Martin Hinshelwood's Blog

TFS Event Handler Update

The TFS Event Handler project on CodePlex has been updated today to take care of a number of bugs that were introduced in the last update. These have all been fixed and we are currently dogfooding with the new release. The Event Handlers have also been updated to take care of some issues that we found when using them in anger...

Download the latest working release here

View the Documentation here

posted @ Tuesday, May 27, 2008 5:48 PM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ Microsoft .NET Framework RDdotNET TFS Event Handler ]

SharePoint Solutions Rant

<Rant>

There needs to be a way to easily build MOSS Solutions in Visual Studio. I know that there are a bunch of bits and pieces available form Microsoft and third parties, but I want an end to end solution.

  You should be able to create a SharePoint "Solution" in Visual Studio. Then Add Feature projects to it that can contain many list or site bits with the ability to compile and build the solution file that can be uploaded into SharePoint with out all of this faffing around...

Oh, and you should be able to do it remotely! On a workstation!

</Rant>

posted @ Wednesday, May 21, 2008 9:25 AM | Feedback (1) | Filed Under [ Personal Rant Sharepoint Work MOSS Time Off Management MOSS MOSS Designer Workflow Activities ]

Developing for SharePoint on your local computer

If you are wanting to developer solutions for SharePoint in Visual Studio 2008 then you need a couple of things to get started:

• You will need to install VSeWSS 1.1.
  http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2008/02/11/announcing-the-final-release-of-vsewss-1-1-and-the-upcoming-version-1-2.aspx
• Then follow the instructions on Martin Vollmer`s Blog  in his post on getting it installed without Sharepoint.
  http://blogs.msdn.com/martinv/archive/2008/03/19/new-registry-file-for-developing-moss2007-projects-in-a-workstation-xp-or-vista.aspx
• And to get workflow working you need to again follow the instructions on Martin Vollmer`s Blog  in his post on getting the workflow dll's out of the server.
  http://blogs.msdn.com/martinv/archive/2008/01/21/developing-custom-moss-2007-sharepoint-workflows-on-a-remote-workstation.aspx

Although this is convoluted it does work...

If you are developing for either of my MOSS Codeplex Projects (MOSS Time Off Management or MOSS Designer Workflow Activities) then you will need this up and running if you do not want to have to install everything on a SharePoint server...

UPDATE: If you can get this to work, you must be a SharePoint developer guru

posted @ Tuesday, May 20, 2008 5:21 PM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ Microsoft .NET Framework Personal Sharepoint Work MOSS Time Off Management MOSS WF MOSS Designer Workflow Activities ]

Change of plan

After having thought about it for a while I think that my idea not to create a separate TOM system independent of MOSS was a bit of a silly idea. The whole point of the system is to exist in any environment, so the first version will exist separate of SharePoint. The main advantage of this will be debugging and testing....

The first version will use simple web pages as stubs to the SharePoint bits, but the final version will need to run in MOSS.

This project will give me an idea of how complicated it will be to produce SharePoint features and how much time will be spent in bug fixing...

posted @ Tuesday, May 20, 2008 8:27 AM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ RDdotNET Personal Sharepoint MOSS Time Off Management MOSS WF ]

Creating a SharePoint Solution

Over the next few weeks I will be blogging my escapades in developing an application solution for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. I have entitled the application "MOSS Time Off Management" and it will be up on CodePlex for all to follow @ http://www.codeplex.com/mosstom (coming soon).

The idea behind this application is twofold:

First to give me a project that I can get my teeth into to learn all of the ins and outs of the SharePoint model, including how one debugs and developers for it. And second to give my company a working system at the end... There is nothing like dogfooding and everyone should eat what they make.

It will be build in .NET 3.5 and use a combination of WebParts, Workflow, InfoPath, SQL Server and a few other assorted munchies. I will be trying to include Test Driven Devolvement (but that will be determined by SharePoint) and I will be building the installer first.

Although this application will not stand alone (although I may have to build a skeleton if SharePoint becomes a pain), it will be able to be deployed globaly on many servers (SharePoint farms) around the world with a single point of truth...

Now I am scared....

posted @ Monday, May 19, 2008 5:03 PM | Feedback (1) | Filed Under [ Microsoft .NET Framework Sharepoint Work MOSS Time Off Management MOSS ]

Linked in VSTS Group

If you are a developer who customises or extends Visual Studio Team System then this LinkedIn group is for you...

VSTS Developer

NOTE: All requests to join these groups will be checked before they will be approved. Evidence of your participation in VSTS development.

posted @ Thursday, May 15, 2008 2:52 PM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ Microsoft .NET Framework Visual Studio Team System Personal TFS Event Handler TFS Work Item Tracking to Jira Synchronization TFS Sticky Buddy ]

Linked in Codeplex developers group

If you are a developer on Codeplex then there are now two Codeplex LinkedIn groups for you to join.

Codeplex Developer

All members must have an account with CodePlex and be a developer on at least one project. Please provide your account name after requesting to join...

Codeplex Coordinator

All members must be a Coordinator of at least one Codeplex project.

NOTE: All requests to join these groups will be checked before they will be approved. Please provide a link to your Codeplex profile.

posted @ Thursday, May 15, 2008 2:41 PM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ Microsoft .NET Framework RDdotNET Windows Mobile Microsoft Windows Windows Live Visual Studio Team System Personal TFS Event Handler TFS Work Item Tracking to Jira Synchronization Sharepoint SourceCode BizTalk WCF Work TFS Sticky Buddy WPF ]

Post Event: MSDN Roadshow (Glasgow)

Spent the day yesterday at the MSDN Roadshow in Glasgow. It was a very good day that provided me a deeper insight into the ADO.NET Entity Framework, Data Services and Silverlight 2 (Which I like even though I did not like Silverlight 1... no JavaScript).

The last session on Team Suit was a little marred by Neil Kidd being rather ill...get well soon Neil...but I followed it anyway, but I do think that other attendees became lost fairly quickly...we all have bad days...

If you have not been lucky enough, or bothered to attend then you can get all the resources from http://www.msdnroadshow.co.uk/.

Oh, and I managed to blag myself a new keyboard which is pretty nifty, I would never have forked out for on my own, and a F5 MSDN T-shirt, which is a might tight...

posted @ Wednesday, May 14, 2008 11:08 AM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ Personal ]

Post event: Developer Day Scotland...

What a fantastic day... Thanks to Colin Mackay for the fantastic job he did organising this event and I hope that there will be more events like this in Glasgow in the future...

I can only comment on the speakers that I attended, but they were all very impressive...

Guy Smith-Ferrier did an excellent presentation on ADO.NET Data Services which I now understand and see the benefits and applications of, thanks Guy. And Ben Lamb did an interesting session on "Anti-Patterns" that left me thinking a lot about code I had written in the past, you can find his presentation on his blog...

After lunch when you normally start to fall asleep we got a session on Continuous integration from Richard Fennell that sparked my interest (more on team system Richard). Then came the speaker that probably had the most impact for me. The talk was entitled "Red, Green, Refactor!" and was all about "Test Driven Development" from a guy that seams to know much about the subject, Ben Hall.

If I took anything away from this day, it was that although I know a lot, I know very little....

posted @ Monday, May 12, 2008 10:32 AM | Feedback (2) | Filed Under [ Personal ]

Developer day Scotland!

Its the main event tomorrow...

Developer Day Scotland - 10th May 2008

If you have not already signed up, well, its probably too late...but if you are still up and you are in Glasgow tomorrow get yourself down to Glasgow Caledonian University (I went to University there) and drop in. Don't forget to sign up tonight...

If you are up for it there is a Developer Day Scotland Geek Dinner on afterwards and some drinking before that.

posted @ Saturday, May 10, 2008 12:02 AM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ Personal ]

Assembly Version does not change in Visual Basic Workflow projects

If you are having an issue with the assembly version in your compiled assembly not updating after a rebuild then you are not alone. The is a bug in the Visual Basic compiler that causes this problem and it requires a manual fix:

http://kbalertz.com/952628/Assembly-Version-change-Visual-Basic-Workflow-projects.aspx

Not hard, but annoying...

To check the problem, double click on the assembly in your bin folder and open out the version tag.

You can see from the image below what I am getting at. This causes no end of problems with signed assemblies. The KBAlertz article above implies that this only affects Workflow assemblies. But I have has t6his problem in other types of Visual Basic project.

This is not a big problem unless you are creating custom assemblies for SharePoint and have a convoluted deployment process before you can test, and can't figure out why you changes are not going through...

posted @ Wednesday, May 07, 2008 5:05 PM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ Microsoft .NET Framework Sharepoint MOSS Time Off Management ]

Another day another Codeplex Project

I have been using the Useful Sharepoint Designer Custom Workflow Activities project on CodePlex to augment the capabilities of SharePoint Designer to add such features as "Start another workflow" which is very useful for compartmentalising your workflow so as to not make it too complicated.

Well I found a wee problem. The "Lookup user info" activity only looks up information from the site and not from the users MOSS profile. So I started another CodePlex project for activities I will be building and I am creating once called "Lookup user profile" on my shiny new MOSS Designer Workflow Activities project.

This one Activity will alleviate my immediate need, but I can see many more in the future...

posted @ Wednesday, May 07, 2008 3:18 PM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ RDdotNET Personal TFS Event Handler Sharepoint Work TFS Sticky Buddy ]