I know there are so many questions and articles on this topic and I have searched hours and hours on the Internet so far, but I still couldn’t find the right answer for my question. I was assigned the task to investigate the development environment for SharePoint web parts by my company. The money is not an issue but it must be the proper way to do it.
Here is my ideal plan: at developer desktop, install VS2005/2008 (it is already installed), VS2005/2008 Extension for SharePoint and WSPBuilder. It is also installed a Virtual Machine and the VM runs windows server 2003/2008. WSS3.0 and SQL Express 2005/2008 will be also installed on VM.
Developer’s desktop is a web parts development environment. Developers use VS to develop the SharePoint web parts and then run the WSPBuilder, it will deploy the web parts into the SharePoint testing environment on VM. So the VM is just a SharePoint testing environment.
It looks like a good idea, however, it doesn’t work. Why? Because VS extension can't be installed on developer’s desktop as it doesn’t have WSS3.0 installed!
I definitely don’t want to install the VS on the VM, because our developer desktop has installed VS and we don’t need to have 2 VS licences for 1 developer.
Any idea what is the best way to set up the development environment for SharePoint web parts?
Thank you in advance.
You won't be able to develop for SharePoint (WSS 3.0) unless your development environment includes an installation of at least WSS. In general, development is done on a Windows Server 2003 Virtual Machine (Visual Studio is installed directly on this machine). However, SharePoint can be installed on Windows Vista and Windows 7 machines, so your development machine may be able to host SharePoint itself, but it is far easier to do this on a VM.
My SharePoint development VM has the following installed:
Windows Server 2003 R2
SharePoint 2007 (Including SQL 2005)
Visual Studio 2008
Visual Studio Tools for Office
Office Server SDK
Visual Studio Extensions for WSS 1.3
Obviously you can use WSPBuilder instead, but I much prefer VSSWSS 1.3, but that is developer preference.
I believe (should be verified with Microsoft) that the licensing for Visual Studio can be extended to Virtual Machines when used by the same developer (depending on your agreement).
An alternative for you which may or may not work depending on your priorities.
Install Visual Studio 2010 and SharePoint 2010 Foundation to your development server.
Grab a copy of Microsoft.SharePoint.dll from a SharePoint 2007 server.
Use VS2010's tools to develop a web part but manually change the reference to the 2007 dll's (+ also see "Build a SharePoint 2007 Web Part with a Visual Studio 2010 Visual Web Part Project") so you are outputing a 2007 compatible web part.
When you delploy your 2007 web part to your local 2010 server it will just work (as its backwardly compatible)
When you deploy your 2007 web part to your test/qa/production servers it will work too.
Advantages
You're working with latest greatest
version of VS and the sharepoint
tooling so you get one click deploy,
automatic creation of WSP packages
etc. Nothing against WSP Builder etc (they are great) but my moneys on vs2010 sharepoint extensions for the future.
You're ready if/when your
company moves to 2010.
You're developing on a Windows 7 machine, not a 2003/2008 server and or a VM so this has advantages for licensing, speed and ease of use (dual monitor support from VS running on a VM?)
Edit - to deploy web parts to other servers you create a .wsp package and then deploy via STSSADM or another tool (SharePoint solution installer or other admin tools).
I haven't used VSSWSS or WSPBuilder. I've always used STSDEV for SharePoint 2007. And I've always used Windows XP to do it. I don't know if VSSWSS and WSPBuilder act the same, but, as Ryan was saying, I copy whatever SharePoint DLLs I need from a SharePoint 2007 server into a Solution Folder in my Visual Studio solution. I then select Add Reference in my project and browse to the DLL.
In four years, I've never had any problems with this method. The solution packages build just fine and work on any SharePoint server. I lose the option to debug, but I'd rather stay on my machine than go into a VM or Remote Desktop.
Related
I want to start my first SharePoint project to build internal and external systems:-
So I am preparing to get the following to set the development environment and to publish live SharePoint applications:-
SharePoint Server 2013 Standard edition. As for now we do no need
the enterprise features such as e-discover, BI, branding, etc.
Windows server 2012 & IIS as the operating system and hosting server respectively.
SQL server 2012 or 2008 for the database
Visual studio professional 2012 to develop web parts and use SharePoint templates.
Team foundation server 2012 to provides versioning control, bug tracing, etc.
So can anyone advice if I am missing any tools or software that are needed to develop and implement live internet & intranet SharePoint applications.
Second question should I use office 365 in my case?
Best Regards
It seems like it's sufficient enough to start developing SharePoint applications. You may need SharePoint Designer 2013. You can also find the best-to-have hardware requirements for SharePoint development environment in my blog post (http://keremozen.com/2012/12/28/hardware-requirements-for-sharepoint-2013-development/).
Office 365 or on-prem installation choice totally depends on your needs.
Office 365 installation provides easy set-up, maintainability, scalebility and security. Your sites will be accessible 24x7. If you want full control on your sites you can prefer on-prem installation.
Regards
I recently setup a sharepoint server 2013 on our company and have found really good examples how you can override the suitbar with custom links.
Now that I'm trying to implement those examples i get to that point where Visual Studio 2012 and Office development tools is installed.
When i choose to start a new project I select New Project > Templates > Visual C# > Office/SharePoint > SharePoint Solutions > SharePoint 2013 Empty Project hit ok and i get an error that says Sharepoint not installed?
Am I supposed to install VS 2012 and develop om my Sharepoint 2013 server directly?
A very common way to develop SharePoint applications is to run a virtual machine (hyper-v under windows 8 for example) on your development workstation.
You can also dual-boot into a vhd file.
You can also install Windows Server 2012 and use one of the many desktop conversion techniques to use it as your primary operating system on your workstation.
Another often seen technique is to have a virtual machine hosted in the cloud or a datacenter, running both SharePoint Server and Visual Studio. Then connect to that machine using Remote Desktop.
With some trickery, you could have the SharePoint 2010 installer install om a workstation OS. This no longer works on SharePoint 2013. The reason this support was removed is due to the inclusion of Boot from VHD and Hyper-v into Windows 8.
It is my experience that if you just want to build your application and not run or debug it, that just having the assemblies copied over from an actual SharePoint Server will allow you to do that. I haven't found an updated document for SharePoint 2013 yet.
Yes. You have to develop on the sharepoint server directly using Visual Studio as Sharepoint server GAC has the required server object models to work programatically with sharepoint server object model.
You can aslo develop on client machine using Client Object Model or WCF Data Services Framework.
My company has SharePoint server farm setup and run on internet and local. Now we have to develop some application on it.
How can we do that from VS2010 on PC/Laptop (which does not have SharePoint server installed)?
If we have to remote connect to server and use VS 2010 on server, how can multiple people can work at the same time?
SharePoint development needs ot be done on a system with SharePoint installed (forget about trying to remote, it never works well with SharePoint). You can install SharePoint on your PC/Laptop for development purposes - How to Setup SharePoint Development Environment
You can develop SharePoint applications without SP installed but will be limited to using the REST Api, ClientContext API or an external connector like Camelot .NET Connector for SharePoint from Bendsoft.
Generally SharePoint developers work in a virtual environment with SharePoint foundation installed creating their deployment packages locally.
Here is a good starting point if you want to set a virtual environment up for development. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee554869(office.14).aspx
Can Sharepoint apps be developed in a Visual Studio 2010 dev box only or does the dev box need to connect to a Sharepoint server? Can the Sharepoint Server be a stand alone machine (no domain controller between the two machines)?
The best practise for SharePoint development is to use a virtual server that contains the SharePoint install itself (and a copy of the portal you're working with), because assuming you are programming directly against the SP API, you will need to be executing your code on the machine that contains the Sharepoint installation itself.
You can program against SharePoint from a non-SharePoint machine through the use of the standard set of SharePoint web services provided, and you can of course create your own services (again sitting on the SP box/VM) to interrogate too. The catch to this approach is that you'll be dealing with return types that are primitive or XML based and you won't have the luxury of SP objects, for example SPUser, SPSite, etc, but for simple query operations at least this is not a bad approach.
IMHO, however, you've far greater flexbility programming against the API itself (Microsoft.Sharepoint.dll) so I'd advise you to get a VM going with all the necessary installs. Yes, it's a pain and time-consuming to set up, but well worth it.
As for Stand-alone options: SharePoint 2007 is not supported on anything non-server in terms of OS, so you'll need something like Server 2008 in order for it to work. SharePoint 2010, however, whilst claiming to only work on Server 2008, can actually work on Windows 7 (Pro and above) with a few hacks. You also have the benefit of 'sandbox' feature deployment in 2010, where you don't in 2007, meaning dev work is more cleanly isolated and less of a risk to a farm as a whole.
Good luck!
You can develop for SharePoint 2010 using VS 2010 using a stand alone setup - this is supported by Microsoft and very much recomended. Infact most of the tools built into VS2010 that will make your life significantly easier will only work with a local copy of SharePoint 2010.
MSDN - Setting Up the Development Environment for SharePoint 2010 on Windows Vista, Windows 7...
Yes, if you have Windows 7 or Vista (you need WAS - Windows Activation Services). We have tried it but found that it was better to develop on a Windows 2008 with your own AD.
It will depend on what you are developing, for webparts you will not notice the difference. You will notice the difference when working on the security part og the app.
Sahil Maliks book has a whole chapter on the different options.
you can do sharepoint development by copying certain dlls to your local enviroment but to my understanding this is unsupported and the recommended practice is to use a virtual machine or development on the machine in which the service resides.
I've just tried out TFS 2010 today, along with Project 2010 and VS 2010. Only Later realized that without Sharepoint, TFS is only configured as Basic. This reduces it's functionality as oppose to what I've seen during VS2010 product launch. Sadly I can't find any alternative but to get a trial copy of Sharepoint to see if it serve my purpose. Well, apparently Sharepoint only comes with x64 edition. I'm not formatting any machine to x64 just to give this a try. So, after some reading up, I found that Project Server is actually based on Sharepoint. Now I wonder is whether TFS can be configure to connect to Project Server?
If it's possible, would the setting be much different that Sharepoint's?
And what am I missing from this setup as oppose to Sharepoint's?
Based on Sharepoint != Sharepoint. I think that Project Server is just a subset of Sharepoint functionality. Also, basing Project on Sharepoint allows for some really tight integration into your portal. To answer your question, I don't think you still will get your fully featured TFS without Sharepoint Proper.
FYI - Sharepoint 2007 (or 3.0 or whatever it is) is not x64 only, but will run on x86. TFS 2010 will go full feature on 2007
Sharepoint 2007 Trial
To answer what you are missing:
Reports
Project Portal
TFS Web Access
That's about it. You still get 90% of the features with your current deployment without SharePoint. Tommy is right about MOSS 2007, it comes in 32-bit and will give you all features. Project Server runs on top of SharePoint as a shared service provider. Traditionally MS releases a power toy to integrate TFS with Project Server. They said they would go over this at TechEd, which just happened about a week ago.
Also, I suspect the integration with Project Server 2010 will be better, but then you will have to run SharePoint 2010 :(
In my opinion, TFS has enough to run most projects by itself and you can use the client version of MS Project for critical path anaylsis, etc.
Use Windows Sharepoint Services for Windows 2003 & Windows 2008:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/sharepoint/bb400747.aspx
For Windows Server 2008 sp2 and Windows Server R2, use SharePoint Foundation 2010:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=49c79a8a-4612-4e7d-a0b4-3bb429b46595&displaylang=en
Both are free.
I'm not formatting any machine to x64
just to give this a try.
Why not use VMWare Server, Hyper-V, Virtual Box or some other virtualization software to run the pre-made demo/trial/lab VHD's - no formatting, no installation, no setup, more hair.
Link