Jan Tielens' Bloggings

Yesterday evening I've uploaded a new version of the SmartPart to the CodePlex site. For those of you who don't know the SmartPart: it's a generic web part wrapper for SharePoint 2007 which can host any ASP.NET Web User Controls. So basically you can build web parts by using the Visual Studio designers instead of having to write all the code by hand. The new version includes a setup wizard for easy installation, localization support for ASP.NET AJAX controls and some minor bug fixes. It's not a beta version anymore and there is a 64 bit version available as well. On top of that I've included a bunch of sample controls to get you started (both normal controls and ASP.NET AJAX controls). There is even a short (only 2 minutes) screencast that shows you how easy it is to install the Return of the SmartPart v1.3 by using the new wizard. Get the 1.3 release from here: http://www.codeplex.com/smartpart/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=10697

[Via the SharePoint Team Blog] The long awaited version 1.1 of the Visual Studio Extensions for Windows SharePoint Services has RTM-ed, you can download it here. There is still no support for Visual Studio 2008 (but it will come in June 2008), but there are some interesting new things:

Ted Pattison has created a new SharePoint tool called STSDEV. I haven't checked it out, but it sounds promising! If you want to hear Ted's sweet voice, check out the screencasts he has made to get you started.

Various settings and customizations (e.g. Master Pages, Content Types) can be pushed to an entire SharePoint Site Collection pretty easy. But crossing the Site Collection can't be accomplished without building your own solution (which typically involves writing code). The Microsoft guys and girls have released a tool that can help you with these scenarios: SharePoint Cross-site Configurator (http://www.codeplex.com/SPConfigurator)

Yves has passed me this little stick...

My colleagues at U2U have been busy writing a really nice OBA (Office Business Application) allowing information workers to reuse text snippets in email messages. Download and more info here. Great work guys and girls!

Two weeks ago I spent a lovely week in Barcelona together with the complete U2U gang, to attend TechEd. It was great to see lots of old friends, students and other familiar faces! Together with my buddy Patrick I had a session about integrating SharePoint with ASP.NET AJAX and Silverlight, I'll dump my demo code on this blog in the next couple of days. For some great pictures check Leon Zandman's Flickr set, he even has some shots of me and Patrick on stage. Below you can find a slideshow of my pictures of that week.

What a coincidence: this week I'm in Aarhus, Denmark for a SharePoint 2007 Development Training, and I've stumbled upon a very nice SharePoint tool, created by a Danish guy: Carsten Keutmann. The tool is named WSPBuilder and can be downloaded from the CodePlex site. Basically this tool can build a SharePoint solution file (WSP) in minutes. You just have to copy the contents for the WSP to a corresponding structure (e.g. 12\template\layouts, 12\template\features\yourfeature), run the tool and you've got yourself a splendid SharePoint solution!