SharePoint 2010: List templates missing

Recently I have deployed BDC model to a SharePoint site using visual studio. After that, I wanted to create a external list based on the deployed external content type.


But I have noticed there is no external list template under lists category on list creation page.Then I ended up activating the feature "Team Collaboration Lists Feature" under web features.

Team collaboration feature is for making standard lists, such as document libraries and issues, available. so if you all face any such issue just make sure Team collaboration feature is activated on your site.

SharePoint WebPart Life Cycle

It's important to know everything about webpart events and the sequence to avoid development mistakes.

Initial Load:

Events fired when a web part is initially loaded.

OnInit
OnLoad
EnsureChildControls
CreateChildControls
EnsureChildControls
CreateControlCollection
EnsureChildControls (many)
OnPreRender
EnsureChildControls (many)
SaveViewState
RenderControl
Render
RenderControl
RenderContents
RenderChildren
OnUnload
Dispose

Post-back:

OnInit
LoadViewState
EnsureChildControls
CreateChildControls
EnsureChildControls
CreateControlCollection
EnsureChildControls (many)
OnLoad
btnUpdate_Click
OnBubbleEvent
EnsureChildControls
OnPreRender
EnsureChildControls (many)
SaveViewState
RenderControl
Render
RenderControl
RenderContents
RenderChildren
OnUnload
Dispose



Like Asp.Net life cycle there is also Web Part life cycle. So it is better to understand the web part life cycle.


OnInit: This method handles initialization of the control.

OnLoad: This event handles the Load event. This is also used for initialize the control but is not intended for loading data or other processing functionality.

CreateChildControls: This is the most popular event in web part life cycle. This creates any child controls. So if you are adding any control to display then you have to write in this method.

EnsureChildControls: This method ensures that CreateChildControls has executed. EnsureChildControls method must be called to prevent null reference exceptions.

SaveViewState: View state of the web part saved.

OnPreRender: This method handles or initiates tasks such as data loading that must complete before the control can render.

Page.PreRenderComplete: The page fires the PreRenderComplete event after all controls have completed their OnPreRender methods.

Render: This method is used to render everything.

RenderContents: Renders the contents of the control only, inside of the outer tags and style properties.

OnUnload: Performs the final cleanup.

SharePoint: SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges method

This is used to execute the specified method with Full Control rights even if the logged in user does not otherwise have Full Control.

SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(delegate()
{
    // Your code here...
});


Note:

1.The RunWithElevatedPrivileges method can not be used within a sandbox solution

2.The item that is actioned with elevated privileges will be executed under the web applications App pool account in IIS, which means that the modified user of the document/list item will most likely display as SYSTEM ACCOUNT.

3.If you did not want to execute the code as the App Pool account for any reason, you could alternatively use a specific user account to execute the code under by implementing the SPUserToken class.

SharePoint: CAML Query not working based on WHERE clause

When we write the CAML query in SharePoint development and if we put WHERE clause in query it still returns all records.


For example look at the below query, it works fine in U2U builder but returns all records if we use the same in code.


SPQuery query = new SPQuery();
query.Query = "<Query><Where></Where></Query>"

Here is the Fix:

Remove the "<Query>" Tag and rewrite it

SPQuery query = new SPQuery();
query.Query = "<Where></Where>"

SharePoint 2010: Site Collection backup and restore using PowerShell

$FileLocation= "C:\testSite.cmp"

Backup:

Backup-SPSite -Identity $SiteCollectionUrl -Path $FileLocation -Force

Restore:

Restore-SPSite -Identity $SiteCollectionUrl -Path $FileLocation -Force -Confirm:$false

SharePoint 2010: Create site collection using PowerShell script

This article is about how to create a site collection in SharePoint using PowerShell script

$WebApplicationURL="http://testsite"
$SiteCollectionName="Test Site"
$SiteCollectionURL="http://testsite/sites/test"
$SiteCollectionTemplate="STS#0"
$SiteCollectionLanguage="1033"
$SiteCollectionOwner="domain\loginname"
$ContentDatabaseName="TestDB"


1. Create a site collection with a separate content database

#Create a new content database
New-SPContentDatabase -Name $ContentDatabaseName -WebApplication $WebApplicationURL

# Create site collection using new content database
New-SPSite -URL $SiteCollectionURL -OwnerAlias $SiteCollectionOwner -Language $SiteCollectionLanguage -Template $SiteCollectionTemplate -Name $SiteCollectionName -ContentDatabase $ContentDatabaseName  

2. Create a site collection with the default content database

New-SPSite -URL $SiteCollectionURL -OwnerAlias $SiteCollectionOwner -Language $SiteCollectionLanguage -Template $SiteCollectionTemplate -Name $SiteCollectionName

Thats it !!!

SharePoint 2010: Managed MetaData Service backup and restore using PowerShell script

Backup:

$mmsApplication = Get-SPServiceApplication | ? {$_.DiplayName –eq $MMSApplicationName}
$mmsProxy = Get-SPServiceApplicationProxy | ? {$_.DisplayName –eq $MMSProxyName}
  
Export-SPMetadataWebServicePartitionData -Identity $mmsApplication.Id –ServiceProxy $mmsProxy –Path $FileLocation


Restore:

$mmsApplication = Get-SPServiceApplication | where {($_.DisplayName) –eq $MMSApplicationName}
$mmsProxy = Get-SPServiceApplicationProxy | ? {$_.DisplayName –eq $MMSProxyName}  
 

Import-SPMetadataWebServicePartitionData -Identity $mmsApplication.Id –ServiceProxy $mmsProxy –Path $FileLocation –OverwriteExisting

Done!!!

Set Default value to Person or Group field in SharePoint 2010 using JavaScript and JQuery

This article is about how to set default value to person or group field when new list form opens using JavsScript and JQuery.

It includes the following

1. Get the members of a SharePoint group using SPServices JQuery library
2. Set the value to Person or Group field using JavaScript

<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="/Style%20Library/JS/jquery-1.8.3.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="/Style%20Library/JS/jquery.SPServices-0.7.2.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">

    $(document).ready(function() {
      var strHTMLGroupUsers = "";
        $().SPServices({        
        operation: "GetUserCollectionFromGroup",
        groupName: "Approvers",
        async: false,
        completefunc: function(xData, Status) {
        $(xData.responseXML).find("User").each(function() {
          strHTMLGroupUsers += $(this).attr("Name")+";";
        });
      }
        });
        //get the people pickers input div
        var pp = getPickerInputElement("Approvers");
        //set it to the current user if we've found it
        if(pp != null)
        pp.innerHTML = strHTMLGroupUsers;
        $("img[title='Check Names']").parent().click();

    });

function getPickerInputElement(fieldsInternalName)
{
    var result  = "";
    var divs = document.getElementsByTagName("DIV");
    for(var i=0; i < divs.length ; i++)
     {
       if(divs[i].id=="WebPartWPQ3")
        {
          var tds = divs[i].getElementsByTagName("TD");
          for(var j=0; j < tds.length; j++)
           {
             var cellHTML = tds[j].innerHTML;
             
             if(cellHTML.indexOf('FieldInternalName="' + fieldsInternalName + '"') >= 0)
             {
               var innerDivs = tds[j].getElementsByTagName("DIV");
               for(var k=0; k < innerDivs.length; k++)
               {
                 if(innerDivs[k].id.indexOf("UserField_upLevelDiv") > 0)
                 {
                   result = innerDivs[k];
                   break;
                 }}}
             }
           }
        }
   return result;
}



</script>
 

Permission Issues when executing the PowerShell scripts

When we face any permission related issues while executing the PowerShell scripts, we need to check the following to fix it.

1. Check Window PowerShell execution policy
   Get-Execution Policy

2. If the return value is "Restricted" and then set the value as "RemoteSigned"
   Set-Execution Policy "RemoteSigned"

3. In addition to the above, also need to ensure that UAC (User Access Control) is disabled.

That's it.

SharePoint: Edit the WSP file contents and rebuild it.

This topic is about how to edit the contents/files of WSP file and rebuild it.

In a recent time, I come to a situation where I need to extract the WSP file to edit the files like ONET.xml, feature.xml, etc. Exacting contents of WSP and modifying them is fine but rebuilding the WSP is not straight forward and its not possible by just renaming it.

After spending some time, I ended up with the following approach to rebuild the WSP successfully.

Step 1 : Rename WSP file to CAB and extract all the files

1. Rename the WSP file to CAB
2. Extract the CAB file using 7 Zip or any other tool

Step 2: Modify the necessary files.

Step 3: Use DDFGenerator from CodePlex

Now, we need to generate a DDF file using a CodePlex component DDFGenerator based on our WSP contents. It is an executable file.

1. Download the DDFGenerator and place the file in any of the physical drive folder
2. Open the DDFGenerator folder path directory in Command prompt
3. Enter the following command with the path to our WSP file contents folder

C:\[DDFGeneratorFileFolder]>  DDFGenerator "C:/path/WSPSolutionFolder"
4. The above command will create a DDF file with the name "solution.ddf"
5. DDF Generator doesn't put an entry in DDF for WSP file name. So it is required to edit the ddf file to put the following entry similar to other entries in the DDF file (mostly as a second entry) create WSP file

.Set CabinetNameTemplate=<SolutionName>.WSP

6. Check if file paths in DDF are having spaces in between. If yes, enclose file path using double quotes. This is required to avoid errors while executing the next step.

Ex:  .Set DestinationDir = "1TeamSiteListInstances\Files\Lists\Team Discussion\"
        "1TeamSiteListInstances\Files\Lists\Team Discussion\Schema.xml"

Step 4: Run MakeCab.exe to create CAB and WSP files

Now we need to run MakeCab command as below to generate WSP file.
C:\[DDFFileFolder]> "MakeCab.exe /F <solution.ddf> "

After executing the above command, the WSP file will be created. (A folder with a random number as name will be created and WSP file will be placed in that folder).

Thats it !!!