Display Blog as WebPart in Sharepoint 2010 - sharepoint

I have a blog in a Sharepoint 2010 site (hosted by a 3rd party), and I need to display snippets (title) of last 5 blog posts in the home page of my SharePoint site as a web part.
I have tried to pull the RSS XML of the blog and transform it with XSL, but for that to work the site needs to have anonymous access, which unfortunatelty is out of my hand, that is I cannot do that. I cannot upload a custom web part as well. I can create a Silverlight app, and host in the Silverlight web part, but for that I need to have cross-script enabaled in the Sharepoint, which is again cannot be done as the Sharepoint site is hosted by a 3rd party.
Can anyone please help me and let me know if there is any way, I can do that.
Thanks.

I have found three ways to displaying this:
1) I user use a Content Query Webpart to pull out the data from a Sharepoint Blog and make an setting to show only the top 5 items.
2) I could use XML Viewer webpart to pull the RSS feed of the blog and use a XSL Transformation to display the top 5 items.
3) I could use a Silverlight Webpart to host a Silverlight application which will read the RSS and display the data likewise.

So the limitation here is that you can't get anonymous access to the site - presumably you're using Basic or Forms authentication?
I think the way around then is either create your own RSS style web that can do authenticated access to the RSS XML feed using a service account - this then requires nothing to be installed or changed on the 'source' server.

Related

How can we change the complete look and feel of Sharepoint Portal?

by Default there are Themes, I don't Like those. How can I modify It completely and make a professional website. I have found same Questions on this blog but all for MOSS2007. I am working on Sharepoint 2010
The way I modify sharepoint, is as I do with almost every other CMS out there combined with the power of asp .Net (Remember that as CMS' go sharepoint is a poor solution if the only thing you want is a portal. Sharepoint is first and foremost a BI Solution).
When you edit your site in sharepoint designer (Site Action -> Edit in sharepoint designer) you can see a whole lot of options.
Here you can change the default masterpage to accomodate the look and feel of your site. You will do most of the hiding stuff here (those you don't want to be seen giving them the visibility=false attribute). Here you can also include a new CSS (place it in site assets) where you can override already existing css files.
From this point on, you will be able to add web pages to the site, that will conform to the masterpage, and thus you can use all the sharepoint power (web parts and even embedded html code) keeping the look and feel you have implemented on your master page.
So what you need to do is:
Modify master page in sharepoint designer
Add css files in site assets and include them in your masterpage
Add any other aspx pages or custom web parts that you will refer to in the sharepoint site
Create web pages with sharepoint assets, web parts or custom code
Enable anonymous access for the people you want to view your portal without authenticating (Bear in mind that there are some sharepoint controls that can only be viewed by logged in users)
There are multiple ways of customizing it.
My perfered way is CSS.
Add reference to a custom css in master page using feature
Modify the look and feel by modifying sharepoint out-of-box CSS
Following resources gives all the details of SharePoint 2010 css classes.
http://sp2010notes.wordpress.com/sharepoint-2010-css-chart/
http://sharepointexperience.com/csschart/csschart.html
I hope it helps.
Cheers.
Rajendra Shekhawat

SharePoint web part not displaying for site readers

I've built a custom SharePoint 2010 web part and deployed it to the home page of a publishing site. It's a very simple web part that just displays items from a SP list in a drop down list. The web part works fine if I'm logged in as a site owner or a member but not if I'm just a reader. The web part doesn't render at all to readers. I don't get any of the web part chrome or title, just nothing. I have other web parts (out-of-box ones) in the same zone that are displaying fine so it's not an issue of the whole zone not displaying.
As a reader, I can still view the list directly so it doesn't appear to be a problem with list permissions.
My web parts are being deployed as a farm solution, not sand-boxed and the assembly is being deployed to the GAC.
I feel like I must be missing something simple here but I'm stumped. Help.
Did you save / Check in the page after editing?
Regards,
Faiz
You may have to actually publish the page for a reader to see it

ASP.net site sharepoint integration

I have created a test website that contains a single ASP.net index.aspx file that contains a gridview listing information from a MSSQL database.
I would like to have this made available as a webpart on our sharepoint intranet, how would I go about doing that?
You can just put your page under Template/Layouts and attach it to some SharePoint master page. It will look and feel like a regular SharePoint page.
Of course, that is good if you're into the quick&dirty approach :)
You will need to create a web part from the page you already have.
I would suggest isolating your gridview in a user control (ascx) instead of directly on the aspx page, it will be easier to use it in a web part that way.
To create a web part, you should probably start by downloading WSPBuilder or a similar tool that will do most of the work for you.
The following tutorial will give you the information you need on how to create a web part from a user control.
You should have no problem linking to your database or anything else. A web part behaves just like a user control.

Sharepoint Site using PHP code

I realise that Sharepoint in asp .net based but I have a PHP application that a user wants me to include in a Sharepoint site.
So is it possible to use PHP code inside sharepoint?
danit, when you say 'include' in the site, would it mean to be part of the site chrome (like inside the same menus etc) or just live connected with links would suffice?
I ask that because you can run php code under an IIS site but that would only keep the pages separated inside the same virtual host. if you need to actually join the functionalities you can:
Fake it with an iFrame (Page Viewer Web Part pointing to the php site for example).
you'll have to use some interop like webservices. It really comes down to what you want to do and not to if it is possible.
This is also possible by creating a web part page and adding a page viewer web part. You can link to the page, making it visible within the Sharepoint site, but it won't offer any interaction with Sharepoint itself.
Sharepoint treats the page as a shared document, however, so you can restrict access to it. I have done this in order to offer access to 'view only' content such as reports, but you can also use it for custom php apps that rely on a database other than the one(s) Sharepoint is using.

How to provision a custom page without using the _layouts directory?

I need to provision a custom aspx page which does some work and then redirects to another page. Using a _layouts page, AKA an application page won't work since I only want this page accessible to one site collection.
I looked at using pattern #4 from blog post Application Development on MOSS 2007 and WSS V3. It feels pretty hacky, and it asks you to drop the DLL. Drop it into the bin of the site collection, and upload the file through SP Designer.
I'd rather have this page be a feature that gets included in my site definition or stapled to an existing site definition. I imagine I could use a feature receiver to deploy the files to the pages SP list. One of the comments on the blog post says as much:
Pardon my ignorance on this maybe I am
missing the point completely but
wouldnt it be easier to deploy your
custom pages by programmatically
adding them to the pages splist?
I basically, had a simple .aspx page
with a user control. I deployed it via
this method.
How can a custom page be provisioned without using a _layouts page?
I guess another option is to keep using a _layouts page, but make sure the referrer is correct.
Besides application pages, you also have the possibility to create site pages.
Site pages are in nature related to application pages, but they reside in a site not in _LAYOUTS.
The welcome page (default.aspx) is an example of such a page.
In the same way as with application pages, it is possible to do codebehind in these pages (check out AC's article on this subject, Using ASP.NET 2.0 Code Behind Files in SharePoint v3 Sites)
You can read this article regarding the subtle differences between application pages and site pages: SharePoint Application and Site Pages - Part 1 of 2
You deploy this custom page using a feature, where you specify the file as ghostable (look at the example in ACs article).

Resources