Site Pages vs. Application Pages in SharePoint

The following are some key differences between site pages and application pages:

-Site pages are located in the virtual file system of a site

-Site pages enhance customizations via web part and SharePoint designer

-Site pages are rendered via a template

-Site page is ghosted to that template

-Site page when customized is un-ghosted

-Site page customization can impact performance via memory usage

-Application pages are deployed once per farm

-Application pages are accessed via _layouts virtual directory

-Application pages are compiled via ASP.NET

-Application pages don’t support user customization

-Application pages are added via farm solutions

-Application pages are compiled into a single .dll and loaded for each web application

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Excel Services & Rest Overview

The Excel services is essentially a SOAP web service which can be accessed via: http://sharepointsite/_vti_bin/Excelservices.asmx

Excel forms have fields that are bound to cells in a workbook. The form can then be filled out and populates the spreadsheet.

Common events utilized are:

              Sheet.DataEntered()

              Workbook.DataEntered()

 Workbook.BeforeTyping()

Common method utilized is:

             Workbook.Reload(call back)

REST allows for information to be accessed via OData as long as regions named as tables are in the spreadsheet

REST can be used with published spreadsheets (.xlsx)

Formatted URL example:

http://sharepointsite/_vti_bin/ExcelRest.aspx/NameofExcelFile.xslx/Odata/TableName

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SharePoint Rules of Engagement

SharePoint Rules of Engagement

The following are some good items to follow before a user can get a site created:

1)      A Site Owner(s) needs named

2)      The site owner must take a SharePoint content editor class

3)      Only out of the box functionality can be utilized thus no new bells & whistles are allowed

4)      The site owner has dedicated resource time for updating content as needed

5)      Site owner needs to have bandwidth, knowledge and authority to participate and make decisions on behalf of their team

6)      Site owner will manage the site layout (look and feel), structure, and content

7)      They will need to attend recurring meetings as needed

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SharePoint Feature Receivers

In SharePoint, a feature receiver is used to add event handlers. Feature receivers derive from SPFeatureReceiver.

The following events are useful when activating a feature:

FeatureInstalled – runs after feature installed

FeatureActivated – runs after feature activated

FeatureDeactivating – runs before feature deactivated

FeatureUninstalling – runs before feature uninstalled
 

Video on SharePoint Feature Receivers:

Element Manifest.xml File

In SharePoint the element manifest file gives instructions for when the feature is activated. Common items to do in a feature:

ClientWebPart – create a client webpart

ContentType – create a content type

CustomAction – create new link or menu command

Field – create a site column

ListTemplate – create a custom list type

Workflow – create a workflow template

WorkflowAssociation – associate a workflow template with a list

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Features in SharePoint

A SharePoint feature is a feature definition.

-          Allows for design and implementation

-          Step for creating a SharePoint solution

-          Features can include: links, menu items, list types, web-parts, application pages, content types, site columns, master pages, etc.

-          Features can also include event handlers – which need a feature receiver class to operate

-          Feature.xml is the feature manifest file. It provides metadata information about the feature.
 

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SharePoint Farm Solutions

A farm solution is a special kind of code set used in SharePoint. Some items to be aware of:

-          It is used as a server side code which runs against the SharePoint server side object model.

-          It is only available for an on-premise deployment.

-          It is used for branding solutions, central administration customizations, application pages, custom services and timer jobs, etc.

-          A farm solution is deployed with:

Add-SPSolution   to upload the package

Install-SPSolution to deploy the solution package

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