Community Blogs

I can't believe I never used this handy SQL function before. I knew about it for a couple of years, but I never needed it. When I was doing the import of my Community Server blog to BlogEngine.Net I knew I needed some help stripping out serialized data in the CS_Posts PropertyNames and PropertyValues fields, so I went back to track it down. Specifically I needed to transfer author and website information of comments in cs_posts to the be_PostComment table. I always enjoyed working with serialized data. I think its slick and efficient. This post from 2006 describes working with serialized weblog extended attributes. The only downside of serialized data as I see it is when you need to query it from a SQL table. That's where the FetchExtendedAttributes...

I am very happy to announce the release of DBVT2008, the dawn of a new era at dbvt.com. The biggest difference you'll find in DBVT2008 is no "Powered by [anything Telligent]" logos anywhere. That's right. No Community Server. No Graffiti. I am using strictly Open Source .NET applications on dbvt.com, Mads Kristensen's BlogEngine.Net for my blog and an application called Gallery Server Pro by a young man from Wisconsin named Roger Martin for my photo gallery. You know about BlogEngine.Net, and while few people know about Gallery Server Pro, they both rock. There are several DBVT2008 technical issues I'm looking forward to blogging about regarding migration, integration, SEO and so forth, but not tonight. Those of you...

Ben Tiedt's Chameleon is one of my favorite aspects of developing in Community Server. With it's hierarchical contextual awareness and library of smart ASPNET controls, sophisticated UI's can be created in very little time. Of course, using CodeSmith templates to bang out the underlying class structures helps facilitate the process, too. Chameleon makes heavy use of <CSControl:Placeholders /> which display content using a <DisplayConditions> property. As an example, the DisplayCondition test to display page content to registered users only would be <DisplayConditions> <CSControl:UserInRoleCondition Role="Registered Users" UseAccessingUser="true" runat="server" /> </ DisplayConditions>...

I sling a lot of data in and out of my Jobs Management Application and this afternoon's slinging consisted of Job Estimate data from Microsoft Access. The process occurs through a Community Server background task and consists of three steps. 1) Request the List<Business Object>, 2) Retrieve the data to populate it in the AccessDataProvider, and 3) Pass it off to the SqlDataProvider. I had written CodeSmith templates to perform various aspects of the Access Data Import process, but not what I call a "Composite Template" to handle the entire task. That was today's CodeSmith Composite Power Play. I'm posting this not to discuss the import process, but to provide another demonstration of CodeSmith's muscle. Here is...

Another Jobs Management Application lesson for us tonight to demonstrate new and exciting ways to use the Community Server HelpToolTip Popup Control. In this session we will be using the HelpToolTip Popup Control to provide information to users when input errors occur. Below is a Jobs Management function that records Reimburseable Expenses made by foremen on the job. Those expenses are transferred at the end of the week to the payroll system for reimbursement. There are two data input requirements, 1) the expense date must be in the current work week and 2) both amount and description are required. Since this page contains many, many Chameleon forms, standard ASP.NET Validation didn't seem feasible. Besides, the HelpToolTip Popup Control...

In my Jobs Management app built on Community Server I needed to display job documents. Another in-house Document Management application already had a page that displayed documents based on jobs, so instead of designing original Chameleon controls as usual, why not iframe in an existing document management application page with some slight editing and styling. There were security rules that could be easily handled by going with an iframe as well. The result was that we could add job document support in less than a day. The screenpic below was the end result. It looks and functions like any other Chamelon-based Jobs Management application we've seen thus far. Creating the dynamic iframe url was interesting to me. Perhaps still not blog-worthy...

This is for folks working with the CS2008 SDK who would use the cs_4.0_CreateFullDatabase.sql script to create the Community Server 2008 database. Scroll to the end of the file where you'll find the cs_system_CreateCommunity stored procedure. In the past we ran this separately after the install or update script completed. The sqlScripts\HowTo.txt instructs us to run the CreateCommunity script after the install script like prior versions of CS, but you want to ignore that and instead modify the cs_system_CreateCommunity exec statement at the end of the CreateFullDatabase script and you'll be good to go. Read More...

A common issue with Community Server 2007 was frequently required logins. This was always resolved by adding a MachineKey to the web.config. I add a MachineKey to each of my CS sites as one of my first setup tasks. In working with CS2008 I quickly realized that this was something I'll continue to do, as I found myself having to re-login unnecessarily. It takes 30 seconds to generate a key at ASP.NET Resources and add it to the web.config, so it's not a burden or anything. Fine nuglet material though. Read More...

I'm way behind on my Community Server forums reading, so this has probably been covered. Community Server 2008 displays a personalized home page for registered users. Anonymous and users not logged-in see the welcome page. Below is the new personalized home page on a virginal CS2008 site. On a client CS2008 site I'm theming and configuring we want all users to see the welcome page all the time, like in prior versions of Community Server. I was thinking I'd have to do something tricky, but fortunately the CS Core Team (who are trickier than me) provided a simple checkbox to do the job. Nice. Read More...

I've created a few custom Community Server link controls in my day deriving from WrappedContentBase that display a modal window when clicked. They're smart and efficient, but I didn't like the fact that when doing a mouseover the cursor did not change to...the hand. Certainly I could make this happen with CSS, I thought, but found it took a little longer than the 3 minutes I anticipated it to take. Thus, the incident burst into blog-worthiness and so here we are. The secret CSS sauce to cause an area to trigger "the hand" on mouseover follows. It works in IE6/IE7 and Firefox. .PopOver { cursor: pointer; cursor: hand; } I guess I should say a word about the Custom Link Objects that display Modal Windows in Community Server...