Basics of Sharepoint Search

CodeProject In this post we discuss about basics of sharepoint search.
Below are the concepts which we cover in this post.

• Components of Search
• Enabling / Understanding Search Service Application
• Sharepoint Content Source
• Crawl Rules
• Crawl Logs
• Setting-up Enterprise Search
• Crawl Properties / Search Schema
• Search Managed Properties / Search Schema

Mtom Encoding in WCF

CodeProject In this post we will cover

• What is MTOM Encoding
• MTOM Vs Text Encoding
• Reasons to choose MTOM
• Demo

MTOM (Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism) – WCF supports 3 encodings (in context of WCF, encoding means converting a WCF message (serialized XML InfoSet) into bytes) – Text, MTOM & Binary. All Http Bindings (Basic, WS, Dual, etc.) support Text / MTOM encoding, Text being the default one.

Why MTOM?
Problem with Text Encoding is it uses base 64 encoding format which can inflate the message size by 30%. This can be a heavy penalty while carrying large binary attachments.
On the otherhand, MTOM avoids base 64 encoding for binary attachments keeping the overall size of message in control. Moreover, MTOM is based on open specifications & hence is largely interoperable.

Enough of theory... Let's do a demo to concretize the concept.

For this, i have created a simple WCF service. Below image will describe what we intend to do.

Integrate Yammer into Sharepoint 2013

In this post we see how to integrate Yammer features into SharePoint Server 2013. You can achieve this by installing the Yammer app for SharePoint and embedding your Yammer feeds.

 Step 1: Get the app from the Store

Important: Use an account that is a member of the farm administrators group to perform this step. Do not use the farm administrator account that was used to install and configure SharePoint Server 2013. The farm administrator account cannot import app licenses because that could result in performance problems. For more information, see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/fp161231.aspx. You can add additional farm administrators to the farm administrators group in Central Administration. When in the online store, you will need a Microsoft account to add the app successfully.

Step-By-Step installing Sharepoint 2013 Using AutoSPInstallerGUI

CodeProject In earlier post we dealt with Issues while Installing and Issue in hosting App model in SharePoint 2013.

We can avoid most of these issues by using AutoSPInstaller.

Its a batch file which triggers a series of powershell commands, which reads configuration data from an xml file and installs SharePoint 2013 and all other supporting components.

Even though AutoSPInstaller made installation easy, but still we have a pain point. Configuration.

Now we have a AutoSPInstallerGUI, as simple web application specially designed for SP 2010 and 2013 installations. This will make our lives easy dealing with configuration part.

All you need to do is download #1. AutoSPInstaller and #2. AutoSPInstallerGUI from respective links.

AutoSPInstaller has all the required batch files, configuration files, Powershell script files, and pre-requisite installer files.

AutoSPInstallerGUI has a simple windows application, using which we modify the installer file in AUtoSPInstaller.

If this is so simple, why I am writing this post!

Using Certificate Authentication for Cross Domain Communication

I have addressed couple of posts on logic behind certificates , how to use them with WCF in both transport and message security contexts.

In this post i try to present the basic idea and implementation of using certificates for communication between different parties in realtime scenario. Dont worry about the screenshots of config files, you can download the sample and get all the settings you required for copy.

There are many scenarios which demand certificates authentication mechanism. Common examples are
#1. Banking web application which do their transactions using FBA and Certificate authentication
#2. Server to Server calls.
#3. Service to Service calls
#4. Application to service calls.
and so on covering most of the high security requirments.

But everything boils down to "A cross domain communication or we can say Domain independent communication".

Sharepoint DDD / TDD Code Testing Tip

In this post i would like to demonstrate a small tip in writing SharePoint code, which can make testing a bit easy.

Now before going into further details lets talk about 2 concepts DDD and Unit Test Vs Integration Test.

#1. DDD & TDD : Domain Driven Development  targets at unrelenting Domain layer from technology, thus making it flexible to be accessed by any technology for re-usability.

On the other hand TDD targets at implementing the functionality based on scenarios. For example, lets consider Agile implementation. Each sprint will target a couple of scenarios, which may not comprises of complete functionality. So, we will write the test cases for those scenarios and will write the code against to the test cases until they are success.

In both the cases, the main idea is separation of concerns and increasing the testability of the code.

#2. Unit Test is a test that will be executed in isolation, means no dependency on any other factor. In SharePoint , the unit test should be executed even without Sharepoint dlls, and Sites, and any other factor.
We have several frameworks like Moles, TypeMock which will give you ability to mock complete SP Object model thus execute your code in isolation.

On the other hand Integration testing is running the code in coordination with various layers that actually perform tasks on the site.

Feature Stapling in Sharepoint

CodeProject

Feature Stapling is a concept using which a specific feature will be stappled to site template.

What we gona acheive with it?

There will be scenario where certain resource has to be populated to every site collection that was / will be created on a farm.

Eg : I am dealing a client who is a owning a chemical lab. He want complete list of "Elements and their Atomic weights" to be present in every site that was already created, and any site that will be created in future.

In this scenario, Feature stappling will be used.
Lets see how to demonstrate it.

Demo of PhoneGap on an Android

CodeProjectIn earlier post we have seen "Basics of PhoneGap". In this post we will see how to transform simple web application (Html 5, Css3, Javascript) into a native android App using PhoneGap.

First i have a simple web application to show the current location based on your devices Geological position. It was written in simple Html 5, Css 3, and Javascript.

Introduction to PhoneGap

CodeProject What is PhoneGap?
With increasing demand of Application access on Portable devices like Mobiles and Tablets, the Application development has been divided into two streams.

Web Applications and Apps 

Well, there are pros and cons of both the approaches.

Using Delegate Control in Sharepoint

CodeProject Before jumping to actual development, lets know which scenarios demand the usage of Delegate Controls in sharepoint.

I have designed header image for my blog, and i want to have it on top of my sharepoint site.

So how to add it to all the pages in my sharepoint site.