Installing WSUploadService manually

Update:

Originally posted: Tue, Feb 27, 2007

Reposted: Aug 25, 2007

Some of the links might not work as this version was retrieved from a web archive. If you find any dead links, kindly send an email to share.point@yahoo.com with the URL of this page. Thank you!

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I published a WSUploadService in November last year This web service uploads documents from local file system to SharePoint. The web service comes with an installer and installing the web service on the server is a single-click process but recently, I received a complaint from a couple of users who use non-English SharePoint and the complaint is that installation ends prematurely without installing the service successfully. I am not sure as to why the installation fails on the SharePoint server that is not using English as the main language but here are the files required to complete the installation manually. Installing a web service manually is discussed in the following articles: /ssa/archive/2007/02/23/19968.aspx /ssa/archive/2006/12/19/17093.aspx All you need are the files for the web service. You can download the files from here. 1. Download the files. 2. Unzip the downloaded file to a local folder on your machine (SharePoint server). 3. Copy the following files from the folder (where you unzipped the package) to the _vti_bin directory of the SharePoint server. Files.asmx Filesdisco.aspx Fileswsdl.aspx The _vti_bin virtual directory maps physically to the Local_Drive:Program FilesCommon FilesMicrosoft SharedWeb Server Extensions12ISAPI directory, which contains the default Web service files used in Windows SharePoint Services. To include the Web service in the list of web services on the server 4. In Notepad, open the spsdisco.aspx file. spsdisco.aspx is located in the following directory (on the SharePoint server): Local_Drive:Program FilesCommon FilesMicrosoft Sharedweb server extensions12ISAPI 5. Add the following lines to the end of the file within the discovery element (paste these lines just before the </discovery> element) and save the file: Note: Please paste these lines to the notepad first to avoid copying the illegal characters or copy these lines from the replacement.txt file (included in the zip package). <contractRef ref=<% SPEncode.WriteHtmlEncodeWithQuote(Response, spWeb.Url + "/_vti_bin/Files.asmx?wsdl",'"'); %> docRef=<% SPEncode.WriteHtmlEncodeWithQuote(Response, spWeb.Url + "/_vti_bin/Files.asmx", '"'); %> xmlns="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/disco/scl/" /> <soap address=<% SPEncode.WriteHtmlEncodeWithQuote(Response, spWeb.Url + "/_vti_bin/Files.asmx", '"'); %> xmlns:q1="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/soap/directory/" binding="q1:FilesSoap" xmlns="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/disco/soap/" /> Copying the assembly to the Bin folder 6. Copy the UploadService.dll file to the bin folder of the default SharePoint web application. Following path contains the virtual directories of web applications that you have created on your SharePoint server. Local_Drive:InetpubwwwrootwssVirtualDirectories If your default web application is configured at port 80 then you should copy the techno.dll file to the following folder: Local_Drive:InetpubwwwrootwssVirtualDirectories80 in It is up to you, you may want to install the web service in some other application. For example, if you want to install it in an application configured at port 81, then copy the techno.dll to the following folder: Local_Drive:InetpubwwwrootwssVirtualDirectories81 in Adding web service to the GAC 7. Go to following folder: LocalDrive:Program FilesMicrosoft Visual Studio 8SDKv2.0Bin and run the following command: gacutil.exe -i "<Full file system path to UploadService.DLL>". Hope this will help the users who could not install the WSUploadService with an installer successfully. If someone still has any problem, please feel free to contact me and I will make sure your problem is solved well within time. Good luck -SSA

Searching PHP Sites With SharePoint

Update:

Originally posted: Tue, Feb 27, 2007

Reposted: Aug 25, 2007

Some of the links might not work as this version was retrieved from a web archive. If you find any dead links, kindly send an email to share.point@yahoo.com with the URL of this page. Thank you!

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Searching PHP Sites With SharePoint

In this walk through, I will setup search that will return data from the PHP site configured on an Apache server.

1. Go to "SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration" and select the Shared Service Provider that you have set up for your sites.

2. Click Search settings.

3. Click Content sources and crawl schedules under "Crawl Settings".

4. Click New Content Source.

5. Enter a name for your search. Select Web Sites in the "Content Source Type". Enter a URL in the "Start Addresses". This should be the complete URL including the page name. You can customize the crawl settings according to your own needs. For this demo, I selected the first option (Only crawl within the server...) but if you have a fairly large site, you may want to select the custom settings. You can enter a value for "Limit Page Depth". If unchecked, it will search unlimited pages which may not be a good idea if you intend to keep the server hops limit set to "unlimited". Check "Start full crawl of this content source" check box and click the OK button.

6. Now go back to the Search Service Provider page and click Search Settings. On "Configure Search Settings" page, click Crawl rules.

7. Click New Crawl Rule link.

8. Enter a path to the PHP site in the Path, for example, to include all pages in the site, you can enter http://server/phpbb2/*. This will include all site pages or to include only a single page in the search, you can enter a page path like http://server/phpbb2/index.php. This will search only the index.php page. You can also use this interface to exclude items from the search. In fact, you can create multiple rules to manage your search results. To continue with this walk through, we will select Include all items in this path in "Crawl Configuration". You can also specify the authentication type in "Specify Authentication". Note, this is not the web site login credentials, this is the web site access settings, configured in the HTTP server. Click OK to save the changes. You will have to re-crawl the site because you have just created a new rule and new content must be indexed before it appears in the results.

9. Go back to "Configure Search Settings" page and click File types. Make sure PHP is included in the extensions list. If it's not included, click the New File Type button and enter PHP in the box and click the OK button.

10. To create a new scope for the PHP search, go to "Configure Search Settings" page and click View scopes link in the Scopes section

11. Click New Scope.

12. Enter title and description for the new scope. For this demo, we will select Use the default Search Results Page option in the "Target Results Page" but for real application, I would select the second option, that is, Specify a different page for searching this scope. To see how to create new search page and scopes, see following articles:

Working With SharePoint Search - Part 1

Working With SharePoint Search - Part 2

Click OK to save the changes.

13. New scope will have been added to the scopes page. Click Add rules link to add rules for this new scope.

14. This is the most important page. You can define rules here. For demo, I selected the first option and in the "Web Address" section, I entered the web application URL without the page name. Select Include in the "Behavior" section and click OK to save the settings.

The other option is to select a Property query in "Scope Rule Type".

You can select a property from the drop down box containing available properties and enter a value for that property.

You can also search the content types and include the content type that you just created for your PHP search.

and the most simplest option is to select All Content, that will search all content available to the search.

15. Open a SharePoint site in a new browser and go to the Search page. Enter a keyword to test the PHP search and click the search icon. Here are the results that I got:

Notice that I am using the All Sites search to search the PHP pages. Ideally, I would add a new tab for the PHP search and connect that tab with the scope that I created for the PHP search. To see how to add a new tab and connect it with a new search scope, see following articles:

Working With SharePoint Search - Part 1

Working With SharePoint Search - Part 2

Showing web service data in a Data View web part

Update:

Originally posted: Sat, Feb 24, 2007

Reposted: Aug 26, 2007

Some of the links might not work as this version was retrieved from a web archive. If you find any dead links, kindly send an email to share.point@yahoo.com with the URL of this page. Thank you!

-------------------------

We can use a data view web part to show information retrieved through a web service. All you need is a web service link. Showing web service data in SharePoint sites is very easy if you use SharePoint Designer. I have already published all this information in another post but because this is a totally different topic, I thought I should publish it as a separate post.

For this walk through, I have used a TechnoService web service. You can use any other web service.

1. Open a SharePoint site (Where you want to deploy the web service) in SharePoint designer.

2. Select Manage Data Sources... from  the "Data View" menu. This will open the "Data Source Library" pane on the right side.

3. Expand the "XML Web Services" node and click Connect to a web service.

4. Enter the web service reference in the Service description location. If you installed the web service in the root application then the path will look like this:

http://localhost/_vti_bin/technos.asmx?wsdl

Leave all other options as they are and click the OK button.

5. Select Insert Data View... from the "Data View" menu. This will add a data view web part to the page.

6. Click the link shown in the data view web part. This will open the Data Sources Library if it's not already open.

7. Right click the web service that you added to the "XML Web Services" node in the "Data Sources Library" and click Show Data.

Data returned from your web service will be displayed.

8. Click the Insert Selected Fields as... drop down and select Single Item View.

9. That's it. Save the page and if you want to add some style to the data view web part, right click the data view web part and select Modify > Table AutoFormat. It will show you several options. Select the option of your choice and your data view web part is ready.

You can apply formatting to the output returned by the web service manually as well. Anyway, here is how the data view web part looked in my SharePoint site after applying some styles:

I changed the title and applied auto formatting.

TechnoService: Web service that retrieves blog information from Technorati.com

TechnoService is a web service that gets your site or blog information from Technorati using the Technorati API. This web service was written for MOSS 2007 and WSS 3.0.

This functionality is also available in the form of a web part.

The service returns a string that has following information:

1. Blog/Site Name
2. Author Name
3. Number of Inbound Blogs
4. Number of Inbound Links
5. Blog/Site Rank

I thought I would create an installer for this web service but unfortunately I couldn't find the time. I created an installer for the WSUploadService and it was so easy to install the web service on the server. May be, if I got some time during the next week, I will try to create an installer for this service as well but for now, you will have to deploy it manually.

You may want to read a comprehensive article that shows how to create and deploy web services for MOSS 2007 and WSS 3.0. Click here to read the article.

Installation

1. Download files.

2. Unzip the downloaded file to a local folder on your machine (SharePoint server).

3. Copy the following files from the folder (where you unzipped the package) to the _vti_bin directory of the SharePoint server.

Techos.asmx
Technosdisco.aspx
Technoswsdl.aspx

The _vti_bin virtual directory maps physically to the Local_Drive:Program FilesCommon FilesMicrosoft SharedWeb Server Extensions12ISAPI directory, which contains the default Web service files used in Windows SharePoint Services.

To include the Web service in the list of web services on the server
4. In Notepad, open the spsdisco.aspx file. spsdisco.aspx is located in the following directory (on the SharePoint server):

Local_Drive:Program FilesCommon FilesMicrosoft Sharedweb server extensions12ISAPI

5. Add the following lines to the end of the file within the discovery element (paste these lines just before the </discovery> element) and save the file:

Note: Please paste these lines to the notepad first to avoid copying the illegal characters or copy these lines from the spsdisco.aspx file (compressed as a zip file).

<contractRef ref=<% SPHttpUtility.AddQuote(SPHttpUtility.HtmlEncode(spWeb.Url +
"/_vti_bin/Technos.asmx?wsdl"), Response.Output); %> docRef=<%
SPHttpUtility.AddQuote(SPHttpUtility.HtmlEncode(spWeb.Url + "/_vti_bin/Technos.asmx"),
Response.Output); %> xmlns="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/disco/scl/" />
<soap address=<% SPHttpUtility.AddQuote(SPHttpUtility.HtmlEncode(spWeb.Url +
"/_vti_bin/Technos.asmx"), Response.Output); %>
xmlns:q1="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/soap/directory/" binding="q1:TechnosSoap"
xmlns="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/disco/soap/" />

Copying the assembly to the Bin folder

6. Copy the techno.dll file to the bin folder of the default SharePoint web application. Following path contains the virtual directories of web applications that you have created on your SharePoint server.

Local_Drive:InetpubwwwrootwssVirtualDirectories

If your default web application is configured at port 80 then you should copy the techno.dll file to the following folder:

Local_Drive:InetpubwwwrootwssVirtualDirectories80 in

It is up to you, you may want to install the web service in some other application. For example, if you want to install it in an application configured at port 81, then copy the techno.dll to the following folder:

Local_Drive:InetpubwwwrootwssVirtualDirectories81 in

Adding web service to the GAC

7. Go to following folder:

LocalDrive:Program FilesMicrosoft Visual Studio 8SDKv2.0Bin

and run the following command:

gacutil.exe -i "<Full file system path to Techno.DLL>".

Testing the Service

You can test the service in a windows application. Create a C# Windows application. Add a web reference to the web service that you just installed and use following code to test the service:

private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
try
{
localhost.Technos o = new localhost.Technos();

MessageBox.Show(o.DoTechno(@"/ssa", "ec789b5b3ad9a6d0acd5e4a0d52591ee"));
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
MessageBox.Show(ex.Source + " - " + ex.Message + " - " + ex.InnerException + " - " + ex.StackTrace);
}

}

DoTechno() method takes two arguments: url and key. Url is the url of the site or blog for which you want to retrieve the information and key is the key that is required to use the Technorati API. You can get the key by visiting the Technorati site. The code shown above will return following information:

I deployed this web service on my SharePoint blog site using the SharePoint designer. You can create a web part of your own to consume this web service, format the output by adding some style and display it anywhere in your SharePoint sites. The other method, as I said earlier, is to use the SharePoint designer.

Deploying the web service using SharePoint designer

1. Open a SharePoint site (Where you want to deploy the web service) in SharePoint designer.

2. Select Manage Data Sources... from  the "Data View" menu. This will open the "Data Source Library" pane on the right side.

3. Expand the "XML Web Services" node and click Connect to a web service.

4. Enter the web service reference in the Service description location. If you installed the web service in the root application then the path will look like this:

http://localhost/_vti_bin/technos.asmx?wsdl

Leave all other options as they are and click the OK button.

5. Select Insert Data View... from the "Data View" menu. This will add a data view web part to the page.

6. Click the link shown in the data view web part. This will open the Data Sources Library if it's not already open.

7. Right click the web service that you added to the "XML Web Services" node in the "Data Sources Library" and click Show Data.

Data returned from your web service will be displayed.

8. Click the Insert Selected Fields as... drop down and select Single Item View.

9. That's it. Save the page and if you want to add some style to the data view web part, right click the data view web part and select Modify > Table AutoFormat. It will show you several options. Select the option of your choice and your data view web part is ready.

You can apply formatting to the output returned by the web service manually as well. Anyway, here is how the data view web part looked in my SharePoint site after applying some styles:

I changed the title and applied auto formatting.

--------------------------------------- 

Update:

Originally posted: Tue, Feb 27, 2007

Reposted: Aug 26, 2007

Some of the links might not work as this version was retrieved from a web archive. If you find any dead links, kindly send an email to share.point@yahoo.com with the URL of this page. Thank you!

-------------------------

r.a.d.editor for MOSS - review with screenshots

telerik r.a.d.editor for MOSS

r.a.d.editor is a cross-browser rich text editor. Read more ...

Editor comes with a complete help manual (chm file). Help contains detailed installation and configuration instructions (with screenshots). Installation is very easy. Following screenshot shows how the editor looks when added to the page. Click the arrow and select "Modify Shared Web Part".

Click anywhere in the editor to view it in "edit" mode. Edit mode shows all buttons. I don't know why but some buttons are missing in my editor.

Here is how the image manager looks (Click the image button in the tool bar):

It shows all folders in the SharePoint site and you can browse the folders to select an image. Image preview is available.

You can also upload your own files:

Select a directory in "Browse Files" and then click "Upload Image" and browse your local folders to select a file.

You can also view the HTML:

The button in the center is for HTML viewing and the third button shows the preview. Index HTML shows indented HTML. The toolbar disappears when you work in the HTML mode.

This is how the content is shown in IE:

and this is how it is shown in Mozilla Firefox:

Not very different from what is seen in IE, just some blank space is added when viewed in Firefox! :)

The overall performance is very good. Editor has all the major functionality required for editing content and displaying it in SharePoint.

---------------- 

Update:

Originally posted: Fri, Feb 23, 2007

Reposted: Aug 26, 2007

Some of the links might not work as this version was retrieved from a web archive. If you find any dead links, kindly send an email to share.point@yahoo.com with the URL of this page. Thank you!

-------------------------

TechnoPart Source Code

Click here to download complete application (source code). TechnoPart is a web part that displays your blog or site information, pulled from Technorati.com, in SharePoint sites. Click here to read more about TechnoPart. Development Environment: MOSS 2007, .NET Framework 2.0, VS 2005 Programming Language: C# Download and unzip TechnoPart.zip file on your hard disk. It will create a folder TechnoPart. There will be two folders (projects) inside this TechnoPart folder: 1. Technocab -> This is the setup project. 2. WS-DLWP -> This is the web part project. And there is a WS-DLWP.sln solution file along with these two folders. Double click this solution file to open the project in Visual Studio 2005. GetSiteData() is the function that connects with Technorati through the API. public void GetSiteData () { BuildUrl(); string strURL = apiUrl + "bloginfo?" + queryString; try { XmlTextReader _reader = new XmlTextReader(strURL.ToString()); //Read elements while (_reader.Read()) { if (_reader.NodeType == XmlNodeType.Element && _reader.Name == "rank") { _lblRank.Text =_reader.ReadElementString("rank"); } else if (_reader.NodeType == XmlNodeType.Element && _reader.Name == "inboundblogs") { _lblBlogs.Text = _reader.ReadElementString("inboundblogs"); } else if (_reader.NodeType == XmlNodeType.Element && _reader.Name == "inboundlinks") { _lblLinks.Text = _reader.ReadElementString("inboundlinks"); } else if (_reader.NodeType == XmlNodeType.Element && _reader.Name == "name") { _lblName.Text = _reader.ReadElementString("name"); } else if (_reader.NodeType == XmlNodeType.Element && _reader.Name == "firstname") { _lblAuthor.Text = _reader.ReadElementString("firstname"); } else if (_reader.NodeType == XmlNodeType.Element && _reader.Name == "lastname") { _lblAuthor.Text = _lblAuthor.Text + " " + _reader.ReadElementString("lastname"); } } //Close the XML reader _reader.Close(); } catch (WebException ex) { _lblError.Text = ex.Message; _lblError.CssClass = "error"; } Add a style to the web part: //Create a stylesheet HtmlGenericControl stylesheet = new HtmlGenericControl("style"); stylesheet.InnerHtml = ReplaceTokens(Constants.Styles); this.Controls.Add(stylesheet); Build the interface:  // Build up the table that is our user interface. Table t = new Table(); TableRow trRank = BuildTableRow(); TableRow trBlogs = BuildTableRow(); TableRow trLinks = BuildTableRow(); TableRow trError = BuildTableRow(); TableRow trName = BuildTableRow(); TableRow trAuthor = BuildTableRow(); trName.Cells[0].Text = "Name: "; trName.Cells[1].ForeColor = System.Drawing.Color.Green; trName.Cells[1].Font.Bold = true; trName.Cells[1].Font.Size = FontUnit.Medium; trName.Cells[1].Controls.Add(_lblName); trAuthor.Cells[0].Text = "Author: "; trAuthor.Cells[1].ForeColor = System.Drawing.Color.Green; trAuthor.Cells[1].Font.Bold = true; trAuthor.Cells[1].Font.Size = FontUnit.Medium; trAuthor.Cells[1].Controls.Add(_lblAuthor); trRank.Cells[0].Text = "Rank: "; trRank.Cells[1].ForeColor = System.Drawing.Color.Green; trRank.Cells[1].Font.Bold = true; trRank.Cells[1].Font.Size = FontUnit.Medium; trRank.Cells[1].Controls.Add(_lblRank); trBlogs.Cells[0].Text = "Inbound Blogs: "; trBlogs.Cells[1].ForeColor = System.Drawing.Color.Green; trBlogs.Cells[1].Font.Bold = true; trBlogs.Cells[1].Font.Size = FontUnit.Medium; trBlogs.Cells[1].Controls.Add(_lblBlogs); trLinks.Cells[0].Text = "Inbound Links: "; trLinks.Cells[1].ForeColor = System.Drawing.Color.Green; trLinks.Cells[1].Font.Bold = true; trLinks.Cells[1].Font.Size = FontUnit.Medium; trLinks.Cells[1].Controls.Add(_lblLinks); trError.Cells[0].Text = ""; trError.Cells[1].Controls.Add(_lblError); t.Rows.AddRange(new TableRow[]{ trName, trAuthor, trRank, trBlogs, trLinks, trError }); this.Controls.Add(t); Click here to download complete application (source code).

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Update:

Originally posted: Fri, Feb 23, 2007

Reposted: Aug 26, 2007

Some of the links might not work as this version was retrieved from a web archive. If you find any dead links, kindly send an email to share.point@yahoo.com with the URL of this page. Thank you!

-------------------------

Colligo Reader Review

 Colligo Reader Review

Colligo Reader provides read-only access to SharePoint content offline. Connect to a SharePoint site and download the documents to your machine and access them offline.

Usage is very easy. Download a site to your local machine (See figure below).

One can use the default credentials or you can log in using any other user name.

After downloading the site, you can synchronize the content any time you want.

Another good feature is "Synchronizing Multiple Sites". You can synchronize multiple downloaded sites at a time. It is a one way synchronization, you can only download files. You can not upload files to the SharePoint sites.

By the way, Colligo Reader has exactly the same core functionality that WS-Downloader provides :). WS-Downloader is a free tool to download SharePoint libraries to the hard disk. All you need is a GUI to show the downloaded files and "Synchronize" button to update the downloaded content. It is also available as a web part and it is open source. You can download the source code here.

Biggest advantage of Colligo Reader is that you can download stuff from other lists as well and you can open the downloaded content in Colligo Reader, for example, blog posts downloaded from SharePoint open in Colligo Reader.

-------------------- 

Update:

Originally posted: Fri, Feb 23, 2007

Reposted: Aug 26, 2007

Some of the links might not work as this version was retrieved from a web archive. If you find any dead links, kindly send an email to share.point@yahoo.com with the URL of this page. Thank you!

-------------------------