The Introduction of SharePoint Development

The Content comes mostly from the book ''professional sharepoint 2007 development '' (published: Wrox)

1.The Architectural of SharePoint

Windows SharePoint is a three-tiered application. The presentation layer lives in the file system as an ASP.NET application, the logic lives in .NET assemblies, and the data resides in a SQL Server database. On the surface, Windows SharePoint is a web application platform that provides a collection of services accessed through SharePoint web pages, XML web services, and a .NET application programming interface (API). SharePoint’s core functionality is provided by an infrastructure of .NET assemblies and Windows Services. SharePoint stores all content and configuration in SQL Server databases. These databases contain stored procedures and other potential points of interaction, but they should never be directly accessed or modified. Mirosoft Office SharePoint (MOSS) augments Windows SharePoint Service (WSS) with features for portals, search, content management, business process, and business intelligence.

2.Development Environment

The SharePoint development on one hand is based on a stand-alone SharePoint server with Visual Studio and the developer tools can be installed on the same machine in a virtual maschine. On the other hand, because Windows SharePoint Services is a framework, and Microsoft has already written a user interface layer, the developer can make many development changes without writing any code. WSSv3 provides enhanced lists and libraries that developers can use to create a fully functional site.

Visual Studio (VS) is an integrated development environment (IDE) that supports custom development. Visual Studio extensions for Windows SharePoint Services support the development of SharePoint workflow, Web Parts, site definitions, solutions, and more. Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) assist in the development of functional extensions to Microsoft Office client applications (e.g. Word, Excel, and Outlook). VSTO supports creation of new ribbon items and document actions, and provides programmatic access to the new event model and XML document formats of Office 2007 suite. ASP.NET, Windows SharePoint Services, and Office SharePoint Server all offer powerful APIs and design time tools for application development.

Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) is a set of Visual Studio editions designed specifically for application architects, developers and testers. VSTS integrates with Team Foundation Server (TFS) to provide a seamless end-to-end experience for agile software development and software project management.

Visual Studio creates installation packages and SharePoint Solutions that facilitate the provisioning of solutions.

With respect to development, a set of templates known as the Visual Studio Extensions for Windows SharePoint Services v3 are currently in development. For example, Wiki Site is a template definition site. The site definition is used to determine the initial look and feel as well as contain the core of functionality of a site when it is provisioned. A Site Definition is defined as a collection of files that reside in a subdirectory located in the [WSS]\TEMPLATE\SiteTemplates folder on each of the front-end web servers. The Wiki Site is in the template category Collaboration and its location is in the [WSS]\TEMPLATE\SiteTemplates\Wiki.

3.Programming Windows SharePoint Services

The Windows SharePoint Services platform allows developer to interact with SharePoint itself- the sites, the lists, and more. By leveraging the SharePoint platform, a developer has the power to create management applications, programmatically interact with lists and document libraries, react to system and user events both as an object model and as a web services layer, developer have the option of creating windows forms applications, web applications, Web Part applications, system services, and even console applications that can be executed locally on the server or remotely halfway around the world.

The Windows SharePoint Services API includes two major interface, an object model developers can incorporate directly into the code and a set of web services, which allow the developer to invoke SharePoint functionality from anywhere on the network. WSS delivers to developer an object model comprising 30 public namespaces in 10 assemblies. The WSS SDK (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms453225.aspx) illustrates the navigation (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms473633.aspx) and the description of classes and properties.

Event handle in the WSS

Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 introduced sinking events that were triggered from within a Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 document library by attaching a Microsoft .NET assembly to the document library. The event sinking was limited, however, to the document library or form library, and events were triggered only after the actual action occurred within the library. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 goes a step further and introduces a new and extensive set of events that you can use, not only within libraries but also now within lists, sites, and user operations. Events in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 now support the following capabilities:

• You can use pre-synchronous and post-asynchronous modes to handle events.
• You can register events at the file, list, and Web site levels.
• You can register multiple events per item.
• You can cancel pre-synchronous events and display custom error messages.
• You can register item events on generic lists, as well as on document libraries.
• You can declaratively register events per list type or content type.
• In addition to trapping standard list item events (for example, ItemAdding, ItemDeleting, or ItemUpdating), you can trap schema events (such as adding, removing, or updating columns), as well as Web site and site collection deletion.

The 30 namespace with thousands of classes and the event subsystem are publicly available for developers. They work together to provide the developer with nearly every bit of functionality available through the user interface. Combine the APIs with the newly enhanced SharePoint event system to create richly functional an extremely responsive application.

4.RSS and SharePoint

RSS is a news aggregator. The typical news aggregator has a similar interface to a mail reader and allows users to easily add their RSS feeds for subscription. Many news aggregators are available as free downloads or as packaged software, and several of these are written as .NET applications, such as RSS Bandit and NewGator.

Now that RSS is a proven medium for syndication and with Microsoft releasing tools to view and subscribe to the feeds, SharePoint needs the ability to publish RSS. For developers, RSS is a great data source they can use inside their applications where this type of data is needed. These applications can be client-based or web applications as long as they have the ability to call out and load the content over HTTP. Using XML parsing, developers can load the feeds they need and display the data in their user interface. In SharePoint, every list has the ability to host an RSS feed.

In the SharePoint site, the developer can configure the RSS feeds for a Task list that is part of the Team Site template for SharePoint.