Interesting project: SharePoint Explorer in VS.NET

Some time ago Patrick, Karine and myself were brainstorming on what cool tools we could create for SharePoint. One of the things was to create a VS.NET extension like the Server Explorer, or the BizTalk Explorer. We never started developing it, but luckily Ciaran had the same idea and did started a similar project on GotDotNet: SharePoint Explorer. I haven’t got the time to check it out, but it sounds promising: (extract from an email he sent me) “The developer will be able to browse the whole portal through a tree structure, similar to windows explorer, and view web-parts, properties, etc. on each site along the way, and then at any point the developer could right click on a site or web part and be able to view it in the VStudio browser or IE. There would also be a limited amount of administrative tasks the developer could perform, tasks like creating/deleting sites, security, and others that can be decided as the project is planned.  I have already created a basic sample of this and I have uploaded the source into the source control of the workspace, you can also see some screen shots that I have made available from a link in the top news item on the front page.”

That are already some nice features, here’s another one: generate code based on the item selected in the explorer. For example right clicking on a specific List or Document Library, would generate some code that would give you an instance of that List or Document Library. You can even stretch that idea and think about integrating our U2U CAML Query Builder Tool. Anyone else has some feature requests, and/or some free time to contribute to the project?

5 Comments

  • I definitely like your idea. When I think server explorers in VS.NET, I think of tools that help me do development with the server. Otherwise, why is it in the IDE? Very cool concept.

  • 3-4 months ago I developed (partly developed...) I VS 2005 SharepointListObjectSource, which lets you view all the sharepoint lists within any server (I did a UI Designer for that) and select one....Then it let you databind from the GridView, FormView, DetailsView.



    Got caught up in "real" work projects though...So never finished it....I had it to the point where you could use the SmartTags in VS 2005 and select my designer, then navigate to a Sharepoint List and double click it...then I had the databinding working....



    Lots more work to do though...Editing / Filtering / Sorting...etc....Never finished it.



    I thought you might be interested....I would like to get back onto that and finish if I can find the time.

  • Here is my details.. (url above)

  • I always thought it would be a great idea to develop Sharepoint as a windows app. Anyone keen to join me ?



    if so, leave a msg on my blog above :)

  • Thanks for the comments Jan. I like your idea about the code generation, that would be amazingly helpful. The project is getting pretty popular I have received quite a few emails so far, I hope you and anyone else reading this will come along soon and sign up, I think we can create quite an amazing tool out of this.



    Thanks.

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