Comparison of SharePoint Online Features and SharePoint On-Premise

If you don't want to bother about the creation & maintenance of your SharePoint infrastructure but still wish to leverage its benefits, SharePoint Online is a great choice. SharePoint Online is a component of Office 365 and is hosted in the cloud.

While the benefits of SharePoint Online are attractive, you have to be aware of how it is different from a SharePoint On-Premise deployment. Here are a bunch of articles that talk about the differences -

• MSDN: Comparison of SharePoint Online Features and SharePoint Server Features
• Technet: SharePoint feature availability across Office 365 plans
• Sand-boxed Solution Restrictions in SharePoint Online

work in progress...

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Overview of SharePoint 2013

Notes from the Pluralsight course SharePoint 2013 Developer Ramp-Up - Part 1:

• Significant changes in SharePoint 2013:
• New development model - SharePoint Apps - ideal for Office 365, App Marketplace
• Minimal Download Strategy (MDS) UX
• Web Apps support claim based authentication by default
• Architectural changes:
• Workflow
• Search
• Web content management
• Deprecated capabilities
• SharePoint Designer's Design view
• Meeting & Document Worksapces
• BI: Chart Web Part, Status Indicators & Status Lists
• An app can contain a solution. A solution can contain one or more features
• A *.app file is a .zip file containing a package of files. Contains a manifest file.
• Server-side code is completely inaccessible inside an App
• Sharepoint 2013 deployment options:
• On-premises (behind firewall)
• Hosted aka Office 365/Sharepoint Online
• Hybrid - mix of On-premises & Hosted
• SharePoint 2013 won’t work on a client OS; needs Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1(x64 only) or Windows Server 2012(x64 only)
• You have to explicitly load SharePoint Windows PowerShell snap-in from console or script
• Sandboxed solutions retained for backward-compatibility; will work on on-premise and hosted modes
• SharePoint-hosted apps will work on on-premise and hosted modes
• Provider-hosted apps will work on on-premise and hosted modes
• Farm solutions will only work in an on-premises deployment
• Autohosted apps will only work in a hosted deployment
• SharePoint Client-side Object Model, introduced in SharePoint 2010, has significantly expanded coverage
• JavaScript, unlike other languages, can be used for all deployment types - farm solution, sandbox solution, App (SP-hosted), App (Provider/auto-hosted)
• What you are building dicates the type of local development environment you need
• SharePoint-hosted apps can be built with Office 365 Napa app. 
• Napa is a slimmed down web-ified version of VS
• It supports client-side code only and provides a markup view for ASPX pages. Code-behind is not allowed
• All Office 365 developer sites have an unlimited license to the "Napa" app. It is available in the online SharePoint Store for free
• Napa can open the app in a local instance of Visual Studio 2012 to take it to the next level.
• Solutions, Provider-hosted/auto-hosted apps can be built with Visual Studio 2012 + Office + SharePoint tools

Also see: Free Pluralsight videos

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HOW TO download multiple documents in a SharePoint 2010 Library at once

To download a document from a Library in SharePoint 2010, you can right click on it, select Send To & choose Download a Copy -

But what if there were several documents and you wanted them all at once without going through the hassle of downloading each one of them individually?

Jump to the Library tab & click on the Open with Explorer option -

This will open up your Windows Explorer with the folder containing the documents you require within them.

Thanks Lakshmikanth for the tip.

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Book Review: SharePoint 2010 Plain & Simple

SharePoint 2010 Plain & Simple is a "SEE-HOW guide to SharePoint" and a good book for IT Pros or developers who are absolute beginners to SharePoint 2010. The book assumes that you already have all the required software installed & some Features activated.

It shows how to perform the following 140+ Tasks with step-by-step instructions and screen-shots -

• Create a Site Based on the Team Site Template
• Create a Document Workspace 
• Change the Title and Description of Your Site
• Turn Off the Quick Launch Bar
• Change the Color Theme of the Site
• View All Site Content
• Save a Site as a Template
• Open Site Columns
• Browse Site Columns
• Create a Site Column
• Edit Site Columns
• Access Content Types
• Inspect Content Types
• Associate a Document Template with a Content Type
• Associate a Workflow with a Library
• Start a Workflow
• Check the Status of a Running Workflow
• Create a List or Library
• Delete a List or Library
• Add a List Item
• Edit a List Item
• Delete a List Item
• Create a Folder to Organize Items in a List
• Create a Column in a List
• Edit Column Settings
• Add a Validation Rule to a Column
• Add a Validation Rule to a List
• Sort a List
• Filter a List
• Create a List View
• Select a List View
• Sort a List View
• Filter a List View
• Create a Document Library
• Modify the Document Template  for a Document Library
• Modify the Document Template for a Content Type
• Upload Multiple Files with Internet Explorer
• Upload Multiple Files with Windows Explorer
• Display the Check Out Status on a Document Library View
• Check Out a Document
• Check In a Document
• Require Document Check Out on a Library
• Enable the Document ID Service for tracking Documents
• Configure Document ID Settings
• Locate the Document ID on a Document
• Use the Find By Document ID Web  Part to search for a document
• Use the Send To Menu
• Add a Custom Send To Location
• Enable the Document Sets Site Collection Feature
• Configure Document Set Options
• Enable Document Sets on a Document Library
• Create a Document Set
• Enable the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure Feature
• Enable the SharePoint Server Publishing Feature
• Create an Asset Library
• Enable Enterprise Keywords
• Enable Metadata Navigation
• Tag Files with Windows Explorer
• Upload Files to an Asset Library
• Connect an Asset Library to Office
• Insert Pictures or Video into PowerPoint
• Insert a Picture from SharePoint
• Insert a Video with the Media  Web Part
• Enable Auditing
• View an Audit Report
• Enable Document Labels
• Insert a Label in a Document
• Enable Document Bar Codes
• Insert a Barcode in a Document
• Enable an Expiration Policy
• Create a Project Task List
• Add a Project Task
• Update Multiple Tasks with the Datasheet
• Zoom the Gantt View
• Configure Task Columns
• Create a Calendar List
• Switch Calendar Views
• Schedule a Meeting
• Create an Issues List
• Configure Issue Categories
• Create a Discussion List 
• Start a Discussion Thread
• Reply to a Discussion Thread
• Sync MS Project 2010 with a Tasks List
• Manage Synchronization Fields
• Add a Quick Link to a SharePoint Site
• Save a Document to a SharePoint Site
• Manage SharePoint Site Quick Links
• Connect a Calendar List to Outlook
• Copy or Move SharePoint Calendar Items to Outlook
• Add Outlook E-Mail Messages to a Discussion List
• Create a Slide Library
• Publish Slides from PowerPoint
• Copy Slides from a slide library to a PowerPoint Presentation
• Broadcast a Slide Show
• Import a Spreadsheet to SharePoint
• Export a List to Excel from SharePoint
• Export a Table from Excel to SharePoint
• Opening a SharePoint List in Access
• Create a SharePoint Workspace Account
• Sync to SharePoint Workspace
• Create a Blog Site from Your SharePoint Profile
• Change Your Blog Picture
• Edit Your Blog Description
• Create a New Category within a Blog
• Edit a Category
• Create a Blog Post
• Publish a Blog Post Previously Saved as a Draft
• Add a Comment for a Blog Post
• View, Edit, or Delete Comments
• Publish a Blog Post from  Microsoft Word
• Add People to Groups
• Create a Group
• Grant an Individual  Permissions
• Break Inheritance to change an object’s permissions 
• Grant Access to a List or  Library
• Grant Access to Individual  Items
• Remove Someone from a  Group
• Remove a Group’s Site Permissions
• View Permissions on a Library
• Upload Content to Your My Site Shared Documents
• Upload Content to Your My Site Personal Documents
• Add a Colleague to My Site
• Edit Colleague Information
• Remove a Colleague
• Update Your Status
• View Colleague Status
• Create a Note on Content Within SharePoint
• Add the SharePoint Tags And Notes Tool to Your Favorites
• Add a Note to Content on an External Site
• View Notes
• Create a Search Center
• Access a Search Center
• Perform a Search with Search Center
• Create a Search Scope
• Add Rules to a Search Scope
• Use Refiners
• Create a Best Bet
• Subscribe to Search Results as an RSS Feed
• View Search Feeds in Internet Explorer 8
• View Search Feed in Outlook 2010
• Use Advanced Search

It doesn't get into the details of what practical scenarios these tasks could be useful for.

At 250+ pages, this is probably the slimmest book on SharePoint 2010. It does a good job of explaining the commonly used out-of-the-box features in SharePoint 2010 in plain-English. I recommend this book to beginners who may be daunted by the complexity of SharePoint 2010.  It provides enough information to find your way ahead.

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Building a dynamic jQuery Selector for an element whose ID contains braces

For doing some table formatting through jQuery on a table generated dynamically by Sharepoint 2010 in a Web Part, I tried to pick the ID of a table so that I could use it as a selector. I needed to conditionally highlight a cell in each row of a table based on the value of an adjacent cell in the same row.

The problem was, a typical ID value of a table dynamically generated by Sharepoint 2010 for a Web Part looks like this - {8CC7EF38-31D8-4786-8C20-7E6D56E49AE2}-{E60CE5E2-6E64-4350-A884-654B72DA5A53}

Going by the rules, the value of an ID attribute can be only be alpha-numeric & include the underscore and hyphen character.

To simulate the Sharepoint 2010 requirement, I wrote some sample code that has a table with 2 columns and enclosed the ID of a dummy table within braces -
{myTable} 

...and "escaped" the brace character -
\{myTable\}  

...using the following regular expression to get at the rows -
var regex = /[}{]+/g;
var rows = '#' + tableid.replace(re, "\\$&") + ' tbody tr'

That selector now gives me access to the table rows & by looping through the rows I was able to accomplish the conditional highlighting -
$(rows).each(function() { .. }

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NOBR - a non-standard HTML tag that all browsers support

I ran into a NOBR tag within the code generated by Sharepoint 2010. That didn't look like a standard HTML tag and I was able to confirm that by looking up my favorite HTML Reference - W3Schools 

Here's what the SitePoint Reference says -

The nobr element is a proprietary (as it is not based on any standard) one that was used to define sections of text that the browser should not allow to wrap, regardless of what may happen, for example the user resizing the window to a small viewport. As it is deprecated - and the effects can be achieved using CSS - you should not use the element; this is here for reference only. 


The nobr element has good support in modern browsers (for backwards-compatibility reasons) but should not be used. 

rel="nofollow" is a non-standard attribute-value that popular browsers support for the sake of search engines.

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Pluralsight Introduction to PowerShell Course - Notes

Summary of the 2hour 40 minute duration Pluralsight  Introduction to PowerShell course, including other interesting material I found -

+ What is PowerShell?
Windows PowerShell command-line interface is a new command-line tool
It's a scripting language from Microsoft that complements Cmd.exe in the Windows administration context.
Based on .NET
Everything is a .NET object
PowerShell version 2 is included with Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, XP SP3, Windows Server 2003 SP2, Windows Vista SP1
PowerShell scripts have a .ps1 extension

+ How to get started?
To start working with Powershell, go to Windows Accessories & select Windows PowerShell.

PowerShell Environments:
Out of box – PowerShell command window, PowerShell ISE (Integrated Shell Environment)
Free ISE’s – PowerSE, PowerGUI
Commercial

PowerShell ISE or Integrated Scripting Environment is  a GUI for working with PowerShell
You can hide the Script panel in PowerShell ISE if you work a lot in Interactive mode. In the Script pane, you can run either entire script (F5) or run a selection of commands with F8

+ Why learn PowerShell?
In the SharePoint 2010 administration context, Windows PowerShell supersedes the Stsadm.exe administration tool.
Windows PowerShell scripts can also be used to administer other Microsoft server products. This gives administrators a common scripting language across servers.
SQL Server 2008 introduces support for Windows PowerShell.
Windows PowerShell lets SQL Server administrators and developers automate server administration and application deployment.
The Windows PowerShell language supports more complex logic than Transact-SQL scripts, giving SQL Server administrators the ability to build robust administration scripts.
SQL Server cmdlets support actions such as running a sqlcmd script containing Transact-SQL or XQuery statements.
SharePoint 2010 has some 500+ cmdlets.

+ Commands in PowerShell are in the form of Cmdlets (“pronounced Command-lets”).
PowerShell commands have a Verb-Noun syntax. Example:
Get-command – retrieves a list of all system commands that are currently loaded into the PS environment

+ Common verbs:
Get
Set
Out
Start
Stop
Restart
Add

+ Common Nouns:
Help
Command
Service
Computer
Location
Childitems

You can pass parameters, verbs or nouns, to  view cmdlets featuring those keywords
Get-command –verb “get” : will get all cmdlets that have the verb get
Get-command –noun “service” : all cmdlets that have the noun service

To find explanation about at command: get-help get-command
get-help get-command - examples
get-help get-command -detailed
get-help get-command –full

To view environment variables:
Clear-Host
Set-Location env:
Get-children

Show list of snap-ins:
Clear-Host
Get-pssnapin

Show list of registered snap-ins:
Clear-Host
Get-pssnapin –registered

+ What is a PowerShell snap-in?

A PowerShell snap-in is a .NET assembly or set of assemblies that contains cmdlets, providers, type extensions, and format metadata.
All the commands and providers that ship as part of the Windows PowerShell product are implemented as a set of five snap-ins. You can view the list of snap-ins using the get-pssnapin cmdlet.
When a snap-in is loaded in Windows PowerShell, all cmdlets and providers in the snap-in are made available to the user. This model allows administrators to customize the shell by adding or removing snap-ins to achieve precise sets of providers and cmdlets.
PowerShell built-in snap-ins, such as Microsoft.PowerShell.Host, cannot be removed.

You write a snap-in when you want your cmdlets or providers to be part of the default Windows PowerShell.

+ Aliasing makes it easy for a lot of commands to be mapped to specific PowerShell commands.
Useful for folks transitioning from Linux or DOS. Dir & ls are both mapped to get-childitem, they are both aliases
You can set your own aliases. Example: set-alias list get-childitem # will create a alias called list to display directories & files
The lifetime of this “list” lasts till this PowerShell window is open
It is possible to save your aliases into a file & re-load them. Example: Export-alias c:\ps\myalias.csv list (wildcards also possible)
When you reopen window, use this - import-alias c:\ps\myalias.csv & then use list. You can load a whole bunch of aliases within a csv file & load them when you want to.

+ Pipelining – combining cmdlets for power. Examples:
Get-childitem | where-object {$_.Length –gt 100KB}
$_ represents the current object

Get-childitem | where-object {$_.Length –gt 100KB} | sort-object length

Get-childitem | where-object {$_.Length –gt 100KB} | sort-object Length |
Format-Table -Property Name, Length –AutoSize

Get-childitem | select-object Name, Length
select-object can be used to retrieve certain properties from an object

Get-ChildItem | Where-Object {$_.Name – like “*.ps1”}

+ Provider is a .NET library that provides a standard interface through which we can navigate through whatever object a provider represents.
Providers can extend the list of cmdlets that are available to you.
Get-psprovider command shows a list of providers we have currently loaded in our environment.
Each one of these providers reveals itself to us through the form of Drives. It is through these Drives that we can navigate & retrieve data.

+ Variables:
Get-Variable – displays the variable & its value
Set-Variable – assign a new value to an existing variable
Clear-Variable – clears the contents of a variable. Variable still exists but without any value
Remove-Variable – wipes out a variable.

+ Automatic variables:
$false, $true
$pwd – current directory
$Home – users Home directory
$host – info about a users machine
$PSVersionTable – info about the current version of Powershell
$PID – process ID
$_ - special variable name to represent the current object

+ Strings:
String comparisons are case insensitive by default
To get quotation marks within a string, use mixed quotes or use the quotation mark twice
Here String - for storing large blocks of text, enclose the string within quotes & then precede & terminate quotation marks with @. Lines containing the “@” should exist independently.
Expressions can be used in strings & they need to be wrapped in $(). Example - “There are $((Get-ChildItem).Count) items in the folder $(Get-Location)”
Wildcards & Regular expressions are supported. Example - “Pluralsight” –like “Plural*[s-v]”

+ Arrays:
Arrays in PS are zero-based
$array = “plural”,”sight”
$array = @(“plural”,”sight”)
$array = 1..5  #numeric range notation
The formal array creation syntax is useful when creating a blank array -  $array = @()

+ Hash tables:
$hash = @{“key” = “value”;}
$hash[“mvark”] = “mvark.blogpsot.com”
$hash.Remove(“mvark”) #remove by passing in key
$hash.Contains(“mvark”) #see if key exists
#list keys & values
$hash.Keys
$hash.Values

+ Branching and Looping constructs:
PowerShell supports Branching construct like if-else, switch and Looping constructs like while, do-while, do-until, for, foreach
PowerShell has if & else but doesn’t have if elseif
Switch will match all lines that match. To stop processing once a block is found use break
Switch works with collections, looping & executing for each match
Break – exits the loop on first hit. When used in a nested loop, break exits to the outer loop
Continue – to skip the rest of a loop but go onto the next iteration
Trap – to catch exceptions
Use loop labels to break to a certain loop

+ Script block:
A basic script block is code inside {}. The for (as well as other loops) execute a script block
To put multiple commands on a single line use the ;
You can store script blocks inside a variable
$cool = {Clear-Host; “Powershell and bowties  are cool”}
To run the variable precede it with a &. Example: & $cool
You can use return to return a value. Once it is used, the script exits
"process" is used to pipeline enable a block
Variables declared outside a block are useable inside a block
If you try to change the variable inside a block, PS makes a local copy & uses that, leaving the original alone

+ Functions are basically script blocks with names.
No parentheses or commas required to separate parameters
To add Help to your functions, use custom tags within a comment block and Get-Help can recognize them.

+ Filters are alternatives to functions; work like the Where-Object cmdlet
Filters can be built to remove unwanted files

+ Files:
Contents of a file are stored in a array
Get-Content - can display a file. Get-Content supports wildcards
Set-Content -  write text to a file. It can however be destructive. If a file already exists, it’s overwritten
Add-Content - to append text to a file
User-defined functions can be defined in a .PS1 file & it can be referenced in a script using Import-Module
$psise is a special variable that represents PowerShell Integrated Server Environment
.ps1 can be omitted while running script from the command prompt

+ Other references:
Windows PowerShell Quick Reference
Windows PowerShell Survival Guide

In this course, the presenter Robert Cain has done a good job of covering the basics of PowerShell at a relaxed pace. He has a charming style of delivery & his accent should be easy to follow even by international audiences.

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SharePoint in Pictures

The SharePoint Developer Documentation Team has launched a new blog called SharePoint in Pictures with the intention of  providing visual SharePoint developer content on a weekly basis. Illustrations & diagrams make information sticky. This is a great idea that should be extended to other MS products as well.

This diagram from that blog neatly summarizes features present in the different editions of Sharepoint 2010

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Free Learning Resources on WPF, WCF, WF, XAML, Sharepoint 2010

The following material is available for free on Microsoft eLearning -

1. Collection 6261: Developing Rich Experiences using Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 & Visual Studio 2008 consists of 3 2-hour premium clinics -

• Clinic 6262: Introducing Windows Workflow Foundation using .Net Framework 3.5 & Visual Studio 2008
• Clinic 6263: Introducing Windows Presentation Foundation using .Net Framework 3.5 & Visual Studio 2008
• Clinic 6264: Introducing Windows Communication Foundation using .Net Framework 3.5 & Visual Studio 2008

2. Clinic 6375AE: Introduction to XAML
 
3. Two introductory clinics on Sharepoint 2010 -

• Clinic 10277: What's New in Microsoft SharePoint 2010 for Developers
• Clinic 10279: What's New in Microsoft SharePoint 2010 for IT Professionals

 
Related:
Free Sharepoint 2007 goodies on Microsoft e-Learning
mvark

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jQuery, Cloud Computing, Sharepoint 2010 sessions at MUGH Meet

Microsoft User Group, Hyderabad (MUGH) was formed in 2003. It has members from many of the 100+ software companies in Hyderabad. Since being at the very first UG meeting, I've made many friends over the last 7 years at these meets.

For long, I've been a member of the audience but last Saturday on May 15th, I delivered a session on jQuery. I had a kind & patient audience who sat attentively for more than an hour while I went on with all the jQuery tips, tricks and trivia that I've picked up during the past year. I also showed some simple code samples & explained about Plugins.

Accomplished MVP & author, Arun Ganesh presented an engaging session on Cloud Computing with Azure. It included a demo on Visual Studio 2010 & Windows 7.

Phani of Brainscale showed what's new with SharePoint 2010 from a developer's perspective. He made an interesting observation that SharePoint 2010 works best with the 32-bit version of Office 2010, because quite a few features of Sharepoint don’t work with 64-bit version of Office 2010.  This Technet article has more on browser support -

Some of the features in SharePoint Server 2010 use ActiveX controls. In secure environments, these controls must be able to work on the client computer before their features will function. Some ActiveX controls, such as those included in Microsoft Office 2010, do not work with 64-bit browser versions.

Also see:
MS MVP Authors from India

 60

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Sharepoint Case Studies

A good way to understand how to leverage Sharepoint is by reading about interesting solutions, scenarios & successful case studies. Here's a meta-list (work in progress):

• Top 17 case studies from the MS Customer Evidence team
• Microsoft Case Studies
• Public Web Sites hosted on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Also see:
Free Sharepoint 2007 goodies on Microsoft e-Learning

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Book Review: Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Step by Step

Like cycling or swimming, Sharepoint is easy but you need help to get started. Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Step by Step lives up to it's title of being a good step by step guide. It walks you through the maze of options in WSS 3.0 by gently holding your hand & showing the way. The instructions are straight-forward & in plain English, like any good technical book should be.

The book is practical & engaging with it's hands-on exercises covering the basic features. The authors highlight important points & offer troubleshooting tips at appropriate places, such as this one -

You can save documents directly to a document library by specifying the HTTP location in place of the hard drive, such as http://wideworldimporters/SharedDocuments/. Only saved documents can be attached to list items as attachments.

This book answers all the HOWs of WSS but not the WHYs and for that you will need another resource. However, after finishing the 16 chapters of this roughly 500-paged book, you'll learn enough to get going on your own. I recommend this guide to beginners. Even after you finish reading it, it'll be a good reference to go back to while you are working on Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.

Also see:
Free Sharepoint 2007 goodies on Microsoft e-Learning

.

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