Serge van den Oever [Macaw]

A collegue of mine (thanks Carlo!) pointed out a standard feature of SharePoint Portal Server 2003: you can search your Portal through the Research pane in Office 2003 and Internet Explorer 6. There is actually not much information on this topic available. This information is for example NOT documented in the SharePoint Portal Server User help and Administrators help (some work to do for the next version of the documentation, you guys at Microsoft!!!!). In most online Microsoft documents you don't find much more than: Integration in the Microsoft Office System Research and Reference Pane: Microsoft Office System users can search a SharePoint portal site from the Research and Reference Pane I can't find anything on the “Reference Pane”, I think it is the same thing as the research Pane. You can find it under “Tools - Research...” menu in your Office 2003 applications. Funy thing is that they find it really important if you look at the default configured shortcut: Alt-Click. Microsoft offers even a whole one day course on the topic: http://www.microsoft.com/traincert/syllabi/2016afinal.asp

I did some Googling, but the only real documentation on how to configure it can be found in the whitepaper “Microsoft® SharePoint™ Portal Server 2003 - Specific Arabic Features“, a must read! I love those screenshots! Have a look at http://www.microsoft.com/middleeast/arabicdev/dotnetservers/SharePointPortal/wpapers2003.asp#37 for the whole document.

In short (shameless copy of their information):

1. Microsoft Office System users can search a SharePoint portal site for Arabic data, from the Research and Reference Pane. Microsoft Office System users can search a SharePoint portal site from the Research and Reference Pane.

   
   Figure 22 - Share Point Portal Server 2003

   Through the Research options dialog box, the user can add SharePoint Portal as a service for searching. To enable this service, please follow the following steps:
   1. Launch any Office component (Word, Excel, etc...).
   2. On the Tools menu, click Research.
   3. In the Research task pane, click Research options.
   4. Add research services, click Add Services.

      
      Figure 51 - Share Point Portal Server 2003

   5. Add a Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 site, type http://your root directory/_vti_bin/search.asmx.(Example: http://Share/_vti_bin/search.asmx.)
   6. Click Add. The service is automatically enabled for searching, and it will appear in the Search for list the next time you open the Research task pane.
   7. Select the portal name and write an Arabic word to search for (Example ãÇÌÏ), then press the Search icon

      
      Figure 52 - Share Point Portal Server 2003

This can also be configured in your Internet Explorer 6: View - Explorer Bar - Research...

If you like to know more about developing for the Research pane, check out the following articles and the SDK:

• Customizing the Microsoft Office 2003 Research Task Pane
• Build Your Own Research Library with Office 2003 and the Google Web Service API
• Office 2003 Research Service Software Development Kit (SDK)

As soon as I got my hands on Everett, the beta of VS.NET 2003, I dived into the Compact Framework... great to be able to develop your applications within VS.NET for such a small formfactor as the Pocket PC. One of the things I looked at was the possibilities for game development for Pocket PC, not that I am twisted enough to be able to develop a game (trust me, you need to be a twisted to come up with bright game ideas, I worked with some of these guys!), I'm just very interested in graphical applications.

Of course there is the possibility to use the Forms library to do all kinds of graphics (see http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnnetcomp/html/netcfgaming.asp for an example), but the real performance you will only get using direct access to the screen buffers. What you really want is the PocketPC variant of DirectX... it's a pity: only the DirectPlay part is available for communication(http://www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/default.aspx?url=/windows/directx/downloads/directplay.htm). On the Pocket PC you have GAPI (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&familyid=d9879b0e-4ef1-4049-9c61-e758933d84c4), a very simple game API with only the basic functions available for screen buffer access.

On top of GAPI some nice game development libraries are available like PocketFrog (http://pocketfrog.droneship.com/) and GapiDraw (http://www.gapidraw.com, works on multiple platforms). Another really interesting initiative is by a Dutch company called Overloaded (www.overloaded.com) who developed the Overloaded Game Foundation SDK, and a whole program to develop games and publish it with them in participation and get revenues. Their website seems down (http://overloaded.pocketmatrix.com) so I don't know if their initiative survived. See http://www.mobigeeks.com/e/forum/showthread.php?s=8b025d293af64be37828ab90eb2dde1c&threadid=191 for more info.

Problem with all these libraries is that you need to be a hardcore C++ programmer who knows everything about WIN32 (although Overloaded created a really nice framework containing all you needed to write games). I have bin there, but I really don't want to go back. I love the speed of development with C# and managed code. I tried to get interop between C# and GAPI working, but I just did not have the time to really dive into it.

Today I found some links to articles describing just that a .NET layer on top op GAPI with a lot of extra functionality. I did not have the time yet to read it all and try it out, but it looks very promissing... Is there a future for game development for the Pocket PC using .Net? Have a look at:

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/mobility/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnnetcomp/html/WrapGAPI1.asp
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/mobility/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnnetcomp/html/WrapGAPI2.asp
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/mobility/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnnetcomp/html/WrapGAPI3.asp

Last weeks I had to do some extensive client side programming in good old Javascript, and I used a set of tools that made life a lot more bearable than it was in past development where I had the feeling I was completely working in the dark. My last client side project was a tree menu navigation web part for SharePoint portal server 2001 (have a look at: http://spsutil.sourceforge.net), and did I get frustrated not knowing what was going on...

OK, the set of tools I used this time (they deserve some plugging!):

Instant Source, from Blazing Tools (http://www.blazingtools.com). Great tool to look at the code in your browser: both the code that came from the server as the current state of the DOM. The “element under cursor” view is also very useful. 30 day full test version available for download.

PrimalScript 3.1 from Sapien (http://www.sapien.com). The best script editor I have ever seen (did also use it for ActionScript 2.0 editing, I love it!). It interprets the MSDHTML and uses the found info for code completion, it knows your Javascript functions and shows a list of them as children of your file in the file list, it can find the declaration of functions... I was working on HTC files (HTML components, IE specific) and I had to add the HTC extension to HTML file types to get it working.

VS.NET 2003 from Microsoft, great for debugging!!!

HTML debugger in Javascript (http://www.bitesizeinc.net/project/jsDebugger - thanks Daniel) I just stumpled into this one, check it out, looks really promising!!! Catches Javascript bugs in a meaningful way, and it allows you to explore the DOM visually and even change the values. Client side programming and debugging becomes fun again..

There are even unit test frameworks (http://www.jsunit.net/, look also at http://www.xprogramming.com/software.htm if you are interested in unit testing) available!!

The power of client side code is overlooked by most programmers, especially in the current .Net era with ASP.NET server controls where programmers don't look at the resulting code thrown at the browser. All those postbacks... all those HUGE pages (OK, gzip compression solves a problem here, but is OFF by default in many browser configurations. IE sets it OFF by default within the intranet zone!). Would't it be great if web applications were written like Microsoft Outlook Web Access, the online “Outlook” client  (great work!).

Things are moving fast in the SharePoint world... especially with respect to documentation. Before you know it the documentation of SharePoint is updated. It is a huge product, and on release it was quite clear the documentation wasn't finished.

The documentatation that came with the product is out of date, the SDK's that you downloaded are probably out of date as well.

To get the latest version of the regular documentation (for administrators and the user help) keep an eye on:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/results.aspx?productID=353C4E9D-9E78-4435-A360-01BB7F540D17&freetext=&DisplayLang=en

For the developers out there, keep an eye on the online documentation in MSDN that is the most recent:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/nhp/default.asp?contentid=28001891

This is the entry point to all the developer information. It is also possible to download the SDK's from the first given link, but it will always be behind the online documentation. Problem is that search on MSDN just does not work, so for finding info fast I still prefer the downloadable help files. If this information does not “satisfy” me I check out the online documentation.

Note that in the online documentation you have to go to 'SharePoint Products and Technologies'->'SharePoint Products & Technologies (2003)' -> 'SDK Documentation'. Here you find two folders 'Platform' and 'Applications'. WSS (Windows SharePoint Services) is the platform, SPS (SharePoint Portal Server) is an application build on top of WSS.

If you missing info on the search XML query syntax, download the Office 2003 Research Service Software Development Kit (SDK) at the following link: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=d3fc8129-63f7-43b5-8d99-de4058ade0ec&displaylang=en. This SDK provides documentation and samples on (quote):

The Microsoft® Office 2003 Research Service Software Development Kit (SDK) provides you with a set of Web methods for developing information services that are searchable with the Microsoft Office 2003 Research feature. The Research feature is available in Microsoft Office Word 2003, Microsoft Office Excel 2003, Microsoft Office Outlook® 2003, Microsoft Office OneNote™ 2003, Microsoft Office PowerPoint® 2003, Microsoft Office Publisher 2003, Microsoft Office Visio® 2003, and Microsoft Internet Explorer.

But it also provides the schema of the XML query language used in the SharePoint Search webservice (and through the object model) and documentation about the XML query language.

The topic itself (writing web services that can be used in the Research feature) is also very interesting! Did you ever check it out in Internet Explorer 6? Select menu 'View' - 'Explorer bar' - 'Research'. How sweet would it be if you could search for sites, people and content in SharePoint.... 

We are currently investigating the possibility of enabling anonymous access on SharePoint Portal Server 2003. This works by creating an additional web site as described in the Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Administration Guide. What we are planning to do is to have users that are not in the corporate active directory access the web site that is configured with anonymous access. Users that are in the corporate active directory access the website configured with integrated security. The anonymous access website will have a “login” button available that switches to the integrated security website with code as simple as:

javascript:window.location.href = window.location.href.replace(”anonymous.website.com”, “integrated.website.com”);

This switches to the new site, and if the user is in the corporate active directory, he does not have to login, otherwise you get a login box. Some of users that are not in the corporate active directory but have to be able to contribute content cab be put in a special active directory group to enable them to log in.

One important thing is that if you have custom developed code, you have to go one extra step clearly described in the following Microsoft Knowledge base entry: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;830424

Due to the great integration of Flash MX 2004 with web services that can be developed on the .Net platform, the usage of XML within Flash that can be provided by ASP.NET pages and numerous other possibilities of using Flash a a rich client connected to .Net based technology on the server side, it is my feeling that blogging on Flash might be of interest to the .Net community. Let me know if I'm wrong... and I might shut up!

I'm very interested in the view of other people in the .Net community on the usage of Flash in the creation of Rich Internet Applications, and the experiences with it. Please let me know in a comment!

Two weeks vacation in Italy are a terrific opportunity to dive into technology that you know could be interesting, but have never time to look into during “normal” life. This Christmas vacation was dedicated to the possibilities of Flash MX 2004 to build rich Internet applications. As a Microsoft tools user I already looked with much interest to the possibilities of the usage of Windows Forms applications within IE and the future developments that Longhorn will bring to us in the arena of web based applications. Problem with these technologies are the fact that you need to run Windows and have the .Net framework installed on the client PC, or the fact that although looking very promising release will be far in the future. The possibilities of Flash MX 2004 and the great penetration of Flash (> 500.000.000 downloads!?) on multiple operating systems (Linux, Windows, Mac) and multiple form factors (pocket PC, mobile telephones etc.) did get me interested and I did write my first little custom component that provides a treeview of the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 area structure connecting to a custom SharePoint webservice (written in good old c# ofcourse). A lot of fun!  I will cleanup my code and post it soon to show you the power of the new ActionScript incarnation (internal programming language of Flash) based on Javascript.

Some office products (Word, Excel, InfoPath) are over the years transformed into full blown XML supporting products. Important in working with XML with these products is the schema used for the XML. Microsoft released a download (as a present for "Sinterklaas" on dec 5) that contains the Microsoft Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas and related documentation.

In their own words it contains:

• Overview articles on WordprocessingML (the XML file format for Microsoft Office Word 2003), SpreadsheetML (Microsoft Office Excel 2003) and FormTemplate XML schemas (Microsoft Office InfoPath 2003).
• Reference documentation on the Microsoft Office 2003 schemas, detailing every element and types.

It can be downloaded at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=fe118952-3547-420a-a412-00a2662442d9&DisplayLang=en

Rumours from the battlefield... Did you know that:

• Although the Yukon release is still very beta, the core is quite solid
• That CLR support into T-SQL is already working for years
• That Visual Studio is often NOT used within Microsoft itself by its developers, projects are way too big
• But that Visual Studio is used for debugging ;-)
• That for editing often Slickedit 8.0 is used (seems to support code completion...): during PDC presentations often used!
• That Whidbey contains a new build system (MSBuild) that works a bit like (N)Ant
• But that within Microsoft a bit older build system is often still in use, that was also available within the Shared Source implementation of the .Net framework named Rotor
• That XMLSpy an often used tool within Microsoft is (especially within the Yukon group)

This info may be true... or not. It is just from hear-say...

At the PDC I saw a presentation where some optimization tips on memory usage in ASP.NET pages were given. The performance monitor was used to look at Gen 0, Gen 1 en Gen 2 usage of the garbage collector. The example was using a StringBuilder class to combine data and write this out versus using direct writes using Response.Write (which was much faster and consumes less memory). I am wondering if there are any good tools to look at memory consumption and garbage collection on a high-load website... Anyone?

The WinFS data storage system used in Longhorn seems cool... A short list of some powerful features:

• There is a concept of Items and relations between Items
• An Item is something like a file, a folder, a contact, or a user defined type
• There are two types of relations: holding relationships and reference relationships
• With holding relationship you can model the well known folder hierarchy, but also much more because an item can be "hold" in more than one relationship (although cycles in the "hold" graph are not permitted)
• An item has a reference count of its holding relationships. When it has no more references it is removed from the store.
• Security is on Item level (which could indicate that Yukon, presumably the storage engine in a slimmed down version, has row level security)
• Every store Item has an unique ID that identifies the Item in the store (although not guaranteed over multiple stores)
• WinFS supports: Asynchrony (multiple queries and data retrieval at the same time), Transactions, Notifications (on Item changes, relation changes, and many more subtile things going on), Blob/stream support, Cursoring and paging (a query can result into many Items!)
• A powerful API is available to interogate the store
• Within the API powerful querying and filtering functionality is available
• Also direct SQL queries can be executed on the store for really powerful aggregation and grouping

For more info have look at the Longhorn SDK section on WinFS: http://longhorn.msdn.microsoft.com/lhsdk/winfs/daovrWelcomeToWinFS.aspx

For a more conceptual view: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnaero/html/wux_topic_storage.asp

One of the real cool new features in the Whidbey source code editor is the refactoring functionality. This is something you want today if you have to rewrite parts of a large codebase.

The following refactoring functionality is available:

Rename: select a symbol to rename, specifiy a new name and everywhere this name is used in your project it is renamed.

Change signature: here you can do one of the following actions:

Reorder parameters
Remove parameters
Add a parameter
Rename a parameter
Rename a method
Change a parameter type

Extract method: select a piece of code and seperate it into a method that is called instead.

Extract interface: given a class, select the methods and properties you want to be available in your interface and specify an interface name and a new interface is created and your class automatically implements it.

Encapsulate field: select a field in your class, and encapsulate it as a property. All references to this property are also automatically updated. In this update you can select if you only want the external references or all references to be updated. It is a pity that not all approaches as described in Martin Fowlers book "Refactoring" are implemented, like promoting a method to it's base class or demoting a method to a derived class. However it is a big step forward directly available from the IDE you work in.

The cool thing is that much of this functionality is also available in the diagram view (UML) of the code.

Heard some rumours today that SharePoint is out!!! Don't know if it is only WSS, or SPS as well. Seems to be available on download site for the big companies that have a corprate license with M$. Not on MSDN yet, will be there soon. I heard of a release date of oktober 1, 2003.

Ever imported a web part into WSS/SPS, added it to a web part page and regretted it because it messed up your web part page? I did! Today a collegue told me the trick (thanks Dirk!):

Enter the following URL in your browser:

http://servername/_layouts/1033/spcontnt.aspx?PageView=Shared&url=urlofpage

You now get an overview of all web parts on the page and can perform administrative tasks on them.

I also messed up my portal homepage, but couldn't get it working here! Any ideas?

Have a look at http://www.spychecker.com/program/autoruns.html, another great tool from the sysinternals guys!

Have a look at http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/support/community/blogs/default.aspx

So funny what kind of sites people come up with. Just stumbled over http://www.pdcbloggers.com, a site with blogging people going to the PDC. Well, I'm one of them... so I registered.

On my laptop I was constantly running out of diskspace. All the time I compressed everything I could, but I kept running out of diskspace. I was getting really pissed why this was happening so I searched my disk for big files. The Windows temp directory on my Windows Server 2003 (c:\windows\temp) was full of 100MB big files, and they kept comming. I wondered which application was creating them, so I used filemon.exe from http://www.sysinternals.com. A great utility to monitor all disk access. It happened to be the dw20.exe application, an error reporting application from Office 2003 (which is also installed on my machine!). After searching Google (searching at Microsoft makes no sense!) I found a link to an article at http://www.microsoft.com/office/ork/xp/beta/five/ch19/MntB02.htm. It describes how to turn off error reporting (don't know what is going wrong, everything seems to work, but errors kep getting generated I think).

I tried to follow their directions, but could not find the mentioned Group Policy Object Editor. Finally found it: execute mmc.exe from run... Do Add/Remove snap-in, select Add and select “Group Policy Object Editor“. Now follow the instruction in the article, and set Disable error reporting to Enabled. Now error reporting is disabled! The registry settings also described in the article did not work for me...

Finally I can get back to developing again!

I am already programming on WSS/SPS2 for a few months, but I was missing a lot of documentation on it. A lot of sections in the documentation were still empty or incomplete. But he, that is the fun in programming on beta software. The online documentation on MSDN on WSS seams to be updated to the RTM version, it is now much more complete!!

Start at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/nhp/Default.asp?contentid=28001891&frame=true for all online documentation on the new SharePoint platform!

I by a lot of books. Not to read from cover to cover, more to skim through, and then use as a reference. Once in a while I read a book from cover to cover, especially if I am enjoying a luxuous vacation in our house in Italy. Writing from my vacation address (and it really has been a while that I posted something here) I would like to point you to a book I just finished: Pragmatic ADO.NET, by Shawn Wildermuth. Great introduction to ADO.NET with clear examples and not to thick!! I hate those 2 Kg Wrox books with elaborate, not to the point, example code. This books gives you a flying start.

At amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0201745682/qid=1062338918/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/102-7329001-1451305?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Also have a look at the writers site at http://www.adoguy.com

Changed this blog posting into an article. It's just too long for a post, and might be handy to keep around...

Everytime I'm busy with something I think: hmmm, would be nice to share this.. but one way or the other the time just isn't there. I will try harder...

I'm working on a simple windows forms app to browse some of the hierarchies of SharePoint Portal Server 2003, and besides a tree control on the left side  I needed a browser control at the right side to display some detail information in HTML. Of course you can add the Internet Explorer dll shdocvw.dll to the toolbox so a wrapper is generated... but there are some problems left like what values to pass for all those parameters and how do I handle events that are raised.

One of the .Net world famous programmers Lutz Roeder, developer of Reflector (http://www.aisto.com/roeder/dotnet) did write a class encapsulating the Internet Explorer Active-X control that is used in Reflector. Although he did not publish the source code (as far as I know), this file came on the web one way or the other. I found it at the following link:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=%23%2487PZ4pBHA.1860%40tkmsftngp04&rnum=8

The code follows below, together with some code how to use it....

// Lutz Roeders's .NET Reflector, October 2000. // Copyright (C) 2000-2002 Lutz Roeder. All rights reserved. // http://www.aisto.com/roeder/dotnet namespace Reflector.Library { using System; using System.IO; using System.Runtime.InteropServices; using System.Windows.Forms; public class HtmlBrowser : AxHost, IWebBrowserEvents { public event BrowserNavigateEventHandler BeforeNavigate; public event BrowserNavigateEventHandler NavigateComplete; IWebBrowser control = null; ConnectionPointCookie cookie; Boolean activate = false; String url = String.Empty; String html = String.Empty; String body = String.Empty; public HtmlBrowser() : base("8856f961-340a-11d0-a96b-00c04fd705a2") { HandleCreated += new EventHandler(Me_HandleCreated); NavigateComplete += new BrowserNavigateEventHandler(Me_NavigateComplete); } public void Activate() { activate = true; } public void Navigate(string url) { if (!IsHandleCreated) { this.url = url; return; } Object flags = 0; Object targetFrame = String.Empty; Object postData = String.Empty; Object headers = String.Empty; control.Navigate(url, ref flags, ref targetFrame, ref postData, ref headers); } public void SetHtmlText(string text) { this.html = text; } public void SetBodyText(string text) { if (control != null) { IHTMLDocument2 document = control.GetDocument(); if (document != null) { IHTMLElement body = document.GetBody(); if (body != null) { if (activate) DoVerb(-4); body.SetInnerHTML(text); return; } } } this.body = text; } void Me_HandleCreated(Object s, EventArgs e) { HandleCreated -= new EventHandler(Me_HandleCreated); if (url == String.Empty) { url = Path.GetTempFileName(); StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter(url, false); writer.WriteLine(html); writer.Flush(); writer.Close(); } Navigate(url); } void Me_NavigateComplete(Object s, BrowserNavigateEventArgs e) { if (activate) DoVerb(-4); if (html != String.Empty) { File.Delete(url); this.html = String.Empty; } if (body != String.Empty) { SetBodyText(body); this.body = String.Empty; } } protected override void CreateSink() { try { cookie = new ConnectionPointCookie(GetOcx(), this, typeof(IWebBrowserEvents)); } catch { } } protected override void DetachSink() { try { cookie.Disconnect(); } catch { } } protected override void AttachInterfaces() { try { control = (IWebBrowser) GetOcx(); } catch { } } protected override Boolean IsInputKey(Keys keyData) { return (keyData == Keys.Escape) ? false : base.IsInputKey(keyData); } public void RaiseBeforeNavigate(String url, int flags, String targetFrameName, ref Object postData, String headers, ref Boolean cancel) { BrowserNavigateEventArgs e = new BrowserNavigateEventArgs(url, false); if (BeforeNavigate != null) BeforeNavigate(this, e); cancel = e.Cancel; } public void RaiseNavigateComplete(String url) { BrowserNavigateEventArgs e = new BrowserNavigateEventArgs(url, false); if (NavigateComplete != null) NavigateComplete(this, e); } } [Guid("eab22ac2-30c1-11cf-a7eb-0000c05bae0b"), InterfaceType(ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsIDispatch)] public interface IWebBrowserEvents { [DispId(100)] void RaiseBeforeNavigate(String url, int flags, String targetFrameName, ref Object postData, String headers, ref Boolean cancel); [DispId(101)] void RaiseNavigateComplete(String url); } public delegate void BrowserNavigateEventHandler(Object s, BrowserNavigateEventArgs e); public class BrowserNavigateEventArgs { String url; Boolean cancel; public BrowserNavigateEventArgs(String url, Boolean cancel) { this.url = url; this.cancel = cancel; } public String Url { get { return url; } } public Boolean Cancel { set { cancel = value; } get { return cancel; } } } [Guid("eab22ac1-30c1-11cf-a7eb-0000c05bae0b")] interface IWebBrowser { void GoBack(); void GoForward(); void GoHome(); void GoSearch(); void Navigate(String Url, ref Object Flags, ref Object targetFrame, ref Object postData, ref Object headers); void Refresh(); void Refresh2(); void Stop(); void GetApplication(); void GetParent(); void GetContainer(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] IHTMLDocument2 GetDocument(); } [Guid("332C4425-26CB-11D0-B483-00C04FD90119"), InterfaceTypeAttribute(ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsDual), ComVisible(true)] interface IHTMLDocument2 { [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] Object GetScript(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] Object GetAll(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] IHTMLElement GetBody(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] Object GetActiveElement(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] Object GetImages(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] Object GetApplets(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] Object GetLinks(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] Object GetForms(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] Object GetAnchors(); void SetTitle([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String GetTitle(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] Object GetScripts(); void SetDesignMode([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String GetDesignMode(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] Object GetSelection(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String GetReadyState(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] Object GetFrames(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] Object GetEmbeds(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] Object GetPlugins(); void SetAlinkColor([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetAlinkColor(); void SetBgColor([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetBgColor(); void SetFgColor([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetFgColor(); void SetLinkColor([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetLinkColor(); void SetVlinkColor([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetVlinkColor(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String GetReferrer(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] Object GetLocation(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String GetLastModified(); void SetURL([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String GetURL(); void SetDomain([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String GetDomain(); void SetCookie([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String GetCookie(); void SetExpando([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)] Boolean p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)] Boolean GetExpando(); void SetCharset([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String GetCharset(); void SetDefaultCharset([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String GetDefaultCharset(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String GetMimeType(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String GetFileSize(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String GetFileCreatedDate(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String GetFileModifiedDate(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String GetFileUpdatedDate(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String GetSecurity(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String GetProtocol(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String GetNameProp(); void DummyWrite([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.I4)] int psarray); void DummyWriteln([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.I4)] int psarray); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] Object Open([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String URL, [In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object name, [In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object features, [In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object replace); void Close(); void Clear(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)] Boolean QueryCommandSupported([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String cmdID); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)] Boolean QueryCommandEnabled([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String cmdID); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)] Boolean QueryCommandState([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String cmdID); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)] Boolean QueryCommandIndeterm([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String cmdID); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String QueryCommandText([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String cmdID); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object QueryCommandValue([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String cmdID); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)] Boolean ExecCommand([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String cmdID, [In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)] Boolean showUI, [In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object value); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)] Boolean ExecCommandShowHelp([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String cmdID); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] Object CreateElement([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String eTag); void SetOnhelp([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnhelp(); void SetOnclick([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnclick(); void SetOndblclick([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOndblclick(); void SetOnkeyup([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnkeyup(); void SetOnkeydown([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnkeydown(); void SetOnkeypress([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnkeypress(); void SetOnmouseup([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnmouseup(); void SetOnmousedown([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnmousedown(); void SetOnmousemove([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnmousemove(); void SetOnmouseout([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnmouseout(); void SetOnmouseover([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnmouseover(); void SetOnreadystatechange([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnreadystatechange(); void SetOnafterupdate([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnafterupdate(); void SetOnrowexit([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnrowexit(); void SetOnrowenter([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnrowenter(); void SetOndragstart([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOndragstart(); void SetOnselectstart([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnselectstart(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] Object ElementFromPoint([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.I4)] int x, [In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.I4)] int y); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] Object GetParentWindow(); // IHTMLWindow2 [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] Object GetStyleSheets(); void SetOnbeforeupdate([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnbeforeupdate(); void SetOnerrorupdate([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnerrorupdate(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String toString(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] Object CreateStyleSheet([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String bstrHref, [In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.I4)] int lIndex); } [Guid("3050F1FF-98B5-11CF-BB82-00AA00BDCE0B"), InterfaceTypeAttribute(ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsDual), ComVisible(true)] interface IHTMLElement { void SetAttribute([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String strAttributeName, [In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object AttributeValue, [In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.I4)] int lFlags); void GetAttribute([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String strAttributeName, [In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.I4)] int lFlags, [Out, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPArray)] Object[] pvars); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)] Boolean RemoveAttribute([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String strAttributeName, [In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.I4)] int lFlags); void SetClassName([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String GetClassName(); void SetId([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String GetId(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String GetTagName(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] IHTMLElement GetParentElement(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] Object GetStyle(); // IHTMLStyle void SetOnhelp([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnhelp(); void SetOnclick([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnclick(); void SetOndblclick([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOndblclick(); void SetOnkeydown([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnkeydown(); void SetOnkeyup([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnkeyup(); void SetOnkeypress([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnkeypress(); void SetOnmouseout([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnmouseout(); void SetOnmouseover([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnmouseover(); void SetOnmousemove([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnmousemove(); void SetOnmousedown([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnmousedown(); void SetOnmouseup([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnmouseup(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] Object GetDocument(); void SetTitle([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String GetTitle(); void SetLanguage([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String GetLanguage(); void SetOnselectstart([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnselectstart(); void ScrollIntoView([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object varargStart); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)] Boolean Contains([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] IHTMLElement pChild); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.I4)] int GetSourceIndex(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetRecordNumber(); void SetLang([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String GetLang(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.I4)] int GetOffsetLeft(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.I4)] int GetOffsetTop(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.I4)] int GetOffsetWidth(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.I4)] int GetOffsetHeight(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] IHTMLElement GetOffsetParent(); void SetInnerHTML([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String GetInnerHTML(); void SetInnerText([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String GetInnerText(); void SetOuterHTML([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String GetOuterHTML(); void SetOuterText([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String GetOuterText(); void InsertAdjacentHTML([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String where, [In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String html); void InsertAdjacentText([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String where, [In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String text); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] IHTMLElement GetParentTextEdit(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)] Boolean GetIsTextEdit(); void Click(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] Object GetFilters(); void SetOndragstart([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOndragstart(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)] String toString(); void SetOnbeforeupdate([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnbeforeupdate(); void SetOnafterupdate([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnafterupdate(); void SetOnerrorupdate([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnerrorupdate(); void SetOnrowexit([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnrowexit(); void SetOnrowenter([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnrowenter(); void SetOndatasetchanged([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOndatasetchanged(); void SetOndataavailable([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOndataavailable(); void SetOndatasetcomplete([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOndatasetcomplete(); void SetOnfilterchange([In, MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object p); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Struct)] Object GetOnfilterchange(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] Object GetChildren(); [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Interface)] Object GetAll(); } }

And now some example code describing how to use it... I created a window with a tree control at the left, the Internet Explorer at the right and a splitter in the middle so the controls can be resized dynamically...

using System; using System.Drawing; using System.Collections; using System.ComponentModel; using System.Windows.Forms; using System.Data; using System.Threading; using Reflector.Library; namespace SPS2Admin { /// 
 /// Summary description for SPS2Admin. /// 
 public class SPS2Admin : System.Windows.Forms.Form { /// 
 /// An Internet Explorer embedded browser instance is used for displaying detail information. /// 
 private HtmlBrowser _htmlBrowser; /// 
 /// The tree for navigating SPS structures. /// 
 private TreeView spsTree; private System.Windows.Forms.MainMenu mainMenu; private System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem menuItemFile; private System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem menuItemView; private System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem menuItemFileConnect; private System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem menuItemFileExit; private System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem menuItemViewWebs; private System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem menuItemCurrentCredentials; private System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem menuItemCreateProgram; private System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem menuItemNavigator; /// 
 /// Required designer variable. /// 
 private System.ComponentModel.Container components = null; public SPS2Admin() { // // Required for Windows Form Designer support // InitializeComponent(); _htmlBrowser = new HtmlBrowser(); _htmlBrowser.Parent = this; _htmlBrowser.Dock = DockStyle.Fill; Splitter split = new Splitter(); split.Parent = this; split.Dock = DockStyle.Left; split.BackColor = SystemColors.Control; spsTree = new TreeView(); spsTree.Parent = this; spsTree.Dock = DockStyle.Left; _htmlBrowser.Navigate("http://www.macaw.nl"); } : : } }

Update:
I got a solution from Julien CHEYSSIAL to resolve the problem concerning controls like textbox,
combobox which were displayed with the old looking style while using the WebBrowser in a Windows Form application. You have to add this meta in the head section of your pages : <META HTTP-EQUIV="MSThemeCompatible" Content="Yes">. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnie60/html/whatsnewpublicpreview.asp and http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/shellcc/platform/commctls/userex/cookbook.asp for more info.

All those 600+ pages books are (often) really great to delve into a subject, but sometimes you just want to travel light and just need the reference card, like when you want to do that multiline regexp replacement in Vi.... Have a look at the following site:

http://www.digilife.be/quickreferences/indexe.html

But I still did not found the ultimate .Net reference cards... any suggestions?

Bought a funny and useful book this afternoon: Google hacks from O'Reilly. 100 tips and tricks about how to do amazing things with Google... A real programmers book. Can be very useful for providing advanced search functionality in your (web) applications. Have a look at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596004478/qid=1050181607/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/104-6529266-1343112?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

We just finished a big presentation at the Dutch Microsoft office about the upcomming SharePoint Portal Server 2003 based on the Beta 1. A lot of people were impressed by the new capabilities. In my opinion it is really a step forward in portal software... great collaboration features, everything .NET based, full object model and webservices for development. In the introduction by Microsoft was announced that today (March 10, 2003) the public beta becomes available. After the presentation I directly started the download of the public beta (Beta 2) and I am currently waiting for the download to finish. I can now start writing about it, so there will be more to come at this place in the near future!

See http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint/ for more information and download of SharePoint Products and Technologies Beta 2.

So much to write about, but shit it's under non-disclosure. Working on Sharepoint Portal Server V2 now. As soon as the public beta comes out (probably half of march) I will post my findings here. Cool thing is that finally you can do some decent development for it using .NET!!! Something else I received yesterday in the post (although I already downloaded it) is the new beta for Exchange Server 2003 (Titanium). I love the new Outlook Web Access (OWA) interface... it's also in the Web Storage System delivered with SPS2. Much more like the real outlook, but working in a browser. Will take some time before I will start on Titanium, I will probably need another harddisk for my laptop to test that one out (probably want work together with SPS2).

Microsoft is smart: both SPS2 and Exchange 2003 only run on Windows server 2003 (.NET server). People have to move over to this new sever platform, although I think most companies are not up to it yet, they just moved to Windows 2000 server!

One of those sites that I check once in a while is http://research.microsoft.com. Microsoft Research employed a large amount of researchers from great companies like AT&T and famous universities. If you look at their site it is fun to see that documents are delivered in Postscript format, and projects use programming languages like Perl and Python. A lot of research done if very fundamental research... have a look at it, and be amazed that Miccysoft isn't only about commercial products like Windows and Office.

A shameless plug for a site built by a very talented collegue, Teun Duynstee. It is a "personal newsroom" where you can aggregate multiple RSS feeds within a browser window. Check it out, might be handy to read your favorite blogs...

For a project we are implementing a WebDAV client library for talking to Sharepoint Portal Server 2001 and Exchange public folders. We did only implement the most neccesary things and skipped things like locking. We did not find a use for this functionalilty yet, and we are only implementing what we need. It's working pretty well.

We have great support for access to WebDAV search that we used for MacawDynaList, a document list viewer used for replacing all those lists in Sharepoint with something really powerful. The search has full support for paging sorting etcetera and can return results directly in a dataset so no transformation on the resulting XML is needed. Something else I really like is the easy of programming by mapping CLR types to the Exchange/Sharepoint WebDAV types. This makes it very easy to do proppatch/propfind commands and interpret the results..

Let me know if there is any interest in such a library. We use it for searching and publising information to Sharepoint and Exchange.