Dave Burke : Sharepoint

Bypassing SharePoint Document Library Security to retrieve documents

daveburke — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 13:08:00 GMT

I needed to provide external access to items from selected folders in a SharePoint Services 2.0 Document Library. I couldn't give read access to the entire library (our only option in WSS 2.0) because allowing them to browse the entire folder tree was not an option. I found the best solution was to retrieve the binary directly from the WSS SQL database using the item's GUID. Code and details on my personal blog post located here.

I had a farm in Africa

daveburke — Fri, 23 Jul 2004 20:10:00 GMT

No one expresses the longing for a life once lived as Meryl Streep with, “I...had a farm...in Africa.”

My version? “I...had a coding job...in Pittsburgh.”

I'm sure fellow developers can relate at one time or other with coding and project cycles in their own jobs. For so long I banged out .NET code, day after day, and nights, too. Then this Sharepoint Services project came up and I'm digging it, yeah, but I haven't written a respectable web app in what feels like months! And because I'm digging the project and involved in it, when bedtime comes I'm perfectly happy to go to bed instead of burning the latenight desk lamp to write code because I need to do something cool, as I am a contented nerd.

Except when I dream of that coffee farm in Africa...

To SPS2003 : WSS Workspaces are SPS2001 Document Libraries on steriods

daveburke — Fri, 23 Jul 2004 14:44:00 GMT

I've never consciously taken steriods. I am not responsible for what I may have ingested unconsciously. You gotta trust your homies, after all. But to me Windows Sharepoint Services workspaces are like Sharepoint Portal Server 2001 Document Libraries on steriods. Initially I viewed WSS doc libraries as SPS2001 Document Library-Lite. No lengthy popup menu options to check-in or publish the item, no separate document profile--er, property--dialog box, no profile information on a Details Window view, etc.

But then we had to replicate the s-e-c-u-r-i-t-y of SPS2001 document libraries, where at any point in the SPS2001 folder hierarchy we could add a group from Active Directory. WSS doc libraries ask, “what is Active Directory?“ So we ended up creating workspaces at the different tiers where we could change user settings, and document libraries under those.

So if before we had a DEPARTMENT directory, say, and an IT subdirectory, in SPS2001 we simply set the perms on IT different from DEPARTMENT and all was jake. In WSS we created an IT workspace, with its SPS2001 top subdirectories as individual WSS doc libraries, which is, of course, where the steriods kick in. Now the IT homies not only have a folder and its subfolders to call their own, but a workspace. Announcements, discussions, links, scheduling, weather, and news at 11:00. We're not pushing this feature initially upon migrating our SPS2001-based intranet to WSS, but maybe some of the users will get it and discover the value in their WSS workspaces on their own.

To SPS2003 : My Summer Vacation with Sharepoint Services 2003

daveburke — Fri, 23 Jul 2004 14:25:00 GMT

As I mentioned elsewhere, I'm in the process of migrating our SPS2001-based intranet to a Windows Sharepoint Services backend. I haven't posted forever because this has been one of those longstanding gigs that consumes and destroys all other nerd quests in its path.

The SPS2001 intranet system employs a middle data layer as a merged SQL-Web Storage System XML data file which the applications hit, so part of the migration was to rewrite those apps to pull document data from the Sharepoint Services SQL databases.

Added to that I thought it would be a good time to clean up directory and file names to remove as many unicode characters as possible and start fresh. What, these users think they're using Macs?? %26, %3B, %20...like zits in URLs ready to pop. Hate em. I went down this path whole hog when I saw that I couldn't drag-n-drop a folder with a “&“ in it into a WSS Document Library. So the in-house migration app I wrote (MS doesn't provide a migration tool from $PS2001 to WSS that I've seen. Surprise) strips out the most offensive unicode characters on my zit list.

Things are going great across the board. We're wiring the last 50 feet now into users' bedrooms, which is always the toughest, but we're sitting pretty. Not as pretty as Julie Andrews, but pretty all the same.

To SPS2003 : Cannot Complete this Action. SOLVED!

daveburke — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 21:47:00 GMT

On our last episode, Bullwinkle was still trying to pull a rabbit out of his hat and speak directly to the Microsoft.Sharepoint .NET library...

I spent so many hours on this one. I was at the point where I've done all the analysis I could do and just hope that I would uncover some clue along the way. I knew it was working on a staging server on my company's network but was not working on my development server here on my Office Network.

Then Makarov! Makarov! Makarov! provided me with the keys to the Microsoft.Sharepoint.dll Kingdom with a simple suggestion:

Has anybody tried to add <identity impersonate=”true” /> to the web.config?

Thank you Makarov, from me and all the other people who find this solution. That did it!!!

And as to the question, why was it working on the Staging Server and not my Development Server? Both of the sites' root directories were in subdirectories configured as separate applications under an IIS site root directory. The configuration was identical, as were the web.configs. But the web.config on the Staging server IIS site's parent directory had an <identity impersonate=”true” /> in it, the Developer Server's parent directory's web.config did not. When I changed the impersonate to “false” in the parent directory of the Staging server, I got the error I was getting on Development. I didn't think to check the parent web.configs.

This also fixed the problem I was having passing DefaultCredentials to a Sharepoint web service.

The URL to the original blog post is here, Part II is here.

My new SharePoint Article, uh, Tip

daveburke — Fri, 25 Jun 2004 20:34:00 GMT

As my buddy SB Chatterjee mentioned (thanks, SBC!) I have a new article on extending Sharepoint at MSD2D.com.

Extend SharePoint Portal Server with ADO.NET and XML

Well, its like an article, cause its long, has pictures, coding excerpts, and includes a bio. But its an MSD2D SharePoint Tip. That's okay. Big thanks to Dave Cragg at MSD2D for getting me started.

What I mean by “extending SharePoint” is, essentially, packaging up all of the Document Library data (using WebDAV and SPS2001 in the article), into an XML data layer and using ADO.NET to merge that data layer with other enterprise data (SQL Server data in our case) for applications with full access to SharePoint documents that do not require Digital Dashboard or even a browser, for that matter.

I like the MSD2D.com community and how it aggregates information on SharePoint, Exchange, etc. in one location. The next article I'll probably be submitting for publication at MSD2D.com will be describing the process I used in migrating a SharePoint Portal Server 2001 Document Library containing 10,000+ documents to Windows 2003 Sharepoint Services.

To SPS2003 : Can't I have a setup.exe with my SharePoint Portal Server 2003?

daveburke — Fri, 25 Jun 2004 03:37:00 GMT

I mean, gee-zus! SPS2001 had a setup.exe. Installation was a BREEZE!

SharePoint Portal Server 2003, on the other hand, has NO setup.exe. Its setup and configuration processes are all web-based.

Hello! Web-based apps suck!

Okay. MY web-based apps suck because they use brain-dead server-side controls and require a post-back for every action. Microsoft installation web-based apps rock.

So I'm trying to install OSPS2003, working through all of the new 2003 portal and server farm concepts and all the while using a web-based configuration app to do it.

On one friggen' page, I'm asked to enter the domain\username and password (twice!) for three different configuration processes. Then when my choices are not accepted, some CustomValidationInput control at the top of the page throws a generic message, "Please select a user which is in the Power Users Group and which has database creation rights." That's reasonably acceptable, but then it blanks out all nine of my form fields??? I spent 15 minutes typing and retyping entries on that stupid page alone.

You'd think that at $30,000 dollars for a server license I could get a setup.exe with SharePoint Server 2003.

Off to DevTeach

daveburke — Sat, 19 Jun 2004 15:20:00 GMT

In a few hours its off to Montreal, Canada for my 2nd (and its 2nd) DevTeach. I raved about this conference ever since I attended it last year, but to tell you the truth, I looked over the .NET session agenda and there are a LOT of the same sessions from last year (not just one or two as I had inititally thought) and otherwise mostly ho-hum session topics. I'll report back on my return next Wednesday, maybe gushing with excitement about something new I learned that changed my life. Or maybe not.

Maybe I'm going through a ho-hum period of coding where nothing excites me, or maybe my recent work with Sharepoint 2003 has sucked the joy out of being a developer. I don't know. I'm thinking that if a presenter is losing me, instead of piping up with my usual Far Side-inspired “Please stop! My brain is full!“, in honor of Sharepoint 2003 general squirrelliness I will yell out “Cannot Complete this Action. Please Say Again!“

To SPS2003 : Having trouble with WSS. Not the product, the acronym.

daveburke — Wed, 16 Jun 2004 18:05:00 GMT

When a new product comes along its important to embrace standardize acronym descriptors. These typically come from credentialed individuals and other reputable resources. I might not like those acronyms, but that's the way it is. The non-credentialed adhere to the verbage of the credentialed. That's life.

So the Credentialed Set like to use WSS to denote Windows Sharepoint Services. From a purely grammatical perspective, this makes a-okay sense. But to people like me who are still reek from the dirt they picked up working with Sharepoint Portal Server 2001's Web Storage System (WSS), using the same acronym for the new, the glorious, Tomorrow's Joy, Windows 2003 Sharepoint Services, well, it sucks.

I've seen “WinSS” in places to denote Windows Sharepoint Services, but those letters should be on the grill of a Camaro or El Camino or something, not in my application documentation.

So I'm hanging tough with SPS2003 until I'm credentialed and people start following my lead. Or I could suck it up, pretend I never got beat up by Web Storage System technology, and start using “WSS” so people know what the hell I'm talking about.

Being non-credentialed stinks.

To SPS2003 : Capacity planning and other good info

daveburke — Wed, 16 Jun 2004 17:52:00 GMT

If you don't know about it, check out the Sharepoint Services Administrators Guide. Its a .CHM with good info across the board on WSS. I tracked it down because I'm migrating from a SPS2001 site with a 3GB+ document library, I wanted to make sure I wasn't asking too much of WSS. Since the .CHM Guide includes an ISP scenario with unlimited users and 10 GBs of storage I guess we'll be okay.

To SPS2003 : Cannot complete this action, unsolved part II

daveburke — Wed, 16 Jun 2004 13:23:00 GMT

This follows an earlier post on the “Cannot complete this action” errors I receive when using the Microsoft.Sharepoint libraries on my development server. The error does not occur on my company's staging server. Weird.

I completely removed Sharepoint Services from my development server and changed the account to a bonafide domain admin group account. I made sure Network Service and IIS_WPG had the appropriate permissions, duplicated my IE settings with those on the working server.

Still friggen' nothin' to report. Sorry. Chances are, however, that since this seems such a generic error that my fix wouldn't necessarily help you anyway. Here's the first of 10+ pages of results from googling the sharepoint groups as evidence.

My first impressions of Sharepoint Services is 87% positive, but if I were writing a review I would definitely include the word “squirrelly.”

To SPS2003 : Modifying the WS reference map constructor for multiple sites

daveburke — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 20:57:00 GMT

Sharepoint 2003 has a great collection of Web Services--which, unlike my experience with the Sharepoint .NET Library namespace over the last couple of weeks--work great. These are created in the virtual site's _vti_bin subdirectory, which actually refer back to a

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\60\ISAPI

location. (The “60” varies based on the virtual site.)

Since I'm testing a number of virtual sites on various servers, I use a dropdown to pass the URL of the Web Service (in this case the DWS.asmx service), passing the URL as a string in the reference.cs constructor. This allows me to make a single Web Reference and call any virtual site's collection of web services.

public Dws() {
this.Url = "http://drastic/_vti_bin/Dws.asmx";
}

public Dws(string wsUrl)
{
this.Url = wsUrl;
//this.Url = "http://drastic/_vti_bin/Dws.asmx";
}

To SPS2003 : Considering the 255 NVarChar limit

daveburke — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 20:43:00 GMT

Funny how 255 continues to be a basic data construct in the most modern of information systems. I learned some time ago the technical reasons for why this came to be, but I had since forgotten and now don't care.

But SPS2003's document description (title, and other single-line property fields) are nvarchar255 fields. You can hit that 255 limit pretty quickly and I'm sure I'll be hearing about this from my users once we go online with our SPS2003-based migrated intranet system.

The item description is stored in the nvarchar8 field of the Sharepoint Site UserData table. I guess I could go in a bump it up a bit, but I've only been working with Sharepoint 2003 for going on 3 weeks and I don't feel like going in and screwing with the design of the basic system tables...

To SPS2003 : Cannot complete this action. Please try again.

daveburke — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 13:21:00 GMT

Everyone knows that Sharepoint 2003 is essentially a new product now based on .NET, which means its functions and processes can be accessed by Sharepoint .NET libraries from a .NET project. I've listed how to reference that library here.

Sharepoint 2003 contains this .NET library as well as a number of Web Services to perform Sharepoint workspace and document library functions. I successfully used a Web Service to create a document library folder, but am encountering a number of “Cannot complete this action. Please try again.“ runtime errors when trying to use the Sharepoint .NET library in my VS.NET application.

What's interesting is that I am generating errors here on my office network, but am experiencing NO errors on the HQ staging server, and I personally installed Sharepoint Services on both of them. Usually its the other way around and the problems always occur on the HQ servers. Still, I'm delighted to know the SPS .NET library works on that machine so I am carefully study the differences in security and configuration.

But investigating the SPS2003 .NET library issue is more of a side issue, however, since I am in the middle of migrating a SPS2001-based intranet to Sharepoint Services 2003 and the migration is my priority. I can use the SPS2003 Web Services to perform the functions I need to duplicate from the WebDAV SPS2001-based system, and do not NEED to employ the Sharepoint 2003 .NET library right now.

I know I will work through this situation sometime hopefully soon, even though “Cannot complete this action...” type of errors are pretty darn worthless. (Why not throw up a translucent bomb icon and an unhappy face on the screen while you're at it?) Please check the Sharepoint category at a future date for my particular resolution of the “Cannot complete this action...” problem, though your mileage may vary. If you google on this you'll find that its the SPS Library generic runtime error to darn-near everything.

How to add the Sharepoint Services Namespace Reference to a .NET application

daveburke — Tue, 08 Jun 2004 03:25:00 GMT

I wrote my first SPS2003 .NET app today. This WebDAV Dog is learning new Sharepoint tricks, but step one is figuring out how in the heck to reference the Sharepoint Libraries in a VS.NET application.

First of all, this ain't mine. I found this newsgroup post of Jim McCusker titled Creating a Web Part - Step-by-step. Jim, whatever cool Sharepoint coding you're doing tonight, thanks, buddy! Here is Jim's post. Below is an excerpt on referencing the Sharepoint Services Libraries in VS.NET.

...2) Right click on the References folder in the Solution Explorer window and select Add Reference

...5) Browse to the file called Microsoft.SharePoint.dll which is typically located under the \Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\60\ISAPI\ folder. [ex. \\cdpofb2\c$\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\60\ISAPI\Microsoft.SharePoint.dll]

The rest is in the Sharepoint SDK...