. Below is a listing of the SharePoint web services with an overview of the functionality exposed for your reference. A simple expanded list like this helps me in working with the web services giving me a quick view of the overall services and methods available.

Service Administration

(_vti_adm/Admin.asmx)

Administrative methods for creating deleting sites and retrieving languages used in the deployment

CreateSite DeleteSite GetLanguage RefreshConfigCache

Alerts (Alerts.asmx)Methods for working with SharePoint list item alerts

DeleteAlerts GetAlerts

Authentication (Authentication.asmx)

Client proxy that provides user authentication for sites that use forms-based authentication

Login (Used to authenticate) Mode (Returns the authentication mode of the current

site)

Copy (Copy.asmx)

Methods to copy files between or within sites CopyIntoItems (Copy document as byte array to

location on server) CopyIntoItemsLocal (Copy document from one

location on the same server to another) GetItem (Creates a byte array of a document that can

be passed to theCopyIntoItems method)

Document Workspace (Dws.asmx) Methods for managing Document Workspace sites and data CanCreateDwsUrl CreateDws CreateFolder FindDwsDoc GetDwsData GetDwsMetaData

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RemoveDwsUser RenameDws UpdateDwsData

Forms (Forms.asmx)

Methods for returning forms that are used in the user interface when working with the contents of a list

GetForm GetFormCollection

Imaging (Imaging.asmx)

Methods to create and manager picture libraries CheckSubwebAndList CreateNewFolder Delete Download Edit GetItemsByIds GetItemsXMLData GetListItems ListPictureLibrary Rename Upload

List Data Retrieval (DspSts.asmx)Perform queries against sites and list in SharePoint

Query (Performs queries against SharePoint lists and sites)

Lists (Lists.asmx)

Methods for working with Lists and List Data AddAttachment AddDiscussionBoardItem AddList AddListFromFeature ApplyContentTypeToList DeleteAttachment DeleteContentType DeleteContentTypeXmlDocument DeleteList GetAttachmentCollection GetList GetListAndView GetListCollection GetListContentType GetListContentTypes GetListItemChanges GetListItemChangesSinceToken GetListItems GetVersionCollection UndoCheckout UpdateContentType UpdateContentTypesXmlDocument UpdateContentTypeXmlDocument UpdateList UpdateListItems

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Meetings(Meetings.asmx)

Create and manage Meeting Workspace Sites AddMeeting AddMeetingFromICal CreateWorkspace DeleteWorkspace GetMeetingInformation GetMeetingWorkspaces RemoveMeeting RestoreMeeting SetAttendeeResponse SetWorkspaceTitle UpdateMeeting UpdateMeetingFromICal

People(People.asmx)Resolve and find Principals

ResolvePrincipals

Permissions (Permissions.asmx)

Methods for working with permissions for a site or list AddPermission AddPermissionCollection GetPermissionCollection RemovePermission RemovePermissionCollection UpdatePermission

Directory Management(sharepointemailws.asmx)

Methods for managing Active Directory e-mail distribution groups and their memberships

ChangeContactsMembershipInDistributionGroup ChangeUsersmembershipInDistributionGroup CreateContact CreateDistributionGroup DeleteContact DeleteDistributionGroup GetJobStatus ModifyContact ModifyDistributionGroup RenameDistributionGroup

Site Data (SiteData.asmx)

Methods that return metadata or list data from sites or lists EnumerateFolder GetAttachments GetChanges GetContent GetList GetListCollection GetListItems GetSite GetSiteAndWeb GetSiteUrl GetURLSegments GetWeb

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Sites(Sites.asmx)

Methods for returning information about the collection or site template

ExportWeb GetSiteTemplates GetUpdatedFormDigest ImportWeb

Search(spsearch.asmx)

Methods for searching via search services Query QueryEx Registration Status

Users & Groups(usergroup.asmx) Methods for working with users role definitions and groups AddGroup AddGroupToRole AddRole AddRoleDef AddUserCollectionToGroup AddUserCollectionToRole AddUserToGroup AddUserToRole GetAllUserCollectionFromWeb GetGroupCollection GetList GetListAndView GetListCollection GetGroupCollectionFromRole GetGroupCollectionFromSite GetGroupCollectionFromUser GetGroupCollectionFromWeb GetGroupInfo GetRoleCollection GetRoleCollectionFromGroup GetRoleCollectionFromUser GetRoleCollectionFromWeb GetRoleInfo GetRolesAndPermissionsForCurrentUser GetRolesAndPermissionsForSite GetUserCollection GetUserCollectionFromGroup GetUserCollectionFromRole GetUserCollectionFromSite GetUserCollectionFromWeb GetUserInfo GetUserLoginFromEmail RemoveGroup RemoveGroupFromRole RemoveRole RemoveUserCollectionFromGroup RemoveUserCollectionFromRole

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RemoveUserCollectionFromSite RemoveUserFromGroup RemoveUserFromRole RemoveUserFromSite RemoveUserFromWeb UpdateGroupInfo UpdateRoleDefInfo UpdateRoleInfo UpdateUserInfo

Versions (Versions.asmx)

Methods for working with file versions DeleteAllVersions DeleteVersion GetVersions RestoreVersion

Views(Views.asmx)

Methods for working with list views AddView DeleteView GetViewCollection GetViewHtml UpdateView UpdateViewHtml UpdateViewHtml2

Web Part Pages(WebPartPages.asmx)

Methods for working with Web Part Pages AddWebPart AddWebPartToZone AssociateWorkflowMarkup ConvertWebPartFormat DeleteWebPart ExecuteProxyUpdates FetchLegalWorkflowActions GetAssemblyMetaData GetBindingResourceData GetCustomControlList GetDataFromDataSourceControl GetFormCapabilityFromDataSourceControl GetSafeAssemblyInfo GetWebPart GetWebPart2 GetWebPartCrossPageCompatibility GetWebPartPage GetWebPartPageConnectionInfo GetWebPartPageDocument GetWebPartProperties GetWebPartProperties2 RemoveWorkflowAssociation RenderWebPartForEdit SaveWebPart SaveWebPart2

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ValidateWorkflowMarkupAndCreateSupportObjects

Webs(Webs.asmx)

Methods for working with sites and subsites CreateContentType CustomizeCss DeleteContentType GetActivatedFeatures GetAllSubWebCollection GetColumns GetContentType GetContentTypes GetCustomizedPageStatus GetListTemplates GetWeb GetWebCollection RemoveContentTypeXmlDocument RevertAllFileContentStreams RevertCss RevertFileContentStream UpdateColumns UpdateContentType UpdateContentTypeXmlDocument WebUrlFromPageUrl

MOSS Search (Search.asmx)

Methods for searching via MOSS (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server) Search services, which also includes a method to retrieve the managed search properties

GetSearchMetadata (Search managed properties) Query QueryEx Registration Status

Consuming the Query Services Now that we have an understanding of the SharePoint web services, there is nothing like kicking the tires and taking a ride after reading through the owner's manual. We don't have time here to dive deep in to all of the web services, and will save the others for the next article. For some reason a number of the web services in SharePoint either take or return an XML Node or an XML encoded string, and unfortunately without a typed schema the tools are unable to infer what this should be and generate those nice proxy objects for us. I have seen a number of implementations using string formatting with the web services to address the lack of a typed schema, and have searched long and far for a schema that describes the XML passed and returned from these services. I ended up creating queryresponse.xsd which was inferred from a combination of the documentation and the xml passed in and out of these services, allowing me to generate the class representation using xsd.exe for .NET users and JAXB for java users.Note: There are two different search web services, as discussed previously, search.asmx for MOSS and spsearch.asmx for WSS. These services are very similar in their schema, but attempting to call spsearch.asmx on a machine running MOSS will throw an exception due to the fact that the WSS indexing and query services have been disabled in favor of the more advanced search features in MOSS.Example using .NET Consuming the SharePoint web services from .NET is rather simple and straight forward, you simply need to add a web reference and use the generated proxy. We will add a step to leverage the XSD we

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created to generate a set of classes representing a query and response that we will use to serialize the XML sent and deserilize the XML returned.Configure Visual Studio 2005 to add XSD.exe to the menu Visual studio includes a tool called XSD.exe that can be used to generate .NET types from an XSD. This is however a command line tool and I like to add a menu option to visual studio to do this from the IDE. If you have already done this or have some other add-in to do something similar you can skip this step.

1. Open the "External Tools" Dialog in the Visual Studio "Tools" menu 2. Click "Add" 3. Set the necessary properties and click "Ok"

Property Value

Command XSD >> CSharp

Title C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\Bin\xsd.exe

Arguments $(ItemPath) /c

Initial Directory $(ItemDir)

Use Output Window Checked

Download the XSD files Download the XSD files from here which will be used to generate the proxy classes used to serialize and de-serialize the search requests and responses. Unpack the downloaded file to a working directory; this file contains the XSD along with the completed project.Create a Project and Generate a .NET type from the XSD Now that we have the XSD we will create a Windows Forms project and generate a .NET type form the downloaded XSD. After opening up Microsft.Search.Query.xsd, go to the tools menu and select the XSD menu item that we created in the previous step to generate the Microsoft_Search_Query.cs file.

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Add a web reference We are going to start by adding a web reference to the search web service, by right-clicking on the "references" node for our project in the "solution explorer" window. There we will select "Add Web Reference", enter "http://<server_name>/_vti_bin/spsearch.asmx" in the URL textbox and then click "Go". You may be prompted to login to the SharePoint server and you should now have a list of Methods supported by this service. Add "SPSearch" for the "Web Reference Name" and click "Add Reference".

Subclass the generate proxy To simplify things even further, we will subclass the generated proxy with our own so that we can wrap the QueryService to hide the validation, serialization, and de-serialization of the XML passed and returned in the Query method using our class we generated from the XSD.Create the application to call the serviceNow we simply instantiate a query class and QueryService class, and then pass the query object to the Query method on the QueryService class.SPSearch.QueryService search = new SPSearch.QueryService();Microsoft_Query_Request request = new Microsoft_Query_Request();search.Query(request);Example using Java Consuming the SharePoint web services from Java is not much different, the fundamental steps are the same, generate our class from the provided XSD, generate a web services proxy, and build the application. Most of the challenges you will face in consuming SharePoint web services from java are with authentication and the use of DataSet's in the SharePoint web services. There are a number of Java IDEs available to simplify working with web services, but since I primarily work with .NET these days I will show an example using the SDK and in this case leave the choosing of an IDE to you.Note: This example was built and tested using J2SE 6.0 Update 3

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Java SharePoint Sample Project Directory and Root FilesThe full project and generated files are included along with couple of batch files to build and run the sample. You will need to modify "xjc-build.bat" and "build-run.bat" with the home directory for your JDK bin folder to run this, and edit wsspsample/Main.java with your server settings (endpoint, username, and password) before building and running.Import the Service WSDLI start by retrieving the WSDL from my SharePoint server to my development machine for a couple reasons. We will need to modify any WSDL that uses ADO.NET Data Sets, so as to work properly with the tools. Also, access to the WSDL on the SharePoint server typically requires authentication and the Java generated proxy requires the WSDL in the constructor, making authentication a bit of problem for me.Retrieve the Search WSDLFor Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 search service open up Internet Explorer and navigate to Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. then from File|Save As..., save the page to the working directory as spsearch.wsdl. If you are working with MOSS 2007 then you will use Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.Modify the Search WSDLThe QueryEx method as well as the MOSS 2007 GetSearchMetaData method returns ADO.NET Data Sets. An ADO.NET Data Set is dynamically bound and is represented in WSDL with a cyclic reference to the WSDL schema attribute, which causes some problems for us with the JAXB wsimport tool. I found some workarounds that worked well with previous versions of the Java JDK, but these did not work with the version I was using. Instead I chose to modify the WSDL as follows by opening it up in notepad and searching for instances of "s:schema" to modify where it was used as a ref in a schema "element" element, and remove the cyclic reference and leaving the schema "any" element.<s:sequence> <s:element ref="s:schema"/> <s:any/></s:sequence>Was change to the following:<s:sequence> <s:any minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded"/></s:sequence>Import the WSDL

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Now that we have our WSDL locally and it has been modified, we can use JAXB wsimport.exe tool to generate the proxy classes.wsimport -p wsspsample.webref.spsearch -keep spsearch.wsdlwsimport -p wsspsample.webref.search -keep search.wsdlWe use the -keep flag with the import to keep the java code so that we can tweak the generated code for our application. The tools generate code with an absolute path, so if you are planning on moving the application to a different directory and storing the WSDL with the application we will need to modify "webref\search\QueryService.java" url and build it ourselves. To do this we simply remove the absolute path to the WSDL and use a relative path instead.url = new URL("file:search.wsdl");Generate Request Response ClassesTo generate the Request and Response classes you are going to need to use the four "Microsoft.Search" XSDs that I have created and the JAXB xjc.exe tool. In the following we simply suppress generation of package level annotation and specify a target package, and the tool creates our classes for us.xjc -npa -p wsspsample.xom.query -d . Microsoft.Search.Query.xsdxjc -npa -p wsspsample.xom.response -d . Microsoft.Search.Response.xsdUse the Generated ClassesWe have an class representation of the Query and Response packets passed to and returned form the QueryService Query method, as well as a Query service proxy. Now it's time to put that to use in an application. The first thing we need to do is create a QueryService instance, the constructor for this object will go and retrieve the local copy of our WSDL and load settings. From the QueryService instance we retrieve a QueryServiceSoap instance via the getQueryServiceSoap method. Note that you will need to hang on to and use the QueryServiceSoap reference as we do with the qsp variable, since the getQueryServiceSoap method seems to return a new instance. We can then modify the endpoint address here to something other than what is contained in the WSDL to make our application more dynamic allowing it to connect to other SharePoint sites and SubSites other than that set in the WSDL.QueryService qs = new QueryService();QueryServiceSoap qsp = qs.getQueryServiceSoap();

BindingProvider bp = (BindingProvider)qsp;//bp.getRequestContext().put(BindingProvider.USERNAME_PROPERTY, "Administrator");//bp.getRequestContext().put(BindingProvider.PASSWORD_PROPERTY, "pass@word1");bp.getRequestContext().put(BindingProvider.ENDPOINT_ADDRESS_PROPERTY,"http://barbie/_vti_bin/spsearch.asmx");Now we create methods to serialize the query and deserlialize the response packets.public static String SerializeQuery(QueryPacket qp){ try { JAXBContext jc =JAXBContext.newInstance("wsspsample.xom.query"); Marshaller ma = jc.createMarshaller(); ma.setProperty(Marshaller.JAXB_FORMATTED_OUTPUT,Boolean.TRUE); ByteArrayOutputStream os = new ByteArrayOutputStream(); ma.marshal(qp, os); return os.toString(); } catch(JAXBException ex) { return ""; } }

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public static ResponsePacket DeserializeResponse(String s) { try { JAXBContext jc = JAXBContext.newInstance("wsspsample.xom.response"); Unmarshaller um = jc.createUnmarshaller(); StreamSource source = new StreamSource(new StringReader(s)); return (ResponsePacket)um.unmarshal(source); } catch (JAXBException ex) { return new ResponsePacket(); } }From here we simply create a QueryPacket and necessary classes, set our values and call the service.// Create a Search Query Packet ObjectQueryPacket qp = new QueryPacket();QueryType qt = new QueryType();ContextType ct = new ContextType();QueryTextType ctt = new QueryTextType();

ct.setQueryText(ctt);qt.setContext(ct);qp.setQuery(qt);

// Set search valuesctt.setValue("sharepoint");ctt.setType("STRING"); //This is the default - not necessaryctt.setLanguage("en-us"); //This is the default - not necessary

// Call the web service queryString sResponse = qsp.query(SerializeQuery(qp));

// Deserialize the responseResponsePacket resp = DeserializeResponse(sResponse);Build and Run the ApplicationWe have our generated web services proxy and object model for query request and response, as well as the application that leverages them, now we simply need to cross our fingers, build, run, and test this. You will need a SharePoint server setup and will want to set the correct endpoint address used in Main.java to your test SharePoint server as well as the credentials if necessary.REST API Framework for SharePoint – Built on ASP.NET MVC

Some of the major web 2.0 sites like facebook and twitter are providing REST based API’s to interact with their services, if your not familiar with Representational State Transfer (REST), then now might be the perfect time for you to come up to speed because it seems that Microsoft is planning on incorporating more REST features in .NET 4, we already have some REST support in the current generation of tools.The basic idea of REST is to use the existing infrastructure that the web already provides, we have HTTP verbs such as GET, POST, DELETE and PUT, which map pretty well to the CRUD model we deal with often. The web provides us with a simple error handling model, we all understand 404, 501 and 403 error codes (file not found, server error, unauthorised access). The final building block is the URL itself, we can create descriptive URL’s such that any user can infer it’s intent just by looking at

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it, while some may disagree with my summation, I think all of these elements together define what REST is.If we contrast all of this with the world of SOAP and webservices, we soon realise that the webservices/SOAP model has been over-engineered. Do we really need to re-invent error codes and the calling conventions that already sit on top of the web, do we need all this SOAP overhead, one end-point for a raft of operations? Of course there will still be a place for traditional webservices, I’m not saying they don’t work or are going away, they clearly work and will be around for a while.The webforms model of ASP.NET hasn’t really made it easy to create REST services, it was never really designed for it, however the ASP.NET framework has made developing REST’ful services a lot easier.The first feature that the MVC framework offers is the flexibility of offering a URL routing engine, so that it is possible to easily create nice URL’s, but more than that, the way MVC uses the convention of {controller}/{action}/{parameter} you end up with code that without much effort becomes very REST like.The second feature that MVC offers is the way each action on a controller returns an ActionResult, the framework provides inherited result classes such as the JsonResult and ContentResult, in effect the one action can return multiple payloads of data (in this case either a JSON view or an XML view). While not strictly fitting to the REST definition, most modern REST API’s return data in a format that is most easiest to work with which is increasing becoming JSON for AJAX/Mashable operations.  With this background we can now focus our attention on SharePoint, currently there are two ways to work with the data stored: Web services Object Model

I’ve already touched on what the limitations of the web services are, the SharePoint object model really only concerns us if our code is working inside SharePoint (i.e. on the same machine/s as SharePoint). The Benefits to SharePoint of a REST API Enterprise mash-ability – the web is becoming more and more useful, one reason is that its now

easier to mash together applications, look at any application that makes use of virtual earth or Google earth, flickr, twitter, live services etc. Imagine having this flexibility in your organisation, if your organisation has really embraced SharePoint then most likely it contains data that could be mashed into other systems, this REST framework is about exposing that data more easily.

It still fits with an organisations Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) in most cases. A lot of people feel strongly that SharePoint isn’t the single source of truth for data, that may be the case, but SharePoint is a tool that does aggregate data and adds value to it (a user might create a list with BDC data with additional columns describing some business function), this framework is designed to make this data more accessible to an organisation trying to construct some form of SOA.

The URL FormatA REST API that sits over the object model would provide the best of both options, we could craft a simple URL that returned the items that we are after such as: http://mashserver/Site/            -- returns all siteshttp://mashserver/Site/all/            -- same as abovehttp://mashserver/Site/get/{guid-id}    -- returns the selected site http://mashserver/List/                  --returns all lists that the user has permissions forhttp://mashserver/List/forsite/{site-guid-id}   -- returns all the lists for the given site id http://mashserver/ListItems/get/{list-guid-id}  -- returns all the items in the list, http://mashserver/BDC/   --Return all the BDC applications

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http://mashserver/Permission/site/{site-guid}   --Return objects representing the security ACL’s on the given object   The REST API should expand across all areas of the SharePoint system. Each action should be decorated with an accepted verb type attribute which MVC provides.  The Return Values We could build a HybridResult that looks at the HTTP headers to determine the accepted input and then either return JSON or XML: In fact Omar has already provided a nice starting platform. This HybridResult can also be smart enough to return a 404 if the object we are trying to serialize is null. If we get any security exceptions we can set the return status code to 403, again the MVC provides a nice mechanism to support this via it’s Error Handling attribute. Problems Do we build our own object model, reinvent the wheel?

I think the answer is yes, we can’t serialize the SharePoint object model to our needs as a REST API, in some cases we want to return properties in a form that would be easy to use from JavaScript. We often don’t want to return the whole object graph, if you ask for all the lists, you really don’t want to have a list object returned will a collection of list items. By using the new language features in .NET 3.5 we can build extension methods that provide a neat way to convert the existing Object Model entities to those created by the MVC framework. Security – The double hop issue

Since the API is going to make heavy use of the object model, it’s going to have the same limitations as the object model, i.e. the API web sites will need to live on the same server as SharePoint unless the double hop authentication issue is taken care of via the use of Kerberos, which is a likely event in most larger organisation.  Features - Thoughts? So what do you think? Is a REST API for SharePoint something that would be useful? I’ve already started developing some proof of concept prototypes which I’ve included on the project’s Codeplex site:  http://www.codeplex.com/REST4SharePoint so please leave any feedback there. 

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