SharePoint 2010 - Dynamic JavaScript problems with Inline Editing

SharePoint 2010 allows inline editing of your HTML on Publishing pages, which is a nice boost to productivity. However, there are some quirks with this feature that can really trip you up if you aren't ready for them.

Here's a scenario I ran into this week. I have a simple Publishing Page with a Content Editor Web Part on it. Inside this web part, there is an HTML element that I target with some jQuery to display tooltips. The JavaScript here is really quite simple and just dynamically adds a relative positioned div to the page above the target element.

The code for this is tested and works fine outside of SharePoint. But when you edit a page, you'll find an interesting side-effect. Specially, when editing the page, the JavaScript that adds the dynamic elements to the DOM still runs. When the page is saved, even if you didn't even edit that particular Content Editor Web Part, the updated DOM elements get saved - including the tooltip changes!

I have tested this with a lot of scenarios, but it's pretty consistent across any SharePoint components that provide inline editing.

So, how do you allow JavaScript to dynamically update content on publishing pages? This is really going to depend on the nature of your content. Here are a few different scenarios I've employed in my site:

• Extract the dynamic content and make it a web part.
  
  This works well if your content doesn't change that often and has few properties. A great example here would be having a web part that uses swfobject.js to load a flash file rather than placing the script call inside a Content Editor
• Skip the JavaScript calls that update your page when in edit or design mode.
  
  
  This works really well for scenarios like my tooltip. You can do this either in JavaScript or C#, depending on how your page works.
  

Here is an example of checking your page mode with JavaScript, using jQuery:

if ($('#MSOSPWebPartManager_DisplayModeName').val() == 'Design' || $('#MSOSPWebPartManager_DisplayModeName').val() == 'Edit') {
        alert('Don't do anything');
    } else {
        alert('Safe to run JavaScript');
    }

SP2010 Dispose Patterns and Broken WebParts

Today I was building a web part for SharePoint 2010 and ran across an interesting problem. The web part was working fine for authenticated users, but was failing for anonymous users. My first thought was that Lockdown might have been the problem, but it turned out after looking through SharePoint log files that I was running into a dispose problem:

Trying to use an SPWeb object that has been closed or disposed and is no longer valid.

It's an interesting error message, considering that I was disposing of my object, but only after I'd finished with it. I believe the problem wasn't that my code was using a disposed SPWeb object, but rather that I had closed an SPWeb that SharePoint was relying upon.

Here was the original code, which, according to Best Practices, was closing objects that don't need to be closed:

using (SPSite site = SPContext.Current.Site)
{
    using (SPWeb web = site.RootWeb)
    {
        SPList myList = web.Lists["myList"];
        //code here to find a list item
    }
}

And the fix was as simple as changing it to this:

SPSite site = SPContext.Current.Site;
SPWeb web = site.RootWeb;
SPList myList = web.Lists["myList"];

I'm not so sure this would have broken a SharePont 2007 site, but it's a good reminder to make sure you are following Best Practices for disposing objects!

SP 2010 - Web Parts and Embedded Resources Not Working

I ran into a problem recently trying to use Embedded Resources with SharePoint 2010 web parts. I was using code I had directly used in non SharePoint ASP.Net server controls, which if you aren't familiar with, is pretty simple. I'll briefly describe how you'd use an embedded resource, then describe my problem and how I fixed it.

First, you need to just add your resource, which in my case was a stylesheet, to your project. Then, using the properties pane, set the Build Action to Embedded Resource. Once you've done that, you'll need to edit the AssemblyInfo.cs file within your project and enable the embedded resource.

[assembly: WebResource("MyAssembly.styles.MyStyleSheet.css", "text/css")]

Now you have a resource that will be embedded in your DLL. The path to that resource is specified in the WebResourceAttribute above. I usually compile and open my DLL in reflector at this point to confirm that the path I've picked is correct. Once it is, you can include your stylesheet like this:

string styleSheetUrl = Page.ClientScript.GetWebResourceUrl(this.GetType(), "MyAssembly.styles.MyStyleSheet.css");
LiteralControl styleSheetLink = new LiteralControl(string.Format("LINK SYNTAX HERE - BLOGGER WONT LET ME EMBED THE HTML", styleSheetUrl));
                Page.Header.Controls.Add(styleSheetLink);

In theory, that should work, right? It works in server controls, and it's worked for me in older web parts for MOSS 2007. But, when I built my 2010 web part, it wasn't working.

I viewed source on my page and could see that the embedded resource was added to the markup. But when I tried to load that URL myself, I got an error, implying my resource wasn't there at all! I checked and rechecked my path inside the DLL. Everything was right.

But then I noticed something different about 2010 web parts. They use a LoadControl mechanism. I was accessing my embedded resources, using the above code, directly inside the webpart.ascx.cs, not the webpart.cs file. On a hunch, I moved the code into the webpart.cs file. Success!

This got me curious, so I looked at the source for the generated HTML and noticed that the generated URL for the embedded resource had changed. Apparently, the path is based somewhat on that first parameter to GetWebResourceUrl(), which is a type. Tinkering a little more, I learned that I could actually leverage the embedded resource from the webpart.ascx.cs by making a minor adjustment.

string styleSheetUrl = Page.ClientScript.GetWebResourceUrl(this.Parent.GetType(), "MyAssembly.styles.MyStyleSheet.css");

Notice that I'm not passing the type of the parent, which for our webpart.ascx.cs, is the wrapper class that calls LoadControl.

SP 2010 - LINQ versus CAML Joins and the Nuances of Projected Fields

When working with relational lists in SharePoint 2010, you have the option to use LINQ to SharePoint or CAML to join those lists to pull data out. While LINQ is easier to use and will leverage CAML under the covers, it is not always capable of performing queries that CAML can directly.

For instance. Let's say you have a list, called Parent. This list has a single valued lookup column, PrimaryChild, that refers to the Children list. LINQ can very easily perform a query with a where clause based on PrimaryChild:

var parents = from p in context.Parents
       where p.PrimaryChild.Title == "My First Child"
       select p;

However, if you were to create a second lookup column, OtherChildren, that allowed multiple values, LINQ would run into difficulties because the lookup is now represented as an EntitySet. With a single valued lookup field, you would instead have just a strongly typed object, with direct access to the fields within that list item.

var parents = from p in context.Parents
       where p.OtherChildren.Any(c => c.Title == "My Other Child")
       select p;

Running this query will throw an exception that semi-efficient queries are not allowed. If you recall, this is because LINQ leverages Two-Stage Queries. So, you can continue with LINQ and perform the query in two stages, or you can change the query to use CAML.

Here is the same query in CAML, but this time, the query will not cause an exception.

using (SPSite site = new SPSite(SPContext.Current.Site))
{
 SPWeb web = site.RootWeb;
 if (web != null)
 {
  SPList list = web.Lists["Parents"];
  if (list != null)
  {
   SPQuery query = new SPQuery();
   StringBuilder sbQuery = new StringBuilder();
   sbQuery.Append("");
   sbQuery.Append("");
   sbQuery.Append("My Other Child");
   sbQuery.Append("");
   query.Query = sbQuery.ToString();

   StringBuilder sbJoins = new StringBuilder();
   sbJoins.Append("");
   sbJoins.Append("");
   sbJoins.Append("");
   sbJoins.Append("");
   sbJoins.Append(" ");
   sbJoins.Append(" ");
   query.Joins = sbJoins.ToString();

   StringBuilder sbProj = new StringBuilder();
   sbProj.Append("");
   query.ProjectedFields = sbProj.ToString();

   StringBuilder sbView = new StringBuilder();
   sbView.Append("");
   sbView.Append("");
   query.ViewFields = sbView.ToString();

   if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(query.Query))
   {
    SPListItemCollection matches = list.GetItems(query);
    foreach (SPListItem match in matches)
    {
     Console.WriteLine(match["Title"]);

     string rawNickname = (string)match["OtherChildrenNickname"];
     if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(rawNickname))
     {
      SPFieldLookupValue nickname = new SPFieldLookupValue(rawNickname);
      Console.WriteLine(nickname.LookupValue);
     }
    }
   }
  }
 }
}

You'll notice that in the example above I'm performing a CAML join and also leveraging Projected Fields. Here are some guidelines/rules to keep in mind:

• The CAML has several attributes that ask for the list name or list alias. This is NOT the actual name of the list. Rather, it is the internal name of the lookup field within your list. So in our example, the list was named Children, and the field was OtherChildren. We used OtherChildren to build the join and projected fields.
• Projected Fields used in your query do not have to match up to the Projected Fields you have specified in the Child list. Those are a UI convenience and not used by your CAML.
• If you want to display a value from the Child list, you need to make sure you have a Projected Field in your CAML. Only those fields which are projected are eligible to be View fields.
• All Projected Fields will become SPFieldLookupValue objects (or perhaps SPFieldLookupValueCollection, though I haven't yet had one of my lists do this). Those lookups will always contain the ID of the child list item, but the value of the selected field within that child item.
  

SP 2010 - Phonetic Search Only for People Scope?

I have a custom scope I've created that I am querying against with the FullTextSqlQuery object. Recently I was asked if we could allow a phonetic search. With all the hype around this new feature in SharePoint 2010, I thought it would be very easy.

I looked, and sure enough, there is an EnablePhonetic property right on FullTextSqlQuery. I set it to true, ran my search and got back...nothing. I figured maybe it didn't like my query, which had a LIKES keyword. That wasn't it. I tried looking on the web and it seems all the mentions of phonetic search seem to be closer to press releases than coding snippets.

Finally I found this nugget on MSDN:

For FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint, this property is only applicable for People Search.

Well, I'm not using FAST, but I am using a custom search scope. It would appear that might be the limiting factor here. While I am searching for people, they are stored in a custom list, since they are not members of my SharePoint site. Therefore I was using a custom scope to get to them.

It would seem phonetic search is not available yet to customize in this way.

SP 2010 - Configure and Use a TaxonomyWebTaggingControl

If you are using the Managed Metadata Service and developing a custom web part, you may be interested in using that nice term picker that you see when you create a new list item that contains a Managed Metadata Column.

First, let's cover the bare minimum code you'll need to get the term picker to show up in your web part. First you'll want to add a reference to Microsoft.SharePoint.Taxonomy to your project. Then you'll need a Register directive in your ascx, like this:

<%@ Register Tagprefix="Taxonomy" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.Taxonomy" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint.Taxonomy, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %> 

Now you can add the picker to your web part just like any other control.

You'll notice that I didn't set any properties on the TaxonomyWebTaggingControl. Well there are three properties you'll need to set, but we'll do it programatically. Those properties are:

• SSPList - This property parses your string and builds a List to set the SspId property
• GroupId - A Guid
• TermSetList - This property parses your string and builds a List to set the TermSetId property

Now, you can set these properties declaratively if you wish, but it won't be a very portable web part, as the Guids aren't part of the import CSV format for the Managed Metadata Service, nor do any of the Taxonomy Create methods allow setting of Ids. Because of this, it's best to have your web part set these properties on the TaxonomyWebTaggingControl programatically. If you just want to see how you would go about setting these properties declaratively, scroll to the bottom of this post, as I've included it for reference.

In order to make your web part portable, you're going to need to query the Managed Metadata Service and get these values yourself. Moreover, you're going to have to do it on every load of your web part since these properties are not stored anywhere between page loads.

Note: If you only set these properties on page load, this will work as long as there are no scenarios where you need to redraw the control again, such as having a custom server validator. In that instance, your picker would work before the postback, but the look-ahead feature would be broken after the postback.

In order to make loading our properties a little easier, here is an extension method for TaxonomyWebTaggingControl that allows you to quickly set the properties. The path part of this was inspired by PHolpar. Also, remember that extension methods must be defined in static classes.

public static bool Configure(this TaxonomyWebTaggingControl twtc, string termSetPath)
{
 bool configured = false;

 TaxonomySession session = new TaxonomySession(SPContext.Current.Site);

 string[] parts = termSetPath.Split(new char[] { '/' }, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);
 if (parts.Length > 0)
 {
  TermStore termStore = GetTermStore(session, parts[0]);
  if (termStore != null && parts.Length > 1)
  {
   twtc.SSPList = termStore.Id.ToString();

   Group group = GetGroup(termStore, parts[1]);
   if (group != null && parts.Length > 2)
   {
    twtc.GroupId = group.Id;

    TermSet termSet = GetTermSet(group, parts[2]);
    if (termSet != null)
    {
     twtc.TermSetList = termSet.Id.ToString();
     configured = true;
    }
   }
  }
 }

 return configured;
}

In order to load MyTermSet, which lives within MyGroup, which resides within MyTermStore, you will use this extension method similar to the following:

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
 bool configured = twtcSpecialty.Configure("MyTermStore/MyGroup/MyTermSet");
 if (!configured)
 {
  throw new ApplicationException("Unable to find target TermSet");
 }
}

The result looks just like the picker from other parts of SharePoint, with functioning look-ahead.

As promised, here is the markup if you want to configure your TaxonomyWebTaggingControl declaratively.

    0d8382cf-2d63-4421-a37a-b9386d0be5c8
    7adeced1-b73e-47dc-b695-82bb28e2f48f

SP 2010 - Randomize the order of your search results from FullTextSqlQuery

I had a need recently to perform a query with FullTextSqlQuery but to limit the results and then display them in a random order. The FullTextSqlQuery class does support a RowLimit property, though this would not work in my case because I didn't want to get the exact same answers everytime.

Remembering that LINQ to SharePoint often requires Two-Stage Queries, I decided to employ a similar approach here and pull back the data I could then perform more culling server side.

DataTable searchResults = PerformSearch(query, queryRowLimit);
if (searchResults != null && searchResults.Rows.Count > 0)
{
 int limit = 10; //todo: this should be a webpart property
 var results = (from row in searchResults.AsEnumerable()
       orderby Guid.NewGuid()
       select row).Take(limit);
}

The PerformSearch method is just a standard setup for using FullTextSqlQuery to return a DataTable. Note that I limit my resultset as much as I can with the FullTextSqlQuery.QueryText property to try to avoid hitting a throttling exception.

With the limited results returned, I then want to randomize the order of the records. LINQ allows us to do this the same way we would in SQL, and I just order by a random Guid. Once the results are randomized, we just grab the number of records we need with the Take() extension method.

SP 2010 - Using LINQ to SharePoint to Find List Items with Specific Managed Metadata Terms

Now that I can effectively use LINQ to access my Managed Metadata Columns, I'd like to only pull back those columns that contain values I need. For single valued Managed Metadata Columns, this is very straightforward:

var examples = from d in context.Examples
      where d.Specialty is TaxonomyFieldValue && ((TaxonomyFieldValue)d.Specialty).Label == "Value One"
               select d;

For multi valued Managed Metadata Columns, my first attempt was a bust. I tried the following expression, but received a compiler error, "An expression tree may not contain an anonymous method expression".

var examples = from d in context.Examples
               where ((TaxonomyFieldValueCollection)d.Specialty).Exists(delegate(TaxonomyFieldValue tfv){
             return tfv.Label == "Value One";
               }) != null
      select d;

The hint here from the compiler is that I can do this as long as I don't use an anonymous method. So I created a method to test for the term I wanted and changed my expression to call this method.

private static bool ContainsMetadataTerm(object o, string termLabel)
{
 bool exists = false;

 if (o is TaxonomyFieldValueCollection)
 {
  TaxonomyFieldValueCollection tfvc = (TaxonomyFieldValueCollection)o;
  exists = tfvc.Exists(delegate(TaxonomyFieldValue tfv)
  {
   return tfv.Label == termLabel;
  });
 }

 return exists;
}

var examples = from d in context.Examples
      where d.Specialty is TaxonomyFieldValueCollection && ContainsMetadataTerm(d.Specialty, "Value One")
      select d;

Now I can query specifically for list items that use specific terms. Keep in mind that this filtering does not happen until after the list items have been pulled down, so you may want to do some additional filtering to narrow the results so you don't run afoul of the new Throttling feature of SharePoint 2010.

Here was the CAML generated by the last LINQ query, which shows that the additional filtering for Term was done after the records were pulled.

  
    
      
        
        0x0100
      
    
  
  
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    2147483647

SP 2010 - Managed Metadata Columns ARE Supported in LINQ to SharePoint

I apparently spoke too soon! You can get to Managed Metadata Columns in LINQ to SharePoint with SPMetal, just not directly off the command line. You need to supply a parameters option.

First you'll want to create your parameters file. I've found two different ways to get the Managed Metadata Column to show up. The first attempt I used this XML in my parameter file.

I saved this file to metaloptions.xml and then ran the following command.

SPMetal.exe /web:http://mysite /code:SPMySite.cs /namespace:SPMySite /parameters:metaloptions.xml

The output of that command will include a warning, but it seems to have no impact on LINQ working. I think it's purely informational and not relevant to what we are working with.

Warning: All content types for list Form Templates were excluded.

Now when I query with LINQ I see the hidden fields that power my Managed Metadata Column, which look familiar.

On my typed list item object, I now had three new fields:

• Specialty_0 - String
• TaxonomyCatchAllColumnCatchAllData - IList
• TaxonomyCatchAllColumnId - IList

Those fields hold values that look like this, respectively. Unfortunately, this isn't terribly useful.

• Value One|e203149a-6852-46fb-9d8e-9c21d350068d
• z4KDDWMtIUSjerk4bQvlyA==|0c7eej633Ee2lYK7KOL0jw==|mhQD4lJo+0adjpwh01AGjQ==
• 4

I tried another pass on my parameters file. This time I used the following XML.

On my typed list item object, I now have the one extra Column that I specified in my parameters file. LINQ will create a property for this field that is just an object. However, if you access this property, you can cast it to a TaxonomyFieldValueCollection or TaxonomyFieldValue, as appropriate. This provides exactly the information we wanted:

using (SPMySiteDataContext context = new SPMySiteDataContext("http://mysite"))
{
 var examples = from d in context.examples
      select d;

 foreach (var example in examples)
 {
  if (example.Specialty is TaxonomyFieldValueCollection)
  {
   foreach (TaxonomyFieldValue tfv in (TaxonomyFieldValueCollection)example.Specialty)
   {
    Console.WriteLine(tfv.Label);
   }
  }
  else if (example.Specialty is TaxonomyFieldValue)
  {
   TaxonomyFieldValue tfv = (TaxonomyFieldValue)example.Specialty;
   Console.WriteLine(tfv.Label);
  }
 }
}

SP 2010 - Managed Metadata Columns Not Supported in LINQ to SharePoint?

Today I am playing with LINQ to SharePoint. I created a simple list and added a Managed Metadata Column to my list. I then used SPMetal to generate a DataContext class. My Managed Metadata Column is nowhere to be found. I looked through options for SPMetal to see if maybe it just needed a switch to capture those Managed Metadata Columns, but I don't see one.

So it appears that Managed Metadata Columns have no support in LINQ to SharePoint. They are also not eligible to be Projected Fields. It would seem Microsoft didn't really flesh out all the ways the new Managed Metadata Service might be used.

Update: I figured out how to do this.

SP 2010 - Creating ListItems with Managed Metadata Columns

Today I needed to create some list items programatically for a list that contained Managed Metadata columns. Since Managed Metadata columns are specialized SPLookups under the covers, it's a little more difficult to set your field value than just assigning the text value of your Term.

Here is a method that will set the value for you, and an example of how to use it. Note that in my example the Managed Metadata column is multi-value, even though the example method is only set up to add a single Term. If you have a single-value Managed Metadata column, you can leave out the TaxonomyFieldValueCollection.

class Program
{
 static void Main(string[] args)
 {
  using (SPSite site = new SPSite("http://mysite"))
  {
   SPList pl = site.RootWeb.Lists["MyList"];
   if (pl != null)
   {
    TaxonomySession session = new TaxonomySession(site);
    TermStore termStore = session.TermStores["Managed Metadata Service"];
    Group group = termStore.Groups["MyGroup"];
    TermSet termSet = group.TermSets["MyTermSet"];

    SPListItem li = pl.AddItem();
    li[SPBuiltInFieldId.Title] = "my new item";

    Term term = termSet.Terms["MyTerm"];
    UpdateListItemTermColumn(li, "MyMetadataField", term);

    li.Update();
   }
  }
 }

 static void UpdateListItemTermColumn(SPListItem li, string fieldName, Term term)
 {
  SPField termField = li.Fields[fieldName];

  TaxonomyFieldValueCollection tfvc = new TaxonomyFieldValueCollection(termField);
  tfvc.Add( new TaxonomyFieldValue(termField));
  li[fieldName] = tfvc;

  TaxonomyField taxonomyField = termField as TaxonomyField;
  if (taxonomyField != null)
  {
   taxonomyField.SetFieldValue(li, term);
  }
 }
}

SP 2010 - Adding Metadata Columns to Content Type Programatically

I have a feature that provisions a few Site Columns and a Content Type that will use those Site Columns. This was easy enough to achieve with some XML packaged into a Feature. However, my Content Type also needed to have a Managed Metadata column, which doesn't work with XML.

The reasons you can't do a Managed Metadata Site Column through XML are the same reasons Lookup columns don't work - the GUIDs that refer to the underlying objects change between environments, so you can't hardcode them into the XML. If you wanted to write the XML by hand to do this and already knew the GUIDs, it would of course work, but that's more effort than it's worth for such a limited solution.

My first thought when trying this was that I knew when I had exported my Content Type that I created through the GUI I found out that my Managed Metadata Site Column as provisioned ended up being several different SPFields under the covers. So in my first pass, I tried to create all of these fields. That ended up breaking my site because I was unable to remove all the SPFields/SPContentTypes after the fact!

Well, it turns out the answer isn't so hard after you try all the wrong ways first. I ended up having my Feature that provisions the base Site Columns and Content Type via XML. I then created a Feature Receiver that creates the Managed Metadata Site Column and then adds it to the Content Type. Here is the code:

public enum Operation
{
 Add,
 Remove
}

[Guid("367cb65f-cd86-440a-8f39-1bfa2a9ab1f6")]
public class MyContentTypeEventReceiver : SPFeatureReceiver
{
 /*
  * On feature activation, we are going to provision a site column that points to the Managed MetaData Service used by this site.
  * We have to do this because managed metadata columns work like lookups do under the covers and are keyed to the store they were
  * created with.
  * 
  * After creating the site column, we will then update our content type to include the new site column.
  */
 public override void FeatureActivated(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties)
 {
  ProvisionMetadataSiteColumn("Managed Metadata Service", "MyGroup", "MyTermSet", "MyField", "MyFieldGroup", true, true);
  UpdateContentType("MyContentType", "MyField", Operation.Add);
 }

 public override void FeatureDeactivating(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties)
 {
  UpdateContentType("MyContentType", "MyField", Operation.Remove);
  RemoveSiteColumn("MyField");
 }

 #region Helper Methods

 private bool ProvisionMetadataSiteColumn(string termStoreName, string termGroupName, string termSetName, string fieldName, string fieldGroupName, bool isRequired, bool allowMultipleValues)
 {
  bool added = false;
  using(SPSite site = SPContext.Current.Site)
  {
   if(GetSiteColumn(site.RootWeb, fieldName) == null)
   {
    //this can time out which would cause it to be returned with no term stores; might be a fluke or very situational
    TaxonomySession session = new TaxonomySession(site);

    TermStore termStore = GetTermStore(session, termStoreName);
    if (termStore != null)
    {
     Group group = GetTermGroup(termStore, termGroupName);
     if (group != null)
     {
      TermSet termSet = GetTermSet(group, termSetName);
      if (termSet != null)
      {
       string fieldType = (allowMultipleValues ? "TaxonomyFieldTypeMulti" : "TaxonomyFieldType");

       TaxonomyField field = (TaxonomyField)site.RootWeb.Fields.CreateNewField(fieldType, fieldName);
       field.SspId = termStore.Id;
       field.TermSetId = termSet.Id;
       field.AllowMultipleValues = allowMultipleValues;
       field.Group = fieldGroupName;
       field.Required = isRequired;

       site.RootWeb.Fields.Add(field);
       site.RootWeb.Update();

       added = true;
      }
     }
    }
   }
  }

  return added;
 }

 private void UpdateContentType(string contentTypeName, string fieldName, Operation operation)
 {
  using (SPSite site = SPContext.Current.Site)
  {
   SPContentType contentType = GetContentType(site.RootWeb, contentTypeName);
   if (contentType != null)
   {
    SPField field = GetSiteColumn(site.RootWeb, fieldName);
    if (field != null)
    {
     bool hasFieldLink = HasFieldLink(contentType, field.Id);

     if (operation == Operation.Add && !hasFieldLink)
     {
      SPFieldLink link = new SPFieldLink(field);
      contentType.FieldLinks.Add(link);
      contentType.Update();
     }
     else if (operation == Operation.Remove && hasFieldLink)
     {
      contentType.FieldLinks.Delete(field.Id);
      contentType.Update();
     }
    }
   }
  }
 }

 private bool RemoveSiteColumn(string fieldName)
 {
  bool deleted = false;

  using(SPSite site = SPContext.Current.Site)
  {
   SPField field = GetSiteColumn(site.RootWeb, fieldName);
   if (field != null)
   {
    try
    {
     field.Delete();
     deleted = true;
    }
    catch { }
   }
  }

  return deleted;
 }

 #endregion

 #region Helper Methods to allow NULL checks with SharePoint

 private SPField GetSiteColumn(SPWeb web, Guid fieldId)
 {
  SPField field = null;

  try
  {
   field = web.Fields[fieldId];
  }
  catch { }

  return field;
 }

 private SPField GetSiteColumn(SPWeb web, string fieldName)
 {
  SPField field = null;

  try
  {
   field = web.Fields[fieldName];
  }
  catch { }

  return field;
 }

 private SPContentType GetContentType(SPWeb web, string contentTypeName)
 {
  SPContentType contentType = null;

  try
  {
   contentType = web.ContentTypes[contentTypeName];
  }
  catch { }

  return contentType;
 }

 private bool HasFieldLink(SPContentType contentType, Guid fieldId)
 {
  bool found = false;
  foreach (SPFieldLink fl in contentType.FieldLinks)
  {
   if (fl.Id == fieldId)
   {
    found = true;
    break;
   }
  }

  return found;
 }

 private TermStore GetTermStore(TaxonomySession session, string termStoreName)
 {
  TermStore termStore = null;

  try
  {
   termStore = session.TermStores[termStoreName];
  }
  catch { }

  return termStore;
 }

 private Group GetTermGroup(TermStore termStore, string termGroupName)
 {
  Group group = null;

  try
  {
   group = termStore.Groups[termGroupName];
  }
  catch { }

  return group;
 }

 private TermSet GetTermSet(Group group, string termSetName)
 {
  TermSet termSet = null;

  try
  {
   termSet = group.TermSets[termSetName];
  }
  catch { }

  return termSet;
 }

 #endregion
}

TaxonomySession doesn't show my Term Stores

I ran into an issue yesterday that I haven't completely figured out just yet. Specifically, I had a feature receiver that was querying a Term Store to create a Site Column. Unfortunately, it kept failing. When I attached a debugger to the process it eventually showed me that TaxonomySession.TermStores was empty.

After playing with it a bit, I finally got it to work by opening up Central Administration and going to the Managed Metadata Service page to "warm" up the Taxonomy service. I'm not sure if it was a web service time out issue or not, but that seems likely. I believe that the worker process powering the Taxonomy web service was taking too long to spin up on my resource starved laptop, which was causing TaxonomySession to give up on loading any TermStores.

Unfortunately, ULS shut itself down for some reason during this period, and I was unable to find any logging event that would give me more insight.

If I find out anymore, I'll post about it.

SharePoint 2010 Content Type Features

Today I decided to create a Content Type for SharePoint 2010. As far as I can tell, while there has been a lot of effort in building in taxonomy improvements, such as tagging, the Content Type is still alive and well and works the same.

The easiest way to create a Content Type feature in MOSS 2007 was to create it in the UI first and then extract it. Normally I use a tool for that, but decided this time I'd give it a shot and write code to do it myself. In the process I could see if the API had changed in this area. It appears to work the same, so experience in MOSS 2007 will apply directly.

Here is the code if you want to try it yourself. The last line will be the contents of your Elements.xml file.

class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            GetContentType();
        }

        private static void GetContentType()
        {
            //we'd pull from SPContext.Current.Site, so wouldn't need to do this
            using (SPSite site = new SPSite("http://sharepoint"))
            {
                string ctype = "0x0100420995776E88234093C72FC85E59E4A8"; //from querystring. you could also loop through the RootWeb.ContentTypes collection and find by name
                SPContentTypeId id = new SPContentTypeId(ctype);

                bool includeSiteColumns = true;

                XmlDocument xdElements = new XmlDocument();
                XmlElement xeElementRoot = xdElements.CreateElement("Elements");

                XmlAttribute xaNamespace = xdElements.CreateAttribute("xmlns");
                xaNamespace.Value = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/";
                xeElementRoot.Attributes.Append(xaNamespace);

                xdElements.AppendChild(xeElementRoot);

                SPWeb web = site.RootWeb;
                SPContentType ctMatch = web.ContentTypes[id];
                if (ctMatch != null)
                {
                    XmlDocument xdSchema = new XmlDocument();
                    xdSchema.LoadXml(ctMatch.SchemaXml);

                    //move the field nodes - otherwise we won't pass the validation of an Elements node for our feature
                    //these will become Site Columns
                    XmlNode xnFields = xdSchema.SelectSingleNode("//Fields");
                    if (xnFields != null)
                    {
                        xnFields.ParentNode.RemoveChild(xnFields);

                        if (includeSiteColumns)
                        {
                            XmlDocumentFragment xdfFields = xdElements.CreateDocumentFragment();
                            xdfFields.InnerXml = xnFields.InnerXml;
                            xeElementRoot.AppendChild(xdfFields);
                        }
                    }

                    XmlDocumentFragment xdfContentType = xdElements.CreateDocumentFragment();
                    xdfContentType.InnerXml = xdSchema.FirstChild.OuterXml;

                    //inject FeildRefs to refer to the fields above
                    XmlNode xnFieldRefs = xdElements.CreateElement("FieldRefs");

                    StringBuilder sbFieldRefs = new StringBuilder();
                    foreach (SPFieldLink fr in ctMatch.FieldLinks)
                    {
                        sbFieldRefs.Append(fr.SchemaXml);
                    }

                    XmlDocumentFragment xdfFieldReferences = xdElements.CreateDocumentFragment();
                    xdfFieldReferences.InnerXml = sbFieldRefs.ToString();
                    xnFieldRefs.AppendChild(xdfFieldReferences);

                    xdfContentType.FirstChild.AppendChild(xnFieldRefs);

                    xeElementRoot.AppendChild(xdfContentType);

                    string s = xeElementRoot.OuterXml;
                }
            }
        }
    }

SharePoint 2010 Create New Managed Service Popup Windows

While exploring SharePoint I often read through Microsoft's code. With 2010, they added a lot of popup windows, and it's not always obvious which page is actually building the content of those popup windows.

In this particular case, I wanted to know what the page was when I was trying to create a new Service Application. If you click the New button in the Ribbon, you'll get a nice flyout menu with a bunch of services to choose from. But where do they go?

Here is a snippet that will get that answer for you:

class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            ShortDisplay();
        }

        internal class HeaderColumn
        {
            public string Title { get; set; }
            public int Width { get; set; }
        }

        static HeaderColumn[] headers = new HeaderColumn[] { 
             new HeaderColumn{ Title="Application Type", Width=35 }, 
             new HeaderColumn{ Title="Create Application Link URL", Width=45 }
        };

        static string headerString = string.Empty;
        static string lineFormatString = string.Empty;

        static List administrationServices = new List();

        private static void FormatHeader()
        {
            for (int i = 0; i < headers.Length; i++)
            {
                headerString += string.Format("{0,-" + headers[i].Width.ToString() + "}", headers[i].Title);
                lineFormatString += "{" + i.ToString() + ",-" + headers[i].Width.ToString() + "}";
            }
        }

        private static void FindAdministrationServices()
        {
            foreach (SPService service in SPFarm.Local.Services)
            {
                IServiceAdministration administration = service as IServiceAdministration;
                if (administration != null)
                {
                    if (!administrationServices.Contains(service))
                    {
                        administrationServices.Add(service);
                    }
                }
            }
        }

        private static List GetAdministrationLinks(IServiceAdministration administration)
        {
            List administrationLinks = new List();

            foreach (Type type in administration.GetApplicationTypes())
            {
                SPPersistedTypeDescription applicationTypeDescription = administration.GetApplicationTypeDescription(type);
                if (applicationTypeDescription != null)
                {
                    SPAdministrationLink createApplicationLink = administration.GetCreateApplicationLink(type);
                    if ((createApplicationLink != null) && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(createApplicationLink.Url))
                    {
                        administrationLinks.Add(createApplicationLink);
                    }
                }
            }

            return administrationLinks;
        }

        public static void ShortDisplay()
        {
            FormatHeader();
            FindAdministrationServices();
            
            Console.WriteLine(headerString);
            foreach (SPService service in administrationServices)
            {
                string displayName = (string.IsNullOrEmpty(service.DisplayName) ? service.TypeName : service.DisplayName);
                //not very reusable, but good enough for now
                if (displayName.Length > 35)
                {
                    int lastDot = displayName.LastIndexOf('.');
                    if (lastDot >= 0 && displayName.Length > lastDot)
                    {
                        displayName = displayName.Substring(lastDot + 1, displayName.Length - lastDot - 1);
                    }
                }

                IServiceAdministration administration = service as IServiceAdministration;
                List administrationLinks = GetAdministrationLinks(administration);
                foreach(SPAdministrationLink createApplicationLink in administrationLinks)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine(lineFormatString, displayName, createApplicationLink.Url);
                }
            }
        }
    }

And here is the output:

SharePoint 2010 AppPool DropDownList

While playing around trying to figure out how SharePoint 2010 populates that wonderful drop down list of AppPools, as seen in the screeshot just below, I noticed that all the classes it uses are marked internal sealed.

Since I wanted to learn more about how this control worked, I decided to use reflector to poke around. Here is the small amount of info I discovered of the items in the list:

And here is the code that produces that output.

public class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            DiscoverAppPools();
        }

        public class AppPoolInfo
        {
            public string Name { get; set; }
            public string IISObjectName { get; set; }
            public IdentityType IdentityType { get; set; }
            public string Username { get; set; }
        }

        //Queries the farm to find the list of AppPools to display in an IisWebServiceApplicationPoolSection control
        public static void DiscoverAppPools()
        {
            List discoveredAppPools = new List();

            Assembly assembly = Assembly.Load("Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c");
            Type typeSPIisWebServiceSettings = assembly.GetType("Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPIisWebServiceSettings");

            /*
             * There are a few other interesting properties that we aren't pulling, but might be handy to peek at.
             * oSettings.IisSiteName
             * oSettings.HttpPort
             * oSettings.HttpsPort
             * oAppPool.Id
             * oAppPool.Status
             * oAppPool.ProcessAccount.SecurityIdentifier.Value
             */
            object oSettings = SPFarm.Local.GetObject("SharePoint Web Services", SPFarm.Local.Id, typeSPIisWebServiceSettings);
            if (oSettings != null)
            {
                Type typeSPIisWebServiceApplicationPoolCollection = assembly.GetType("Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPIisWebServiceApplicationPoolCollection");
                ConstructorInfo constructor = typeSPIisWebServiceApplicationPoolCollection.GetConstructor(
                    BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance, null, new Type[] { typeSPIisWebServiceSettings }, null);

                object oAppPools = null;                
                if (constructor != null)
                {
                    oAppPools = constructor.Invoke(new object[] {oSettings});
                    if (oAppPools != null)
                    {
                        Type typeSPIisWebServiceApplicationPool = assembly.GetType("Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPIisWebServiceApplicationPool");

                        IEnumerable appPools = (IEnumerable)oAppPools;
                        if (appPools != null)
                        {
                            IEnumerator enumerator = appPools.GetEnumerator();
                            while (enumerator.MoveNext())
                            {
                                AppPoolInfo api = new AppPoolInfo();

                                object oAppPool = enumerator.Current;
                                PropertyInfo piName = typeSPIisWebServiceApplicationPool.GetProperty("Name");
                                if (piName != null)
                                {
                                    api.Name = (string)piName.GetValue(oAppPool, null);
                                }

                                PropertyInfo piIisObjectName = typeSPIisWebServiceApplicationPool.GetProperty("IisObjectName", BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.NonPublic);
                                if (piIisObjectName != null)
                                {
                                    api.IISObjectName = (string)piIisObjectName.GetValue(oAppPool, null);
                                }

                                //not terribly useful; really only gives a SID. Maybe good if you wanted their credentials as a SecureString
                                //PropertyInfo piProcessAccount = typeSPIisWebServiceApplicationPool.GetProperty("ProcessAccount");
                                //if (piProcessAccount != null)
                                //{
                                //    object o = piProcessAccount.GetValue(oAppPool, null);
                                //}

                                PropertyInfo piCurrentIdentityType = typeSPIisWebServiceApplicationPool.GetProperty("CurrentIdentityType", BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.NonPublic);
                                if (piCurrentIdentityType != null)
                                {
                                    api.IdentityType = (IdentityType)piCurrentIdentityType.GetValue(oAppPool, null);
                                }

                                PropertyInfo piManagedAccount = typeSPIisWebServiceApplicationPool.GetProperty("ManagedAccount", BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.NonPublic);
                                if (piManagedAccount != null)
                                {
                                    object oManagedAccount = piManagedAccount.GetValue(oAppPool, null);
                                    if (oManagedAccount != null)
                                    {
                                        PropertyInfo piUsername = oManagedAccount.GetType().GetProperty("Username");
                                        if (piUsername != null)
                                        {
                                            api.Username = (string)piUsername.GetValue(oManagedAccount, null);
                                        }
                                    }
                                }

                                discoveredAppPools.Add(api);
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }

            Console.WriteLine("SharePoint knows about the following AppPools");
            foreach(AppPoolInfo api in discoveredAppPools)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("\nAppPool: {0}", api.Name);
                Console.WriteLine("  IIS Object Name: {0}", api.IISObjectName);
                Console.WriteLine("  Identity Type: {0}", api.IdentityType);
                Console.WriteLine("  Username: {0}", api.Username );
            }
        }
    }

Random SharePoint 2010 Coding Discoveries - AppPool DropDownList

While tinkering with my Managed Metadata Service issues this week, I noticed that the drop down list of Application Pools in SharePoint does not always match the Application Pools listed in IIS. I decided to dig and find out how SharePoint populates that list.
I started by opening the page that creates the Managed Metadata Service, ManageMetadataService.aspx, located at C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\ADMIN, since I knew it had the list of AppPools on it already. I found the control in there, IisWebServiceApplicationPoolSection, which lives in IisWebServiceApplicationPoolSection.ascx.

That class for that control exists in the C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\ISAPI\Microsoft.SharePoint.dll assembly. Inside it I found the method that was doing the work, PopulateApplicationPoolDropDownList, and gave it a look. Here are the important lines:

SPIisWebServiceSettings settings = SPIisWebServiceSettings.Default;
if (null != settings) {
 foreach (SPIisWebServiceApplicationPool pool in settings.ApplicationPools)  {
 }
}

The key there is that the property, SPIisWebServiceSettings.Default, will ultimately return this:

return (SPIisWebServiceSettings) farm.GetObject("SharePoint Web Services", farm.Id, typeof(SPIisWebServiceSettings));

That method, as you might guess, simply returns an SPPersistedObject, which is just a serialized object stored as an XML blob in the configuration database. In other words, the list is not being pulled directly from IIS, hence why SharePoint thinks I have an AppPool that IIS does not!

A little more investigating has led me to this little gem, which I will have to look into further in the future, as it may help me fill in some of the missing pieces of how the AppPools eventually make their way into IIS:

SPIisWebServiceApplicationPoolProvisioningJobDefinition.Execute(), which calls SPIisWebServiceApplicationPool.ProvisionLocal()

I am done exploring for now, but at least I know I'm not crazy - just because SharePoint thinks there is an AppPool doesn't mean there actually is one! My current theory is that the job to create my AppPool didn't run or errored out.