.NET Development

Distinct Values After Executing a CAML Query

Patrick Tisseghem — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 15:58:00 GMT

Today I have my first sessions here in Phoenix, one on Web Parts and one on InfoPath. While reviewing yesterday my demos, I came upon a piece of code I was planning to update already for a long time. It involves a cross-site CAML query using the new SPSiteDataQuery class and displaying the the outcome in a dropdown. The dropdown displays the different types of beers I have in my many beer lists sitting in sites in my site collection.

My challenge was to come up with a better solution to make sure we have distinct values in the dropdown. I recognize that some of you might know this already but to be honest, I did not know about this super-easy way that is now available at the level of the ADO.NET DataView class. There is this ToTable() method you can call, letting your DataView create a new ADO.NET DataTable and you can enforce distinct values. I love the .NET 2.0 Framework! Here is the snippet:

  public static DataTable GetBeerTypes()
  {
            // -- retrieve the reference to the site where the Web part is on
            SPWeb web = SPContext.Current.Web;

            // -- retrieve all the different types of beers via a CAML query
            SPSiteDataQuery qry = new SPSiteDataQuery();
            qry.Query = "<OrderBy><FieldRef Name='Type' /></OrderBy>";
            qry.ViewFields = "<FieldRef Name='Type' />";
            qry.Lists = "<Lists ServerTemplate='100' />";
            qry.Webs = "<Web Scope='Recursive' />";

// -- execute the query
DataTable tbl = web.GetSiteData(qry);

            // -- return the unique types
            DataView v = new DataView(tbl);
            return v.ToTable(true, "Type");
  }

CMS & E-Commerce Starter Kit: The Beer House!

Patrick Tisseghem — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 06:16:00 GMT

Wow! I stumbled on this excellent download. Nice to enhance my beer demos :)

TheBeerHouse starter kit enables you to implement a website with functionality typically associated with a CMS/e-commerce site. This website demonstrates key features of ASP.NET 2.0 and is the sample used in the book, "ASP.NET 2.0 Website Programming / Problem - Design - Solution."

Download TheBeerHouse Starter Kit

Related Resources:
See it Live!
Review the Features

Overview

Layout with user-selectable Themes
Homepage personalization with WebParts
News and events, organized into categories
Opinion polls with support for multiple active and archived polls
Mailing lists with real-time AJAX-based feedback
Forums with support for multiple categories, custom pagination, avatars and more
E-commerce store with support for real-time credit card processing
Localization

ASP.NET features used

Master pages
Themes
Personalization
Membership & Profile modules
WebParts
Data-bound controls such as GridView, DetailsView, and FormView
Caching with database dependency

What is VSTA all about?

Patrick Tisseghem — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 06:18:00 GMT

VSTO...VISTA...VSTA.. It is sometimes becoming confusing for the students :). VSTA stands for the Visual Studio Tools for Applications and is a version of Visual Studio.NET 2005 that ISVs can license and embed within their own products to allow their users to extend these products. If you install Microsoft InfoPath 2007, you actually have the option to install VSTA along the ride and have the Microsoft Script Editor replaced by it so that you can extend InfoPath templates with .NET code directly instead of using VSTO. I have wondered a couple of times what I should tell about when to use VSTO and when to use VSTA for extending InfoPath. The results look the same, don't they?

Anyway, there is an on-demand webcast on the US Partner Readiness site titled ISV Touchdown Web Seminar: Overview of Visual Studio Tools for Application (VSTA) that is getting you started. It also explains the roadmap for VSTA.

Recordings on .NET 3.0

Patrick Tisseghem — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 07:56:00 GMT

Via Tom Mertens - two good resources to get you started with .NET 3.0:

Introducing Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), CardSpaces (previously InfoCard) and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)
Run time: approx. 50 minutes
Language: English
Recorded at "WinFX On Tour" on April 20th 2006 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Introducing Windows Workflow Foundation (WF)
Run time: approx. 59 minutes
Language: English
Recorded at "WinFX On Tour" on April 20th 2006 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands

C# 3.0 and LINQ

Patrick Tisseghem — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 11:36:00 GMT

One of my colleagues, Peter Himschoot (regional director here in Belgium), has written an nice article on C# 3.0 and LINQ. I know it is no SharePoint content but it is worthwhile reading :).

New Microsoft CTPs coming out

Patrick Tisseghem — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 07:36:00 GMT

This week is VSLive in the States and a number of new announcements were made. One for example is the announcement that Microsoft will release soon 4 new CTPs (Community Technology Previews). Interesting is that these CTPs deal with technologies that are already based on the new version of Visual Studio.NET (code-named 'Orcas'). I know of a fifth one that Office developers will certainly like but I leave it up to the Microsoft guys to reveal that one. So, what can we expect (this is all based on an VSLive newsletter that I received this morning):

VSTA, or Visual Studio Tools for Applications. This CTP should be available this Friday, Feb 3, 2006. If you attended PDC, you might have heard about the new InfoPath '12' and its new managed object model. VSTA replaces the Microsoft Script Editor and will allow you to hook up C# or VB.NET directly with your InfoPath forms. I have been doing some tests with it and it works great. Much better than before.
LINQ, a VB add-in that builds on the earlier LINQ preview. You can download it here now and read more here. LINQ is Language INtegrated Query. I saw some demos on it and Peter Himschoot and Wim Uyttersprot (both from U2U) have written a nice article on it in the Dutch .NET magazine.
CIDER, which is a VS Designer for WinFX Windows Presentation Foundation tools, available in the December 16 download and coming soon in a new one, I believe, since the December preview is very basic (more details in the WIKI).
TFS -- Team Foundation Server, discussed in more depth elsewhere, should have a release candidate ready soon before the anticipated March release.

Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 2.0 now available!

Patrick Tisseghem — Thu, 10 Nov 2005 08:04:00 GMT

Good news for those of you who want to work with the Enterprise Library in the VS.NET 2005. It is still a CTP (Community Technology Preview) but it will get you started. Download it here. Read a bit more on it on David's blog.

Authenticating users with the Electronic ID (eID) in SharePoint and more U2U articles

Patrick Tisseghem — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 07:09:00 GMT

Hannes Decorte in our consultancy team has recently done some work on integrating the Electronic ID (eID) with SharePoint. The eID is our new passport here in Belgium containing all our identification data in a digitized format and also two certificates we can use to either sign data or authenticate ourselves. Hannes has summarized all of the steps he has taken to let visitors of SharePoint team sites log on with this eID instead of their normal Windows account.

Read the article here.

Wim Uyttersprot also has been busy writing articles and he has one published a walkthrough that will show you how to create an ASP.NET 2.0 Web Service that returns and updates an ADO.NET 2.0 DataSet. The dataset is consumed in a Windows Form and bound to a DataGridView instance, using the new asynchronous patterns of .NET 2.0. The dataset is serialized in XML. Using a XSD schema, a typed dataset is created.

Read the article here.

And finally, our regional director, Peter Himschoot has worked on articles in the domain of Visual Studio Team System. He wrote a long article on Enterprise Source Control with Visual Studio Team System. A very useful article if you are into that stuff.

Read that one here.

You can read more articles written by U2U people over here.

And what did I do? Well, the last week I was in Cyprus enjoying a 'to my opinion' a well-deserved vacation with my three girls. I received news however that part I of my article series on Site Definitions with WSS 2003 will be published shortly on MSDN. I'll keep an eye on that one. This week I am in Belgium going to work very hard on the preparation of the Office 12 ascend trainings. Oh yes, the CAML girl has been busy too. I will publish today or tomorrow the new version of the CAML builder. A number of the bugs have been solved and she is also working on some new functionalities.

Learn more about the ASP.NET 2.0 Provider Model

Patrick Tisseghem — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 20:19:00 GMT

A number of interesting articles have been released on MSDN regarding the ASP.NET 2.0 Provider model. This is very important reading material for everyone who wants to get serious about doing work with SharePoint vNext since the foundation of that version will all be about ASP.NET 2.0.

So, study the providers since it will allow you to do very interesting stuff like adding your own authentication mechanism for SharePoint.

Starting with Windows Workflow Foundation

Patrick Tisseghem — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 03:07:00 GMT

Today it was my final day here on the Office 12 TAP Workshop in Redmond. So much information, so little I can tell right now. A bit frustrating but we respect the rules :). I learned a bit more on the fundamentals of Windows Workflow Foundation (~~now officially abbreviated as WF and not anymore as WWF~~ - Update: according to Fitz is again WWF... jeez). I learned all about activities, workflow types, VS.NET support, the Office workflow and much more. Good site I was not aware of is the http://www.windowsworkflow.net to get you started.