Is it possible to change the Drools web desginer UI by introducing new buttons/features? I want to be able to add the risk management functionality to the time and cost process simulation? How can I make changes to the editor? I am a novice in web development.
You mean the Process Designer from the jBPM?
Yes you can the Process Designer is an open source project you can find the source code in github
Related
I am aware of a program called "SharePoint Designer 20xx), and I would like to know if any of you have modified the default master page to make it.. less confusing and more simplistic. Can this be however I want it or is there limitations?
I also found this:
http://www.expertsharepointconsulting.com/images/Blue%20Large.PNG
I would like to implement a design similar to this! If I were to download a "Free sharepoint master page", would this design only work for the main page of SharePoint? as in if I were to go from the newly added masterpage, to a page called "reports", would it be completely different? If so how can I get around this?
You can create customized masterpages whichever way you want. Usually you don't touch the default ones, specially because you can break some system pages with that. Just create new ones from them or from the minimum.master one.
As an example of a Sharepoint Website using a very customized master page I can point you to a publishing website project I was involved for a Portuguese company: http://www.ana.pt/en-US/Pages/Homepage.aspx
It's all Sharepoint 2010...and it is fully customized
You can of course use the same template for all pages, just have to set it on the root site and say that all sub sites inherit from it.
To achieve the level of design changes you see on that web site you have to build new master pages, page layouts, use JS, CSS and user controls (the website uses little to no web parts).
we don't use Sharepoint designer because that would mean the files becoming unghosted, which can be pain sometimes, and sharepoint designer is not a very good tool.
The way we do it is by implementing everything on visual studio and deploying it via WSP packages. This way everything stays ghosted on the file system. You can check an example here:
http://mihirsharepoint.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/creating-custom-master-page-in-visual-studio-and-deploy-it-to-the-sharepoint-site/
Could someone point out the differences between Sharepoint Designer and the new Design Manager within Sharepoint 2013 ? I searched on the web but haven't found a concrete answer.
Thanks !
1) SPD can still be used to edit SharePoint pages, but the visual Design view and Split view were removed so you need to do all your editing in a code view. You can also still use it for the other things you mentioned.
2) Design Manager is free and included with SharePoint Server. It only works on Publishing sites so its not included with Foundation.
3) Its part of the base installation of the product. You don't need to do anything to procure it.
4) Not really. Design manager provides functionality for Importing/Exporting HTML and CSS that can be edited in any Web Design platform. For example Dream Weaver. Since SPD no longer has a WYSIWYG editor there is not real connection between the two.
5) Most of the customization you've already done will be brought across when you do a content database upgrade. I'm sure there will be some things that need to be upgraded after you do the database attach.
Apologies if this has been answered, but I could not find a similar question:
I am developing a webpart for MOSS 2007. I am using WSPBuilder to built a visual webpart (ascx) and everything works fine, but the development/debug cycle is just painfully slow, so I'd like to know if it is possible (without being too painful) to develop the user control faster using an .Net Web Application project with all of the nice F5 debugging, then import the final product into my SharePoint visual webpart.
The user control interacts with a LOB system (SQL) and does not reference the SharePoint API at all. (The reason I am building this as a webpart is because I don't need another web app to run this one page, so putting it into a webpart on a new webpart page on my existing site is the best solution IMO.) I would obviously need to import (reference?) my data access classes into my "temp" web app, but think that would not be too much trouble.
I realize this will be extra effort to get this set up, but am thinking the payoff will be reduced development time of the actual user control using a little web application vs having to use the compile/build WSP/deploy WSP/reset ISS/test/make a change/repeat cycle that MOSS requires. (I guess SP2010/VS2010 has spoiled me with the native SharePoint tools available.)
Update:
I have successfully built a simple web app with one page and loaded up my UC on the page. (I had to comment out all of the Sharepoint Import and register statements that WSP Builder added to the UC for me when I created the webpart.) I added references to my utility classes (which I left in the obj\Debug folder in the original SharePoint project). It took me a while tinkering with everything to get it to work, but the steps ended up being pretty simple and I think I can replicate the steps quickly for future projects. Once it was set up, I was able to rapidly design the UC and build in the UC functionality using the typical F5 debug cycle. Unless someone can show me why this is not a good idea, I plan to repeat this for future projects! Thanks to everyone for thier input.
.
Update 2
Well, I am not sure what I did but moving the UC back into SharePoint proved to be troublesome. The first time I did it, I spent several hours getting it to work in SharePoint, making me question whether it was worth it. However, I am stubborn and tried it again. This time, I only copied and pasted the markup below the "header section" (the part with all of the <%# . . . %> statements) in the ascx file and everything went perfectly. I think I must have changed something inadvertantly the first time. I think I will continue this pattern as it is so much faster to build and test the UC in an ASP.NET web app. (Again, this only works if you are not referencing the Sharepoint API anywhere in the UC.)
The answer here is the SmartPart. It is perfect for just the scenario you are describing. Very easy to create a Usercontrol using "vanilla" ASP.NET and have it work as a webpart in SharePoint. I've outlined the steps to migrate from ASP.NET webpage to statically bound SmartPart on my blog.
What you intend to achieve is surely a nice idea.
Just remember to strong name your user control, drop it in your Server's GAC, update SafeControls section of your SharePoint 80's web.config.
All these setps are one off, after each successive builds (of your web control), you have to just deploy the control (used forcede deploy) in GAC and reset IIS.
You can add this control to toolbox in VS by selecting 'Choose Items' and selecting ther assembly you just deployed.
In addition you can create a test ASP.NET page to test the functionality of your control.
Pros and cons of editing sharepoint master page in sharepoint designer or visual studio? Which one do you prefer
SharePoint Designer
Pro:
WYSIWYG editing
Very fast turaround Edit/save/test
Con:
No Version control
Cumbersome reuse/deployment
(Download/Upload)
Visual Studio
Pro:
Integration with Source Control
Deployment/Reuse via Feature/Solution framework
Con:
Pure source code editing
Cumbersome Edit/Deploy/Test cycle
SharePoint Designer & Visual Studio
My recommendation is to use SharePoint Designer to develop the master page on your development machine. Then save the MasterPage into a Visual Studio solution for deployment to Test/Production:
Pro:
WYSIWYG editing
Very fast turaround Edit/save/test
Integration with Source Control
Deployment/Reuse via Feature/Solution framework
Con:
You need both tools, but SharePoint designer is free and this is in general the most efficient way of developing for SharePoint. Make what you can using SPD and the Web UI, then save it into a Visual Studio Solution for version control/deployment
For the most part I agree with what Per Jakobsen answered above. ESPECIALLY for SharePoint 2007.
Additional comments on the Pros/Cons of SharePoint Designer 2010:
I have actually had very good experiences with using SharePoint Designer exclusively for most of the "front end" work. Meaning, anything that is not a Server Side Web Part...
Regarding the "Cons" listed above:
Source Control -
Setting up the SharePoint Version Controls for the document libraries that store the web pages you are working on does a fairly decent job of managing Source Control - which is handy when you are doing development work on the Production server. (see below)
Cumbersome reuse/deployment
Not sure what is being referred to here, but I THINK it is in regards to developing code in one place, and then deploying that to a production server.
With permissions set correctly users are not impacted by development work because they will see the pages/code that is checked in, approved and viewable.
While I would normally hesitate to operate on production directly, there are many scenarios with SharePoint that require this - especially if you are editing XSLT data directly, etc. (what comes to mind off the top of my head are references to List or Library GUIDs and other "variables" that will be different between servers)
Cheers!
Although I don't know why, SPD also changes your <%# Register ... %> tags: it strips any leading "~" from the src="~/_controltemplates/..." attribute. You need to manually add them back in before publishing.
I am planning to build a case management system from scratch, The system will incorporate a workflow. Cases will contain activities to be performed by different people inside and outside the company within a specified window of time.
Does SharePoint support a configurable workflow engine that I might use for this project?
Absolutely. Workflow is one of the strong parts of SharePoint. Out-of-the box you or your users can build workflows using the free SharePoint Designer. Depending on your exact requirements this may be good enough.
If you need a more advanced workflow editor then you may want to consider Nintex Workflow or K2. Alternatively you can write your own workflows in Visual Studio or buy 3rd part Workflow Actions for SharePoint Designer.
I have included some useful links below:
Building workflows using SharePoint Designer
Creating workflows using Visual Studio
3rd Part Workflow actions to embed VB or C# directly into SharePoint Designer Workflows. Note that I have worked on this product so consider my recommendation biased ;-)