I also attended Dan Lewis’s session, “Social Computing and Blogging with SharePoint”.  Dan kicked off the meeting showing this youtube video “Twitterscape“. It’s a funny parody of what social computing has become (HUGE!) After that, he starting talking about SharePoint and social computing. Is SharePoint a tool for social computing? Why, yes. It has many built-in features that qualify the SharePoint platform for social computing purposes. Users can have profiles. SharePoint users can collaborate using discussion boards. In SharePoint,  users can implement wikis and blogs. All of these SharePoint features qualify it as a social computing tool.  Although SharePoint has all these features, SharePoint might be an overkill for what an organization is trying to do. For example, if an office is trying to implement just knowledge management through wikis, there are cheaper (even free) solutions for that. If the office just want a blogging tool for their employees, there are cheaper alternatives too. The metaphor that Dan used to describe implementing SharePoint just one of its features is like “driving a Ferrari to catch a bus”. Organizations can get their money’s worth on SharePoint if they use most if not all the available features in SharePoint. When an office need to implement wikis, discussions, and blogs, implementing different (non-SharePoint) solutions to meet all those needs, it is time to go to SharePoint. Example: if an office uses Wordpress for blogging, MediaWiki for wikis, and then PHPBB for message boards, the organization now has to maintain different software? That’s like going to Walmart for milk, Safeway for meats, and then Whole Foods for veggies and fruits. Wouldn’t it be better if you just did all your shopping in one store, a “one-stop-shop” solution? That “one-stop-shop” is SharePoint. In that scenario, it is viable for the organization to invest in SharePoint because it needs to use most if not all of its features anyway; why bother with multiple software–just use SharePoint!

In my previous post, I listed the sessions that I attended on SharePoint Saturday. Michael Lotter’s session was about building and deploying custom SharePoint Application Pages. Out-of-the-box pages suffice for more SharePoint users. But at some point, your customers or organization will want to add custom ASPX pages into SharePoint. This topic is relevant to teams wanting to create custom ASPX pages in SharePoint.

The basic ideas for building and deploying custom SharePoint Application Pages:

1. Create a VS 2005 or VS 2008 solution
2. Edit your ASPX pages, edit your code-behind
3. Compile the solution—you should get the DLL files and the ASPX and/or ASCX files plus resource files such as images files (GIF, JPG, etc.)
4. Create a new WSP Solution project in VS 2005 or VS 2008 using VSeWSS, Andrew Connell’s STSDEV, or Codeplex WSP Builder.
5. In the WSP Solution, you put the ASPX and ASCX pages that you are trying to deploy.
6. Also, the DLL that was compiled from Step 1 has to be included in the WSP Solution.
7. Depending on which WSP tool you are using, the files location in the WSP solution might differ from one tool to another. But the key things you specify in the WSP Solution are the following: Manifest file and DDF file. If you have other things to add such as custom actions, you will also need to specify the Features file. The Manifest file specifies where the files in the WSP package will go.
8. Compile the WSP solution.
9. Run STSADM on the WSP file to deploy your custom files and pages.

Here’s a sample Manifest file:

<Solution SolutionId=”AAEC1250-5354-7839-F94F-50307E84AF1B” xmlns=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/”>
<FeatureManifests>
<FeatureManifest Location=”FeatureLibrary\feature.xml”/>
</FeatureManifests>
<TemplateFiles>
<TemplateFile Location=”ControlTemplates\Zenpo\myZenpoControl.ascx”/>
<TemplateFile Location=”Layouts\Zenpo\myZenpoPage.aspx”/>
<TemplateFile Location=”Layouts\Zenpo\myZenpoBanner.JPG”/> </TemplateFiles >
<Assemblies>
<Assembly DeploymentTarget=”GlobalAssemblyCache” Location=”ZenpoSoftware.Sharepoint.myFeature.dll”/>
</Assemblies>
</Solution>

In the example manifest file above, my files went to the Layouts, Images, and ControlTemplates folder. Meanwhile, I specify that my custom assembly file should go to the GAC.

If you are creating custom pages or Web controls with no code-behind files (as-in it’s just all ASPX code or maybe a little bit of in-line server-side scripting), you can skip steps 1-3 and start at step 4 right away.

One thing worth nothing is if you’re going to deploy files to the 12-hive folder, it’s best that you create your own folder. In my example above, I specify in the manifest file that a “Zenpo” folder be created in the Layouts, ControlTemplates, and Images folder.

In the session, Michael Lotter deployed custom pages to the Layouts folder. He also had custom actions specified in the Elements.xml file that made the Site Actions menu include links to his custom pages.

It was a good session for those who have not yet done deployment of custom SharePoint pages in SharePoint. I will admit I was looking for something a bit more advanced but overall, the session was good since people who have never done this before can go back to their shop and should be able to build and deploy custom application pages.

I attended the SharePoint Saturday event here in the DC Metro area on May 2nd. SharePoint Saturday is hosted at different cities in the US. We were fortunate enough that the event was located here in DC/VA/MD area. The conference was held at the Microsoft office in Reston, VA.

It was full day of sessions, networking, and bagels and pizza and coffee. It started with a General Session: The State of SharePoint session by Joel Oleson, NS Rana, Thomas Vander Wal, and Errin O’ Connor. From that point on, people branched to End User, Developer, Administration, or Special Interest sessions.

I’m primarily a solutions developer. A friend of mine who I bumped into at the conference asked me “so, are you headed over to the Developer sessions?” Initially, yes—my first session for the day was a developer session. But I mixed it up for the rest of the day since there were so many interesting topics and I like diversifying what I learn.

Here are the sessions that I attended this last Saturday:

• Building and deploying custom SharePoint Application pages (layouts) with Visual Studio 2008 by Michael Lotter
• Social Computing and Blogging with SharePoint by Dan Lewis
• Visually Developing Custom Web Parts by Becky Isserman
• SharePoint Admin Fundamentals by Joel Oleson
• Implementing a SharePoint Pilot: An IT Manager’s Perspective by Jonathan Distler
• Using the SharePoint Platform to Build Vertical Business Applications by Paul Galvin
• SmartCard Authentication: Considerations, Options and Pitfalls by Dan Usher and Joel Ward

I really enjoyed the SharePoint Saturday. I highly recommend that fellow tech professionals go to these events—they’re informational and you get the chance to network with other professionals (and gurus) in the industry. For me, the best thing I got out of SharePoint Saturday are product ideas that I may develop for Zenpo Software Innovations, LLC, my company.

I will follow up by writing individual entries for each session I attended.