February SharePoint User Group Session Resources
Zac gave us a great presentation last evening on Community based SharePoint Projects. He has been working on a number of the projects that is available for download from CodePlex. You can view the session resources of his topic “Getting the most out of your SharePoint Community” on his Blog.
My top SharePoint must have add-ons from CodePlex are as follows
This is a little gem with some really awesome add-ons. I previously blogged about “Log Viewer Feature” available as part of this download. If you are a SharePoint administrator you need to get this.
Other top Features that you get with this pack are as follows
Debugger Feature Adds a new menu item to the Site Actions menu that attaches the debugger. Log Viewer This is a Feature for viewing the Unified Logging Service (ULS) logs from within Central Admin Print List This Feature adds a “Print List” menu item to the “Actions” menu for every list in the site collection. This feature is based on the sample found here http://spstips.blogspot.com/2007/01/how-to-add-print-list-option-to-list.html and is used with the permission of the author. This version adds a blank master page, view selection, and a code-behind assembly. Window Links This Feature is a custom Links list that allows you to control all aspects of opening the link in a new window. Activate it from the Site Collection Features page and then make a new list from the Create Page
Plus some starter templates for Branding and Customization. If you are a developer who is working with Sharepoint customizations a lot I suggest that you follow these blog posts.
http://blogs.msdn.com/bgeoffro/archive/2007/11.aspx This blog is by MCS Brett A. Geoffroy has some great info on how SharePoint branding works.
WSS 3.0/MOSS 2007 Tools for Governance and Manageability
- Microsoft SAT SharePoint Cross Site Configurator 1.0 - For standardization and consistency of master pages, auditing, content types and more. Microsoft IT Site Delete Capture 1.0 - Simply captures sites that are deleted by end users and backs them up to disk using the event model. You have a recycle bin, but this is basically a site recycle bin (available only to administrators). (Works with WSS 3.0 and Office SharePoint Server 2007) MS IT Site Life Cycle Management 1.0 - Notify, Backup then Delete Unused Unneeded sites (Works with WSS 3.0 and Office SharePoint Server 2007) MS IT Usage Reporting Framework 2.0 - Simple reporting framework to gather usage and storage metrics on WSS 3.0, MOSS 2007 and works with multiple farms. Note the caveats with SQL read queries listed on the framework homepage (direct select statements against the database). MS IT Toolbox - The SharePoint Toolbox is a set of MS IT tools starting with the copy timer for analyzing latency and it’s impact on SharePoint uploads and downloads. Be sure to check this workspace for other tools. TweakSP Central Admin Extensions TweakSP is a solution that extends SharePoint’s Central Administration providing additional functionality. Examples content database storage size, hierarchy, and log viewer.
If you are still managing a SharePoint Portal Server 2003 farm there are utilities that you can use for that as well.
Then of course my other favorites such as the [SharePoint Enhanced Blog Edition](https://www.codeplex.com/CKS/Wiki/View.aspx?title=Enhanced Blog Edition&referringTitle=Home) and the Enhanced Wiki Edition which are part of the Community Kit for SharePoint project banner are already on Zac’s blog. To get a complete list of the projects go to CodePlex. http://www.codeplex.com/Project/ProjectDirectory.aspx?ProjectSearchText=sharepoint
And arguably the killer feature with the WOW factor goes to Ted Pattison’s Super Branding project on CodePlex. Well if you ever wanted to take SharePoint to branding extreme’s then you need this. waay cool!
One thing to note is that this is a proof-of-concept code sample about how to switch out the master page for built-in SharePoint application pages such as settings.aspx and it uses a technique involving an HttpModule. Although MSFT does not support this currently I for one can’t see why it should not be used. Give it a try in a development server and see for your self.