to extending sp2010's functionality kevin guyer @grimnir kevinguyer.com

THE CHEAPSKATE’S GUIDETo Extending SP2010's Functionality Kevin Guyer

@grimnir

kevinguyer.com

WHO IS THIS GUY AND IS HE A CHEAPSKATE?

I’m Kevin, and maybe a little.

Programming to pay the bills since the mid-90s

Fought the browser wars on the Internet Explorer

team with MSFT years ago. Now a dirty, traitorous

Chrome user.

Primarily a developer now for Cherry Bekaert LLP,

½ of the entire development and SharePoint teams.

THE SETUP

- What this is all about

- How I wound up with this useful information

WHAT IS THIS ALL ABOUT? REALLY?

Only one means to an end…

The convergence of 4 things makes this discussion possible:

SP - WS

• SOAP - Lists.asmx• http://<site>/_vti_bin/Lists.asmx

jQuery

• A cross-browser JavaScript library designed to simplify the client-side scripting of HTML

SPServices

• Operation : GetListItems• Get data, filtered, loop through results

Code

Market

• A market for quality Web UI components

WHAT IS THIS ALL ABOUT? REALLY? My Goal Today: Provide you with access to12 controls to enhance

SharePoint that you can use safely Monday morning.

Cheap or free

Very little fiddling needed (just a text editor and a few minutes) no code

skills

Low-risk additions to your farm (in stability, upgrade and speed)

Realizing some advantages of the 2013 app model in 2010.

Central administration? We don’t need no Central administration!

Most are free, the most expensive rates only 4 coffees ($12).

The coding is (ideally) done, you just change a few settings and roll.

Aimed at non-developers.

WHAT LED ME (US) TO GO THIS DIRECTION?Our Goals

Solve some communication needs in SP that out of the box solutions did not do so well

Easier model for development environment

Leverage great work in web UI innovations hitting the market

Non-invasive additions to SharePoint farm

SPEED! Synchronous loading is for chumps…

Avoid This: By Turning This: Into This:

HOW ALL OF THESE WORK

Site Collection Root Set scripts for your SP site

Controlling apps code by centralizing by site collection and site.

THE CONTROLS

Stop stalling, show us the goods.

1. CALENDAR VIEWER

Goals:

Better visualization of calendar events (with cancel-callout)

Economical use of space

Easier way to add event to Outlook

Support for advanced filtering (CAML)

Cost:

Easy to customize yourself…

2. FOOBAR ALERTS WIDGETCost:

Goals: Effective but non-invasive

alert

Easy for staff to use

Surgical placement

Support for multiple alerts

Option for ‘alert types’

Something for our ‘system portals’

FooBar

This control is awesome. For $6 it is a killer deal.

3. TABS! Cost:

Goals:

Create a ‘portal’ feel

More relevant data in one place

Fewer pages, same information

Expose page relevant info

Easy Tabs have been around for a while now

4. TABS! NOW METRO-ESQUE!

Cost:

Goals:

Keep up with new UI shift

Support icons with tabs

Keep best parts of Easy Tabs

Add ability to open library

Make cooler looking pages

Warning. This is < 1 week old and will require more fiddling than any of the others here… Not quite plug & play yet.

5. PUB. PAGE ROTATORCost:

Goals:

Draw attention to published news items, further the goal of less email. Promote communications dream!

Help get newsletters into SP

Support the need to use rollup images

Encourage submissions by promoting author names.

Support our ‘expiration date’, so, you know, allow for CAML filtering…

Royal Slider

We provide a library of thumbnails to choose from that are pre-sized.

6. COOL FAQ Cost:

Goals:

An easy way for editors to maintain an FAQ list

Better visualization experience

Support rich formatting (links)

CAML support for surgical filtering

Bring sexy back to FAQ

This one is crying out for tweaking…

7. TABBED CONTAINERCost:

Goals:

Easy to maintain blocks of content

Source to be a simple custom list

Flexibility of how to view results and tab orientation

Support for rich content

Allow for CAML support (not in there yet though)

Zozo Tabs

An earlier version I blogged has been pulled. Use this one.

8. A BETTER ‘I WANT TO…’Cost:

Goals:

Replace what MSFT left out of 2010

Make it useful for more situations

More customization options

Fewer pesky mouse clicks

Configurable:

Let’s look.

9. IMAGE BANNER ROTATORCost:

Goals:

Throw out that $#@&! $1200 [3rd party] control (savings=$1190 or 99.17%)

Better method for diving big communications/initiatives.

Better review process

Schedule items on and off

Capture in list for gallery* option

Easy to use, no more HTML

CAML support with possible targeting elsewhere

* The ‘Gallery’ is not out for download (yet).

jQuery Banner Rotator

10. GOOGLE RSS (STATIC)Cost:

Goals:

Allow for external feeds coming from HTTP

Better visualization options than SP’s out of the box

Asynch loading (speed) over out of the box reader.

Or, D.I.Y.: Larry and Sergey make it easy!

11. GOOGLE RSS (SCROLLING)

Cost:

Goals:

Same as the static version, except, well, more dynamic

Create movement to make page content look more kinetic and fresh

Allow departments / locations to show relevant feeds

Offices can have their own for local news…You can make your own easily online too.

12. SNOW. SERIOUSLY… Cost:

Goals:

Pretty much to make it snow on a page.

Ease the suffering of this disappointing winter season.

Make my lunch break more interesting.

JSized Snow Effect

I plan to add a feature allowing you to set a zip code in this.

Making this a web part made me WAY more popular with editors than it should have.

13. HIDDEN BONUS (LOCAL TRAFFIC)

This has been a huge hit.

Drives real traffic (sorry) to office sites where information is posted.

Free from Google, you just set the Zoom level and GPS.

Fully interactive map in your SP pages.

Doing this in 2013 was a demo earlier today, drop this into 2010 (or worse) on Monday. In minutes.

HOW TO GET, USE

Pre-packaged for quick deployment.

Customize if you want, or don’t, it’s all good.

DOWNLOADING THE CODE

Step 1: Go to kevinguyer.com -> Blog

Step 2: Look for SPSaturday posting (or link on right)

Step 3: Download the zip you want

THE SOURCE

Click icon to add picture

Codecanyon.net

Many of these are touch-ready, you know, just in case.

Balance carries to the other sites

Consider other controls, such as the ($5) MegaMenu.

CAML?

‘The Query schema of Collaborative Application Markup Language (CAML) is used in various ways within the context of Microsoft SharePoint Foundation to define queries against list data. ’

Officially:

Instead of writing this:<Query><Where><And><Leq><FieldRef Name="Show_x0020_Date" /><Value IncludeTimeValue="TRUE" Type="DateTime"><Today /></Value></Leq><And><Geq><FieldRef Name="Hide_x0020_Date" /><Value IncludeTimeValue="TRUE" Type="DateTime"><Today /></Value></Geq><Eq><FieldRef Name="Published" /><Value Type="Boolean">1</Value></Eq></And></And></Where><OrderBy><FieldRef Name="Show_x0020_Date" Ascending="False" /></OrderBy></Query>

THE CAML BUILDER

Click icon to add picture

This free tool takes the pain out of making CAML queries.

• Great for SPServices

• Great for parties and weddings.

Connect to your site, choose a list.

Create filter, ordering

It generates CAML query syntax for you

Link to this is with all the other stuff on the blog.

QUESTIONS?

Kevinguyer.com

kevinguyer@gmail.com

@grimnir

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