Custom Sign Out Page for SharePoint 2010

Many a time there would be a requirement to implement a custom action when the user clicks on the Sign out link in SharePoint. 

SharePoint provides as option via PowerShell to achieve this. Clicking on the Sign out link can be made to point to a custom application page to implement the functionality required. This can be customized for each Web Application.

The PowerShell command is given below:

Set-SPCustomLayoutsPage -Identity "Signout" -RelativePath "/_layouts/MySignOut.aspx" -WebApplication "http://mywebapp"

Creating Web Templates for SharePoint Online - Office 365

As site definitions are not allowed in SharePoint Online the concept of WebTemplates cones into picture.

WebTemplates are pretty much similar to Site Definitions from the schema perspective. 

Steps for creating a custom web template :

• Identify the type of web template you want to create i.e. it should be based on an existing Site Definition like Publishing Site, Blog Site, Wiki, etc
• Create a custom onet.xml and copy the content from the site definition into the onet.xml.
• Add all the custom components you would want to create as part of the webtemplate i.e. features, modules, lists, libraries, etc.
• Create an elements.xml file and add a web template into it i.e. 

<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
   <WebTemplate Name="StoreWebTemplate" 
          BaseTemplateName="BLANKINTERNET" 
          BaseTemplateID="53"
          BaseConfigurationID="0"
          Title="Store"
          Description="Store web template"
          DisplayCategory="MindTree Store Portal"/>
</Elements>

You would notice that my web template is based on the publishing site definition i.e. BLANKINTERNET which is added as the BaseTemplateName attribute.

The BaseTemplateID can be obtained from the webtemp.xml file located in the 14 hive.

The rest of the attributes are self explanatory.

• Now we are ready to package the webtemplate as a feature in a Sandboxed Solution and deploy it on SharePoint online.
• Activating the feature should make the web template available for creating sub sites.

SharePoint 2010 Developer's Certification Exam preparation books available on amazon.com

Wrox has published a book to aid SharePoint Developers prepare for the SharePoint 2010 Developer certifications 70-573 and 70-576. The book is available on amazon

http://www.amazon.com/SharePoint-2010-Developers-Certification-Toolkit/dp/0470912340%3FSubscriptionId%3DAKIAJK4PAUN27E77K2EA%26tag%3Daglspt-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0470912340

SharePoint 2010 Crossword puzzle

My colleague, Jackson, came up with a nicely done SharePoint 2010 crossword puzzle for an event we had at work.Really smart work on some of the clues :)

He blogs @ Confessions of a SharePoint Consultant

Wanted to share it with a larger audience

Web part versioning in SharePoint 2010

One of the new features added to SharePoint 2010 web part framework is versioning of web part instances.
The versioning comes into effect under the following scenario:

1. When the page is checked in.
2. Versioning is controlled by page level settings
3. Only shared instances of web parts will be versioned

Although, if there are edits when the page is not checked out, then the versioning will not occur.

The only issue would be the amount of storage space needed for the versions, as there is no delta storage of the versions, the entire instance will be stored in each version.

New site template for Content deployment in SharePoint 2010

SharePoint 2010 has introduced a new option while creating a Site Collection. It appears under the "Custom" tab of the Select a template section. It gives an option for users to Select the site template at a later stage.

This option mainly serves to create the destination site collection during a content deployment scenario. The feature will also be useful for the "Self Service Site Creation" feature.

Hiding Lists & Libraries from the WebPartAdder in SharePoint 2010

One of our clients had a requirement to hide the Lists & Libraries web parts from the selection of web parts that the use can add to a page.

Looking at the master page, the control which displays the list of web parts available is the WebPartAdder.

This control has a property called ShowListsAndLibraries.Setting this property to false hides the Lists & Libraries category from the list.

ShowListsAndLibraries="false" runat="server" />