Fear and Loathing

Hmmm, wonder how I missed a blog from yesterday? Must have been one of those days.

Anywho, the Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 release is available to MSDN subscribers now on the download site. It includes refreshes of SQL Server 2005 and the various Team versions of VS2005 (developer, test, architect). It also includes the Suite version which includes all three as well as the foundation (the server portion of VS2005). The Suite version is available so you can see what each flavours have capability wise and let you decide which one is right for you. Regular MSDN subscribers will only get to choose one when the product is released so here's your chance to give each one a test drive.

(image from greg hughes - dot - net)

What's odd is that I checked to see if it was available yesterday around 3PM which it wasn't. I check later and started downloading it off the MSDN site this morning around 1AM. By the time I headed off to work this morning at 8AM it hadn't finished downloading so I decided to just start a new download at work (besides, it's a 3.5gb image and I really didn't want to burn a DVD) however checking now it's not available to me (under the same account). Very odd to see how the trickle works so I must be hitting one of the machines on the web cluster that it hasn't made it's way down yet.

Update: 10AM and the files are there. Now another 15 hours of downloading and a few days of blowing up virtual images and we'll be all set.

Anyways, check it out if you have an MSDN account. I think they'll be making DVDs available for a shipping fee like they did Beta 1 but I'm sure you'll be able to pick one up at any Microsoft Event like TechEd 2005 coming up in June.

Okay, got a fun one today. I was asked by someone who had a list if the description column could be collapsed and expanded. Currently if you have a list with a description field and put the description field on a view, you're left with a large verbose scrolling piece of ugliness. After a few vanilla latte's and some dead brain cells I came up with what I thought was a pretty good solution (without having to resort to writing a custom Web Part). Here's the solution.

1. First create the list or decide what list you're using. It can be any list but the reason we're doing this is because we want to show a description field or something that would have a lengthy bit of text.
2. Create a new Web Part page and put the list on it with the view you want to use.
3. Now load up the page in FrontPage 2003
4. Right click on the list and choose "Convert to XSLT..." to convert it into a DataView
5. Somewhere down in the page source for the DataView there's the XSLT code to display the Description field you want this to work on. In my example I have a field called Description so you'll see something like this:
   
   

   <!--Description-->

   <TD Class="{$IDAEAF1I}">

   <xsl:value-of disable-output-escaping="yes" select="ddwrt:AutoNewLine(string(@Description))"/>

   </TD>

   
   
6. Now we want to change the output to show our collapsed or expanded text. This is done by surrounding the XSL tag with some regular HTML and a reference to some JavaScript (yes, horrors of horrors) that we'll add to the page later. So change your XSLT code to your liking but it'll be something like this:
   
   

   <!--Description-->

   <TD Class="{$IDAEAF1I}" width="200px" bgcolor="#ffff00">

       <a title="Show/Hide" href="javascript: void(0);" onclick="toggle(this);">

           <div>

               <xsl:value-of disable-output-escaping="yes" select="ddwrt:AutoNewLine(string(@Description))"/>

           </div>

       </a>

   </TD>

   
   In the example above, I've done a few things: Fixed the width of the TD surrounding the Description field to 200 pixels; Given it a yellow background so it stands out; and added the reference to our JavaScript function called "toggle" in the OnClick event of the new link surrounding our XSL output.
   
7. Now we'll add a simple piece of JavaScript (yeah, you knew this was coming) to the page through a Content Editor Web Part. Add it to the page then in the Source View add this JavaScript:
   
   

   <script language="javascript">

   var isCollapsed = false;

   var fullText = "";

   function trimText(text, size)

   {

       var tmp = "";

       tmp = text.substring(0, size);

       tmp += "...";

       return tmp;

   }

   function toggle(link)

   {

       if (isCollapsed == true)

       {

           link.innerHTML = fullText;

           isCollapsed = false;

       }

       else

       {

           fullText = link.innerHTML;

           link.innerHTML = trimText(fullText, 60);

           isCollapsed = true;

       }

   }

   </script>

   
   This will get a copy of the Description field and save it (for restoring later) and trim the text down by the amount you specify (I've put in 60 here but adjust as you see fit).

That's it. Here's what the DataView Web Part looks expanded:

And here it is collapsed after clicking on the Description:

Simple and easy. Hope that helps.

Michael Greth over in Germany has put together a neat podcast on SharePoint, the first one in English. Mike has been doing SharePoint podcasting for awhile now (he's on his 10th one) but this is the first one he's put together in English (with his uber-cool German accent). You can check out Mikes post here or download the MP3 file directly here.

If you don't know what podcasting is, think of it as audio blogging (overly simplified but its the concept). There are also video podcasts but for the most part they're usually audio (MP3, etc.). The term sort of grew out of Apple's iPod but has gone on way beyond that. It's a pretty slick concept and very interesting. In the IT world (and say SharePoint) other than news I'm still trying to figure out how it could be interesting. I used to listen to an internet broadcast audio show (via BluesNews) on Quake and the various FPS happenings out there (can't remember the name of the show) and it was always fun. Having a weekly SharePoint show is a concept too but then there's podcasting so you could just put MP3s up for people to listen to. I'm still just trying to figure out how I could make SharePoint exciting through audio because without a whiteboard and some code samples, I'm a pretty boring guy. There's a pretty cool article on making your own podcasts (as well as how to get them) here so check it out (and don't blame me if you become addicted).

Patrick Tisseghem jumps in for a short bit to talk about the SharePoint Advisor Conference in June as well. I was planning on going to the conference but for some reason nobody got back to me quick enough to get a presentation ready (or I didn't get it submitted in time or some forces of nature prevented me to connect to the city that never sleeps) so again I won't make it (that's 3 conferences I've missed so far this year but for sure I'll be at PDC and the MVP Summit).

Anyways, I'm quite supportive of this and will probably try doing a little of it myself (doing a text blog as well as a podcast or something). Guess my short radio DJ job so many years ago might still pay off. Watch for something silly in this space (more silly than my normal rants) coming soon to a MP3 player near you.

Forgive me bloggers, for I have sinned. It's been a week since my last blog. Okay, so no SharePoint or DDD babble today but wanted to tell you about an upcoming event on SBS (Small Business Server) here in Cowtown.

From Susan Bradleys blog:

The Canadian SBS MVPs invite resellers and consultants who want to understand solutions for small business customers to join together for an evening of presentations and discussion. The local chapters of SBS and Windows professional groups across Canada are joining together with sponsorship by Microsoft to bring a group of Microsoft Small Business Server “Most Valuable Professionals” to meet with you. Each of the SBS MVPs appearing on this tour is an experienced resellers and a community leader. You can expect the same no-nonsense expertise on SBS and related technology applications you read in the newsgroups to be brought to this discussion.

You will have a unique opportunity to speak informally or ask technical questions from some well respected MVPs from across North America, including our special guest, Jeff Middleton SBS MVP (US). For this event series (except Toronto), Jeff will be explaining how his Swing Migration method for SBS and Windows server upgrades ends working on weekends or extensive business shutdown.

Here are the event details:

Thursday, April 21, 2005 6:00 PM - 10:00 PM (Mountain Time)
Welcome Time: 5:45 PM
Language: English

Location: Altius Centr - 2nd Floor Boardroom
500 4th Ave SW
2nd Floor
Calgary, Alberta

Here's the link to the MSDN Event page where you can register. Hope to see you there.

One thing that has bugged me to no end (yes, I'm easily irked) is the concept of Save vs. Update. People seem to always follow the CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) mentality even when dealing with objects. Take a class following the Repository pattern:

So fairly straight forward. If I have a DomainObject that I have to make changes to then I call Repository.Update(). If I want to add a new item to the repository then I call Repository.Save() but that means that somewhere outside my Repository I'm determining if I need to update or save? Isn't it the same. A variation on the Repository could be calling the Save method Add instead but the end result is the same. I don't believe that any object outside of the Repository should have to determine whether or not it's a new item or updating an existing one. Maybe what I really want to do is this:

Does this make sense or does this just fly in the face of a Repository as well as falling into a Transaction script? Would like to see some concrete examples of using a Repository as I've only seen a couple and what we've been doing may or may not be on track.

Stumbled across a new utility that popped up on my SharePoint radar (Sharedar?). Here's the blurb from the author:

Documents Mover is a tool that moves the files between sharepoint document libraries and keeping the version history and the directory structure of the files.

Simple enough. I gave it a whirl and it works pretty well. Good error handling and such. It does suffer from a few problems that the author might want to consider on enhancing (and these are just my nitpicks):

• The tool only allows you to move files from one document library to another in the same site/area. Personally I would want something that moved from one site to another.
• The tool is another one that has to be run on the server. When are we going to be able to write tools that work anywhere? (yes, you could use my SharePoint Wrappers but it has limited functionality)

Okay, so the second point is more of my rant about how to build tools for SharePoint rather than what the author did. Anyways, nice handy tool if you need to move documents around in a site and retain the history. Check out the tool and download here.

My MVP anniversary is coming up (April 12) and like a bad penny, yes, I'm back in the clan (for at least another year).

Normally Microsoft sends out a congratulations message then a small package with the MVP details, NDAs, etc. Again like last year, my MVP package came before the email telling me that I would be getting the package. Guess the MVP gals are a little dyslexic. No matter. I'm quite happy to be be recognized again and will continue to be as witty and annoying as I was last year.

Here's to another year of SharePoint evangelizing, postings, blogging, rants, raves, tools, and all around good times (although my frustration levels continue to rise so I might just scratch out the SharePoint Portal Server text on my award and change it to WebSphere).

Thanks to Trent on suggesting to use a partial class for implementing the auto-code part of a class from yesterday. I thought the idea of partial classes was neat but the only thing I could think of was where you had a large class so you split it up into logical components for multiple people to work on at the same time. Personally I wouldn't let my classes get that big but you never know on a large system. However it seems perfectly suited for this type of separation. Okay, maybe so I'm not the first to explore things to do with partial classes when you're bored. Cut me some slack for being a year late to catch up on things and check out:

Making Sense of Partial Classes
Create Elegant Code with Anonymous Methods, Iterators, and Partial Classes
Understanding and Using Partial Classes

Here's a sample class split up into two files. UserCG.cs and User.cs. One is for interacting with the Class Designer and the code it generates. The other is for hand coding your Domain logic.

/// <summary>

/// This part of the class has the code generated fields and properties.

/// </summary>

public partial class User

{

    public User()

    {

    }

    private string name;

    public string Name

    {

        get

        {

            return name;

        }

        set

        {

            name = value;

        }

    }

    private string emailAddress;

    public string EmailAddress

    {

        get

        {

            return emailAddress;

        }

        set

        {

            emailAddress = value;

        }

    }

}