It's been a hectic few weeks - my first contract has been a case of diving in at the deep end and pulling together some fun SharePoint stuff on a project with a very pressing deadline. Phase 1 is now complete, so what have I been up to, and what have I learned?
1. If you import a bunch of users from Active Directory, you can create a MySite for each user before they log in using the following code:
SPSite parentSite = new SPSite(_siteUrl);
UserProfileManager profileManager =
new UserProfileManager(ServerContext.GetContext(parentSite));
foreach (UserProfile p in profileManager)
{
if (p.PersonalSite == null)
p.CreatePersonalSite();
}
2. When developing features that define custom content types, it's a bit confusing when trying to figure out what the freaky guid thing is all about, and the CAML syntax is a bit of a mare when you first start out. Thankfully, there's a really useful tool that helps in the form of the CodePlex SharePoint 2007 Content Types Viewer. I also just noticed that Andrew Connell has updated his tool for viewing site column and content types XML, which might prove useful if you prefer the command line.
3. When developing a SharePoint solution, packaging up features, list definitions, files to be provisioned, and custom web parts, you need a good tool to help make the manifest and ddf. Rich Finn has made an excellent Visual Studio 2005 template for building such things, and it's made my life much easier over the past few weeks! He even made a couple of changes to fix a couple of issues I had with the tool, thanks Rich!
4. PowerShell is a fabulous tool that I've not had a chance to play with until recently, but it's been really useful for getting little bits and pieces of information about lists on my dev site. Karine Bosch wrote a nice little piece on getting started with SharePoint and PowerShell, and that was all I needed (alongside the WSS 3.0 SDK) to get going.
5. A good book is essential, so thanks go to Wrox for the very excellent Real World SharePoint 2007 book - those people on the cover are names that you will become very familiar with whenever you search for anything to do with WSS3 and MOSS! Thanks also to MS Press for Inside Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 - another gem of a book.
Actually, let me just wrap this up by saying that, while the SDK is ok in most respects, the real place to find information on SharePoint is on blogs, and mostly from the blogs that the MVPs are producing. People like Heather Soloman and Andrew Connell do the SharePoint community a great service by sharing information on what is an extremely tricky beast to tame.