SharePoint ConnectStrings and WebParts

Everybody is wondering where to store the connectstrings for your webpart.

Some say to make it a property, some say to place it in the web.config for your application.

This article offers an alternative that will allow you to change the connectstring without needing to bring down your application. Here is the link to the article:


http://www.sharepointu.com/forums/t/107.aspx

If you have any tips, tricks, resources that you think would help the group please email them to susan@clinchportal.com and we will post them here.

Debugging Sharepoint WebParts

For those trying to debug sharepoint web parts. I will start to post tips and tricks for doing so.
For now I will just supply you with a link to the microsoft article on how to do it:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms916837.aspx

If you have any tips, tricks, resources that you think would help the group please email them to susan@clinchportal.com and we will post them here.

Beyond Search: Best Bets and Keywords (MOSS Only)

Sometimes search is not good enough and you need to ensure documents get found. Here is an article on a SharePoint feature that will help:

http://www.thesanitypoint.com/archive/2008/12/15/best-bets-and-keywords-in-sharepoint-and-search-server.aspx

If you have any tips, tricks, resources that you think would help the group please email them to susan@clinchportal.com and we will post them here.

SharePoint Search and editing the Thesaurus

For those familiar with other search engines, you are probably looking for a keymatch files or some kind of synonym file. In SharePoint it is called the Thesaurus. Here is a link that describes how to customize it:

http://blogs.msdn.com/enterprisesearch/archive/2008/09/23/how-to-customize-the-thesaurus-in-sharepoint-search-and-search-server.aspx

If you have any tips, tricks, resources that you think would help the group please email them to susan@clinchportal.com and we will post them here.

Transferring a site from WSS 3 to MOSS 2007

Since most dev boxes are probably running WSS and not MOSS these articles I found would probably be quite useful to read. The first walks through some of the things you should do to prepare for the export.

Transferring a site from WSS 3 to MOSS 2007 - Part 1
http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/joe/archive/2008/11/22/transferring-a-site-from-wss-3-to-moss-2007-part-1.aspx

The second article is for times when, even though we prepared for it, we get error messages during import and don't know what to do.

Transferring a site from WSS 3 to MOSS 2007 - Part 2
http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/joe/archive/2008/11/22/transferring-a-site-from-wss-3-to-moss-2007-part-2.aspx

Hopefully these articles will save you some time in doing your migrations. If you have any tips, tricks, resources that you think would help the group please email them to susan@clinchportal.com and we will post them here.

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP1 Developer Evaluation VPC

For those needing to learn sharepoint but do not have the time or desire to install all the pieces.
Microsoft has provided an alternative. Thanks to JK for letting us know about this resource.

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP1 Developer Evaluation VPC Image available at this link:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=1beeac6f-2ea1-4769-9948-74a74bd604fa&DisplayLang=en

This VPC is a set of virtual pc imgs from microsoft. It is a time expiring (sometime in fall of next year) img, but it does have the following all PRE-INSTALLED:- sharepoint, visual studio 2k8, sql server & sql studio, IIS properly configured

If you have any tips, tricks, resource you would like to share with the guild please email them to Susan Fischer at susan@clinchportal.com and we will post them.

Session state cannot be used in ASP.NET with Windows SharePoint Services

It appears that if Windows SharePoint Services is installed on the web server then none of your other applications can use session state.

When you have Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) installed on your
computer and when you browse the page that is set with session variables in the
Microsoft ASP.NET Web application, you may receive the following error message:

Session state can only be used when enableSessionState is set to true,
either in a configuration file or in the Page directive

The article below explains the situation more thoroughly.

Session state cannot be used in ASP.NET with Windows SharePoint Services
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;837376

If you come across any tips, tricks, resources or gotchas that may help others in dealing with SharePoint issues please email them to susan@clinchportal.com and we will post them here.