We have a requirement from a client for porting an ASPX website to sharepoint :
Though the site is being served in ASPX there are no form submissions so effectively, they are just static pages without any server side processing required.
However, there is a common header and footer being used.
Here are some of the features being used in the existing site :
sifr for font substitution (using non standard web fonts)
flash animations
javascript and some jquery
common header and footer for all pages
My question is how feasible is it to port this website to sharepoint ?
Can i use sifr (or flash for that instance) in sharepoint ? or do i have to port it to silverlight ?
What is the general procedure for converting web applications to sharepoint ? Also i came across this http://www.metalogix.net/Products/Website-Migration-Manager-for-SharePoint/ for migration of website to sharepoint.
Can javascript be used in sharepoint ?
How can i have common header and footer in sharepoint documents ?
Pardon my ignorance or any discrepancies in any of my knowledge since i havent worked with any microsoft technologies i would really appreciate some relevant answers from the community here.
Thanks.
Yes, you can use flash, javascript and jquery in sharepoint. Keep in mind that sharepoint is built over asp.net.
I never used sifr, but if it is just flash there shouldn't be any problem using it with sharepoint. Anyway, you can start considering using webfonts instead.
Common header an footer pages are also easy to implement with sharepoint as you can use the master pages, wich are exactly for that.
We did something quite similar to that and what we did was place the pages under Layouts and attach them to the master page. This is about 20 mins of work, but it looks like SharePoint. We needed that to integrate an LOB system to become a part of a large MOSS portal
Related
I've been brought in as an intern to develop a SharePoint site. My team won't authorize the budget for Visual Studio and I don't have physical or remote access to the SharePoint server (running Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 a.k.a. WSS) on the back-end.
So what exactly can I do? I'm familiar with web technologies like PHP, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. However, since the environment is SharePoint, I'm stumped trying to figure out how much control I have with Microsoft's definition of "Full Control".
If I can write some C#, I'm pretty sure that would be sufficient, but as I said no Visual Studio for me.
Any good ideas of features that people will use on a site built with the limited functionality of WSS and SharePoint Designer with "Full Control"? Can I somehow manipulate the default Web Parts into something cool or useful? Are there Ajax tricks I can do to accomplish something on the back-end?
Thanks in advance, I'm new to StackOverflow and eager to get involved here!
You can actually accomplish a LOT in SharePoint outside of a custom .NET solution. Some recommended learnings are:
JavaScript/jQuery - Know how to interface with a WebService using jQuery. SharePoint exposes a number of very useful WebServices in the /_vti_bin directory. Click here for a list: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms479390.aspx. For example, I recently built a scrolling slide-show webpart entirely using jQuery and SharePoint's built-in webservices that pulls from a provided picture library.
DataForm Web Parts. Do some searching around on what these are and how they work in SharePoint. The tl;dr of these is that they're databound webparts that are bound to an SPDataSource and then rendered using XSLT to format the bound data. You can work with these in SharePoint designer, completely through the markup of your aspx page.
Do some searching on "customizing sharepoint list forms." The NewForm, DispForm and EditForm of any list or library can be customized to have behaviour or content added to them.
Those are just off the very top of my head...
EDIT:
I forgot to also mention http://www.muhimbi.com/Products/SharePoint-Infuser-%28Free%29.aspx
I've been meaning to check this out, since the concept is sound. I haven't tried it out myself but it will save you a lot of hassle when it comes to adding custom script that encompasses your entire site.
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.
We've been asked to create a web application. One part of the specification is that in future, it can be integrated into Sharepoint. The last version of this app was written in PHP and "integrated" by means of an iframe embedded into Sharepoint; not ideal.
I'm looking to understand the use of Sharepoint in this context. I believe that you can write Sharepoint Applications which are more "native" to Sharepoint than the rough-and-ready iframe approach I discussed before. How easy is it to take a standard ASP.NET MVC application and fully integrate it into Sharepoint?
Does anyone have any thoughts, experiences, or resources on this matter?
I think the first question is what kind of integration with SharePoint are you trying to accomplish? The simplest is to use the Page Viewer webpart (i.e. iframe) method. You can also write custom webparts that show data from your custom application. That's a form of integration. The ultimate form of integration, of course, is to make your application run inside of SharePoint. That leads to my next point.
SharePoint (as of version 2007) is essentially a giant ASP.NET framework. So you can theoretically use it to host any ASP.NET web application. I have actually done it before and it works. However, that was a plain old ASP.NET webforms application (not MVC). If this is what you are trying to do, you definitely would need to rewrite your php application in ASP.NET.
In Sharepoint there is a Page Viewer webpart using which you can load a different url. This way you can easily "integrate" your application to sharepoint site ;-)
But if you are really looking at Re Engineering the application in SharePoint then its a different story. You have to study the current application and then develop it in SharePoint.
This fellow has an approach to writing PHP for SharePoint. A key statement:
There are two big tricks – getting the
XML right and using NTLM
authentication.
Does any one know if there is a ASP.NET website available that is a pretty good clone of the style and layout of a SharePoint site? I don't need the functionality of SharePoint, I would like to be able to quickly mock up some controls for SharePoint, with out having to actually deploy stuff to the server, and want to be able to see what the controls would look like rendered in SharePoint.
Make sense?
If there is nothing available I'm just going to do a "save complete" with FireFox on my SharePoint site, and convert the results into a master page that I can use. If someone else has already done the work, that would be fantastic.
Heather Solomon has an excellent SharePoint CSS Cheat Sheet. Also, if you use sharepoint native controls like the SPGridView, most of the styling will be inherited / already implemented for you.
Your 'Save Complete' idea is the one I would suggest. You could also have some sort of bookmarklet/script that receives a html page url and injects it into the sharepoint page without actually changing it, but it is way more complicated.
My advice would be to use SharePoint Designer to play with the design and to use Features for deploying the customizations. Your question is pretty vague in that I can't tell if you have access to a VM to do a test install? Also, are we talking WSS 3.0 or MOSS 2007 or the latest version? Is it a publishing site? What kind of controls are you working on? Web Parts?
I have a requirement to select some data from a table in a database (SQL Server) and display it on a page in a SharePoint site (MOSS 2007).
I have a little bit of experience of MOSS, so I know I have a couple of options:
BDC
SSRS
or possibily even a custom ASPX page.
I've never really worked with any of these. Can anyone advise on the +/-'s of each?
It all depends on what functionality is required once the table is displayed in SharePoint. Do you need extra bells and whistles or is a dump of the data adequate? (Think about the future as well.) Here's some thoughts...
Business Data Catalog (BDC)
If you want to nicely integrate the SharePoint look and feel with your data as well as get some cool functionality, BDC is a good solution. There is no need to program anything and these are the features you get. However if this data will only be used once in one way then it is probably overkill.
You would need to roll your own XML description of the data so SharePoint knows how to pull it from the database (or use something third party like Lightning Tools). As Colin mentioned it requires the Enterprise license of MOSS.
SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS)
If Reporting Services is already available for use then this is the quickest and simplest solution. It works well but can get painful as more advanced features are required in your reports.
You should be able to use the Report Designer wizard to point to your table and set everything up for you. There are SSRS web parts that can be used within SharePoint, or indeed you can run SSRS inside SharePoint using SharePoint integration mode.
Application Page
This method Steven mentioned lets you integrate an ASP.NET application into SharePoint (such that it can be accessible by a URL within your SharePoint site). This allows anything that ASP.NET does, and the code-behind will be aware of SharePoint so you can tap into that if needed as well. The cons here are code access security and deployment.
See this webcast for how to do it.
Web Part
Similar to developing an application page but much more integrated with SharePoint. A custom web part is very powerful and allows you to integrate ASP.NET code on a SharePoint page. As you would know web parts can be dragged to whatever location and give a consistent properties pane. Again, code access security and deployment needs to be considered.
If you like designer view in Visual Studio then be aware this isn't the approach that Microsoft push. You can however use something like SmartPart where you would develop your custom app as a user control and the SmartPart wraps it into a web part. I'm used to doing it the MS way now and actually prefer the additional control this gives, however it can take more time.
Page Viewer Web Part
If you don't want to touch your SharePoint installation at all then have a look at this web part. It takes a URL as parameter and displays an IFrame containing the page that would be your report, either in SSRS or standard ASP.NET.
The downside from this lack of integration is problems with sizing the IFrame, and possible security warnings from the browser if accessing the URL in a different domain.
Don't forget the DataView Webpart. It has a pretty small developement footprint and works really well as a first "cut" if you are unsure as to how hardcore you need the final result to be.
It renders using XSLT, giving you full control of the final HTML, so it can do some pretty things with Javascript and co.
For a very simple example of charting.
Have you ever used the .NET Framework do develop webpages?
MOSS 2007 uses this framework for master / template files.
So your best choice would be to create an ASPX template file to display the results on the webpage.
BDC is the way to go if you want to keep it "strictly Sharepoint". The problem is, it is only included in the Enterprise edition of SharePoint. If you have the Standard edition, you could go for SSRS and the SSRS webpart, or, create your own webpart. That way you can use your data display anywhere in your site and it's also ASP.NET compatible.
As Nat said - if all that is needed is to display some data from a database on a page - the DVWP is a great solution. Just open your page in SharePoint Designer, add the database connection, and drop the web part on your page. You can use any of the several pre-formatted layouts, or design/tweak your own so the data is displayed as you need.
Relatively straightforward, lots of HowTos online, and far faster/easier to setup than something like BDC.