Does anyone know if it is possible to display a prompt to a user/administrator when activating or installing a sharepoint feature?
I am writing a custom webpart and it is connecting to a separate database, I would like to allow the administrator to select or type in a connection string when installing the .wsp file or activating the feature.
I am looking inside the FeatureActivated event and thinking of using the SPWebConfigModification class to actually write the connection string to the web.config files in the farm.
I do not want to hand edit the web.configs or hard code the string into the DLL.
If you have other methods for handling connection strings inside sharepoint I would be interested in them as well.
Unfortunately there is no way to swap to a screen where you can get user via the feature activation process. Couple of comments for you:
I'm assuming the connection string is going to be different for every installation, so there is no way you can include it directly in the Solution.
I'm assuming that you couldn't programmatically construct this during installation.
Therefore, you need some way to get user input. Here are a couple of options:
It could be a web part property, though this would mean setting it each and every time the web part was added, and you would need to then maitain those settings individually.
You could build out your own _layouts settings screen (good post: http://community.zevenseas.com/Blogs/Robin/archive/2008/03/17/lcm-creating-custom-application-page-and-using-the-propertybag-more-detailed.aspx), and from there users can maintain the property, storing it in either the Web Property bag, or inside the Web.Config. I try to avoid using the Web.Config where I can, but if you do wish to go this route then MAKE SURE you use the SPWebConfigModification class (Read this great blog: http://www.crsw.com/mark/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=32)
Finally, a technique I often use is storing configuration information in a SharePoint List. Chris O'Brien has a great framework for that here: http://www.codeplex.com/SPConfigStore
Hope that helps,
Daniel
Sounds good. I will look at these possible solutions.
I do not think #1 will work since I am deploying multiple webparts inside a single solution which all use the same connectionString.
#3 sounds like a very clean solution. I see the config items are cached so it looks like if I need to store a connection string, I will not be hit with a SP lookup each time I need that string.
While searching for a solution I did stumble across another method.
If you dig around their code, I looks like they have created an installer that accepts application specific values, adds the values into a FeatureTemplate.xml file and passes them to the SPFeatureReceiverProperties object in the Reciever.
I was about to start tackling this method, but I think #3 would be better.
Thank you,
Keith
Related
I have a piece of data, a simple string containing the server name that the SharePoint solution is deployed to, that I retrieve from a configuration store in a helper method in a common DLL used throughout my solution. This helper method is used throughout my custom pages and web parts, to build a number of URLs, etc.
I would like to persist this string, and prevent it being repeatedly retrieved from the configuration store. My Sharepoint installation is currently on a single server, but will be migrated to a SharePoint server farm in the near future, so simply determining the server name of the current request, etc isn't an option. I have looked at caching as described in the best practices for SharePoint, but unless I use a coherent cache like NCache or Velocity/AppFrabric, I will again have issues when the move to server farm occurs. Given that this is a single string, adding a full caching solution such as Velocity seems like overkill.
Does anyone have any suggestions on the best way to persist this data? Am I missing something obvious here?
Thanks, MagicAndi
Look into using the Property bag that is exposed by all major SharePoint objects to persist information. i.e.
SPFarm.Properties
SPWebApplication.Properties
SPSite.Properties
You could:
Store the string in web.config. You can programatically change the web.config on all the farm's webservers using a SPWebConfigModification
Store the string in a SharePoint list and read from it. I usually use this solution because I have more to store than a single string. The list is 'available' on all web servers and I cache its values in an ASP.NET cache object. Someone made this concept into a solution you can download and install: SPConfigStore
This article may be of use to those looking at storing configuration data in SharePoint:
Six ways to store settings in SharePoint
You can use SPPersisted to do such kind of operations.
I am currently working on a custom SharePoint web part (WSS 3.0, not MOSS) that will pull in information for all of the users in Active Directory to build an up to date employee directory. This web part shows things like phone number, address, and other similar fields. The issue that I am having is that, by default, the SharePoint web site on IIS is running as the user IUSR_. This user does not have access to Active Directory, so I am unable to retrieve any user information.
To get around this for testing I have hard coded the credentials for a test user which I added just for this purpose. This, obviously, is not ideal. If anyone removes this user or if they ever change the password then the web part will break and they will have no way to fix it (they have no in-house developers to take it over once I am finished here). To fix this problem, I would like to make the Username/Password custom properties on the web part so I can pass those to Active Directory to retrieve the information I need. The issue I am having with this is that the password is stored in plain text so anyone can read it. I would like it to display as ******** or something similar. Is there a way to make a custom property on a web part a password type?
If this isn't possible, can anyone recommend another way to accomplish what I am trying to do? At this time I cannot change the user that the SharePoint website runs as. Although, if I cannot find any other solutions I will try again to persuade them.
Thanks in advance!
We use a service account for that. That service account is solely used for that. Something like DOMAIN\SPS_AD_READ_CUSTOMER
In our documentation that we deliver when putting the application in production that account is put in the list of stuff that is needed to make the webpart run. If the webpart ever fails, the ITPro can go to the chapter and check if everything is still ok.
It's not ideal, but I don't really know another way on how to fix it.
I would go with custom Editor Part, then set up a control of TextBox with property TextBoxMode set to Password, then override methods from type EditorPart - SynchChanges() and ApplyChanges() to set and retrieve values.
tip: override method CreateEditorParts of a WebPart type to start with.
Or at least could anybody point me to docs about its crazy proprietary url parameters and html field name obfuscation? I can only suppose this is caused by SharePoint...
The main problem is, given a start page built with SharePoint, I can't recreate a form post with a programmative client because:
field names vary, they are appended with a some sort of id, hash, whatever (I think session.wise? Not sure)
tracing HTTP traffic on my side, I see the HTTP request is packed with strange parameters like __REQUESTDIGEST, __VIEWSTATE, and many others
Is this an intentional protection device put up by SharePoint? Which is the underlying architecture and which objects are involved (script callbacks, ... )?
(BTW, I'm not doing anything evil, just trying to extract public government data from a website).
Thanks.
SharePoint is nothing more than an ASP.NET Application, SharePoint completely Built on top of ASP.NET 2.0.
Being said that __VIEWSTATE is nothing but a Hidden Field that has the View State Information
Coming to __REQUESTDIGEST this is an Intentional Protection, this carries some sort of
securito validation which is called FormDigest
And finally to answer your Question, You will not be able to guess field and stuffs unless you have control to change the sourcecode of the application. Reason why the Name of the fields looks like obfuscated is because those controls are not handwritten but generated by the Code of ASP.NET Engine and parser, Reason field having such a name called Naming Container
One suggestion I would say is that, rather than trying to scraping the screen data, you can try alternate approaches, like each of the List in the SharePoint has the XML Feed inbuilt,try to consume it, if you have access to the site, try to retrieve the information using export to excel etc.
In addition to RSS, SharePoint also has a Web Services interface that you can use to get at and interact with data stored in SharePoint in a programatic way.
What is the general feeling amongst developers regarding the changing of files in the 12 hive.
For example if you were asked to remove the sign is a different user menu item, you would need to modify the relevent user control on the filesystem. Now if you just go and modify it via notepad or copy over and then if you go and bring a new server into the farm you will need to remember to do the same on the new server.
Obvouisly you could deploy the changed file as a solution and have that done automatically, but I'm just wondering if people are hesitant to make changes to the default installed files?
I have done a bit of SharePoint development, and I must tell you that messing with the 12-hive is a ticket to a world of pain if you ever want to move the app.
I'd rather hack up some javascript to hide it, at least that can be bound to the master page, which is much more portable.
And remember, you never know when the next service pack comes around and nukes your changes :)
I agree with Lars. Sometimes you will not be able to avoid it, depending on your needs. But, in general the best policy is to avoid modification if at all possible.
I know that some of the other menu items in the current user menu (change login, my settings, etc) can be changed by removing permissions from the user. Under Users and Groups there is an option for permissions. I can't remember the exact setting (develop at work, not at home), but there are reasonable descriptions next to each of the 30+ permissions. Remove it and you start hiding menu options. No modifications to the 12-hive needed.
There is a very simple rule: if you want to keep official support from Microsoft, don't change any of the files in the 12 hive that are installed by SharePoint.
I've never encountered a situation where the only solution was to change such a file. For example if you want to change an out-of-the-box user control of SharePoint, you can do so by making use of the DelegateControl, and overriding it in a feature.
More info:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms463169.aspx
http://www.devx.com/enterprise/Article/36628
I know it's tempting to quickly change a file, and I have to admit sometimes I just do that on a DEV box, but don't go there on a production server!
Not sure if there is much use pitching in, as everyone else pretty much has it covered, but I would also say don't do it. As tempting as it is, its just impossible to know the full impact of that little change you have made.
From a support perspective you will make it difficult for Microsoft support (patches/hotfixes).
From a maintenance perspective you are also opening yourself up to long term costs.
Go the javascript route.
The way to go about it is to use a Sharepoint Solution (WSP) file.
To change the user control, create a new Sharepoint feature with the new functionality.
Include this feature in your solution.
Deploy the solution either using the stsadm command line, or through Central Site Admin.
This will then get automatically deployed to all the servers in your farm, and it avoids you overwriting anything default sharepoint files.
For more info, check out Sharepoint Nuts and Bolts blog on http://www.sharepointnutsandbolts.com/ which give an introduction to WSP and Sharepoint Features.
I've done this many times and I will speak from experience: Never ever touch the onet.xml files within the 12 hive under any circumstance. Any error that you make in there, and to make the CAML even more complex the file is largely whitespace sensitive, will have an impact on every part of SharePoint.
You should also consider that aside from the substantial risk to the installation, you may well be building in dependencies upon your changes that are then over-written in a future patch or service pack.
Most of the time, you can accomplish everything you want to using features and solution packages without modifying the files. However, there are a few (rather annoying) rare cases where your only option would be to modify a file on the system. I have used it for two particular cases so far. One was to add the PDF iFilter to the docicon.xml file, and the other was to add a theme to the themes.xml file. In both cases, it seemed to be the only way to achieve the goal. Still, we used a solution package to write those files out to all the servers in the farm.
I've built a web part for Sharepoint that retrieves data from an external service. I'd like to display the items in a way that's UI-compatible with Sharepoint (fits in with its surroundings.)
I'm aware of the "DataFormWebPart" but was unable to get one working properly. It requires a valid DataSource and I was unable to build one from the results of a web service call... Part of the problem is that my web service wrappers don't expose the XML return info, rather I have a bunch of deserialized objects. There doesn't seem to be an easy way to turn actual objects into a datasource, or populate a "generic" datasource from object data.
I could use an SPGridView to get the same UI, but the grid control doesn't have much in the way of smarts -and- it forces every field into its own column. I'd prefer to render each list item as a single cell with complex rendering (for instance the way that StackOverflow shows its lists of questions.) I'd also like to get as much of the Sharepoint-standard UI as possible, such as the sorting, filtering, and paging controls.
So, first: Has anyone here written a Sharepoint control that does this, and if so do you have sample code to share? If not: am I overlooking some useful control, whether MS-supplied or available in an external library?
Thanks!
Steve
Sharepoint: Best way to display lists
of non-Sharepoint content with
“compatible” UI?
Take a look at the built in sharepoint web controls:
Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls Namespace
It contains all the controls used in sharepoint. I'd tell you more, but the documentation is very thorough.
Problem with SharePoint is that there are a bunch of different ways to do this. If your data is not changing too often and is not overly large it may be worth considering entering it into a list for display.
If you have the Enterprise licence it may be worth getting your data into the BDC and using it there.
you may have to convert the objects into xml or use the serialised objects with the XML webpart for display. This still has the issue of custom rendering using XSLT.
Here's a great article that explains how to configure BDC connections to web services using the BDC Definition Editor:
Creating a Web Service Connection by Using the Business Data Catalog Definition Editor
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb737887.aspx
The best way to do this IMO is to make a Web Part. As a Web Part the UI will be automatically rendered to be the same as the theme the site is using (unless you override it) and it will be able to be placed anywhere by anyone with admin privileges.
Tutorial on making a Web Part
Tutorial on packaging and deploying a Web Part
Example Web Part Source Code
You could create a custom web part and use an SPGridView. You say you don't like it, because it forces every field into its own column, but that's not true. You can create a template (ITemplate) for every column and fully customize what's shown inside it, just like you would using a normal ASP.Net GridView. Using this approach I've added the little "New" images right next to a list item's Title, just like SharePoint does itself.