GEMSolution Blog has Switched to Google Blogger

GEMSolution Blog “Share”….that’s the “Point” has now moved to Google’s Blogger tool.

I will shortly be uploading all historic blogs from the old blog site and putting a redirect in place on the old blog site so people are redirected here automatically.

Contains operator missing in Advance Search Web Part

This is an old topic, and i know it has been covered by some other people, but it is one i keep having to rectify in various client environments, so thought i would give myself an easy reference point for it rather than keep trawling the web each time.

So you have added the advance search Web Part to a page and the only two options which exist in the operator drop down (see below) are “Equals” and “Does not equal”.  So where has the “contains” and “does not contain” operator gone.  

Happy New Year

Just thought I'd send a quick post to wish everyone who reads my Blog a very Happy New Year.  I am looking forward to an exciting 2010 with plenty of new technologies to dive into with SharePoint 2010 and Visual Studio 2010 at the top of my list.

Over the Christmas period i managed to get a SharePoint 2010 beta server up and running so i will be putting up some posts on my findings whilst playing around.

I Will also be looking into Visual Studio 2010 and how well it integrates and caters for SharePoint development.

Watch this space………..

Setting ModerationInformation.Status back to pending removes author/creator permissions

Here’s the scenario – I have a visual studio sequential workflow on a list (not document library) which has a 2 stage approval process.  The request was to use the standard OOB approve/reject mechanism rather than tasks, so for the first stage of approval, the approver would select Approve/Reject from a list item.  Once the first stage approver approves the item, the item should NOT be approved and live, but still pending and an email sent to the 2nd level approver to make the ultimate decision of making the item live.  Once the 2nd stage approver approves the item the item then becomes Approved and Published for all to see.
I created a Visual Studio Sequential Workflow and created separate routes through workflow based on who updated the List Item.

SPDisposeCheck Error workaround

I use the very useful SPDisposeCheck tool to check my assemblies using the SharePoint API to make sure i have not left any SharePoint objects open which could cause potential memory leaks.

Finally got round to taking the 70-541 MCTS WSS 3.0 Developer Exam

I finally got round to taking the 70-541 MCTS Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 – Application Developer exam today and passed with a score of 895.

Retrieving values from SPField objects, not item.ToString()

When providing interaction with lists, whether it be via List Event Handlers or Web Parts, it helps to use the casting methods for the fields that you are going to be interacting with when both retrieving and setting values.

The most widely used scenario where this feature is best used is in Lookup, Choice, URL and User Fields, as the actual value that is stored by accessing the ListItem["name"].toString() is not always what may be expected.   Lookup Fields usually store values in this format, Id, #, ;, text.  which can amount to returning "1#;Title", when you were expecting "Title", and SPUser fields store a userid followed by the name, e.g. 16#:GavinMorgan