Wednesday, November 11, 2009

SharePoint FBA “No exact match was found” error

If you are configuring FBA for SharePoint and, at a certain point, while trying to add a database user or role to SharePoint you get the “No exact match was found” error, the answer is one of the following 2:

1. the Central Administration App Pool account does not have sufficient rights on your SQL aspnetdb database
2. something is not configured properly in one of your web.config files you just modified

As option No 1 is the easiest and quickest to check, I’d start with that one.

Posted by Madalina at 11:53:18 | Permalink | No Comments »

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Sinteza Zilei

Nu sunt bona. Telul meu cand ma trezesc dimineata nu este sa te sterg la popou toata ziua.

Posted by Madalina at 19:17:05 | Permalink | No Comments »

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

SharePoint Custom Lists and the Item Context Menu

When you need to build a custom list in SharePoint, there are a few things you need to know, apart from the procedure of putting some files of code together.

The first important thing is that the Title property of a list item can never be removed - it can be hidden, made optional, but not deleted.
The second thing is that the Title field is the only field that has the context menu - this menu cannot be attached to any other field.
And the third thing is that you can use the Title field to your advantage - change its display name and some other properties that you need, and create a field that benefits of the context menu and that also fits into your list. The thing to remember is that the NAME of the field will remain “Title”, only the Displayed Name has been made custom.

To benefit of the custom menu, there are 3 things you should make sure to add in your schema.xml file:
1. the Title field declaration ( with its original ID and the Display Name customized - or not ):

<Field ID=”{fa564e0f-0c70-4ab9-b863-0177e6ddd247}” Name=”Title” DisplayName=”My Field” Sealed=”TRUE” Type=”Text” />

2. the LinkTitle and LinkTitleNoMenu elements (which are the declarations of the contextual menu and link item respectively) with the Display Name changed accordingly:

<Field Name=”LinkTitle” ID=”{82642ec8-ef9b-478f-acf9-31f7d45fbc31}” DisplayName=”My Field” SourceID=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/v3″/>
<Field Name=”LinkTitleNoMenu” ID=”{bc91a437-52e7-49e1-8c4e-4698904b2b6d}” DisplayName=”My Field” SourceID=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/v3” />

3. and last but no least, the thing that does the trick - add the LinkTitle element to the Views in the schema.xml file, leaving the Title field out:

<ViewFields>
<FieldRef Name=”LinkTitle” />
… other fields, NOT Title

</ViewFields>

You will now benefit of the contex menu on your custom Title field.

Productive coding!

Posted by Madalina at 22:57:27 | Permalink | No Comments »

Monday, October 5, 2009

My city - my life

Moving to a new city or living in a city by choice is one of the most important decisions that we can make. And when this decision is a must, we need not only take into consideration the practical aspects of the matter - like the job that we have there or how expensive life is. One thing that no one almost ever considers is the rhythm of the city and the fact that this rhythm will take charge of our life once we relocate to the city.

Even though you haven’t studied Probabilities during 3 years at university like I did :|, you already know that the Rule of Majority always applies. In our case this rule will not be ignored: the majority of choices that the majority of inhabitants of the city make now, you will also make. There’s no escape.
Down the hill
If the majority of inhabitants of the city are stuck in traffic for 2 hours in the morning and another 2 in the evening, so will you. This is, of course, obvious. Some less obvious but not less painful aspects are:
- if the majority work from 9 to 7, so will you
- if the majority don’t do anything but sleep when they get home in the evening, so will you
- if the majority’s only way to enjoy themselves is to shop, so will you
- if the majority eat fast food at the office, so will you
- if the majority never go for a walk in the park, neither will you
- if the majority are influenced by what they see in TV and that only, so will you be

Some of these “rules” will take longer to take over your life, but they will also do that slower, and so you will not be able to tell that they did when it happens.
The world’s and a country’s biggest cities all obey the rule. Take a minute and think about it - think of a city (other than your own) and try to identify its rhythm. As this city has a rhythm and a life pattern, so does your own.
Paris view
Yes, of course you can try to live “outside the box” in a city. And you can even succeed. Not in all aspects though – because the offer obeys the Majority Rule also and fits the requirements of the majority. But you can struggle and succeed. The question is – how long can you struggle? In the end you will give up waking up at 6 to avoid traffic, or driving across town to find that Bio store you like, or paying a lot of money on books and DVDs for entertainment and you will give in… to the city.

But why should we struggle? We can avoid all the pain and no gain :) just by making the right choice from the start.

Look closely at the lives of the inhabitants of a new city – are they what you would like? In every little detail?
Because when it comes to living in a city, believing in your abilities to be the ONE that can escape the rhythm is an overrated thing.

Posted by Madalina at 16:48:12 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Monday, August 31, 2009

SharePoint ActiveX controls background color

Problem: a SharePoint skin with a dark background color. All the ActiveX controls (multiple file upload, Datasheet view) inherit the background color.

Solution: to keep the background you want, but not affect the ActiveX controls, include this fix:

body
{
background-color: white;
}
form#aspnetForm
{
background-color:#YOUR_DARK_COLOR#;
height:100%;
}

I found this extremely useful tip here.

Posted by Madalina at 18:17:22 | Permalink | No Comments »

SharePoint related jokes

To laugh at oneself is a good thing, that only intelligent people can do. As SharePoint developers, we are proud to also be able to laugh at our behavior, geekines and well… lives :) Here is one of the 40 jokes that Paul Swider gathered on his blog:

Q: How many SharePoint consultants does it take screw in a light bulb?
A: 100. 1 to do, 99 to say they could do it better.

Posted by Madalina at 18:07:45 | Permalink | No Comments »

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Sinteza Zilei

Respectul este un sentiment reciproc. Nu o linie verticala cu sageata numai in capatul de sus.

Posted by Madalina at 14:56:29 | Permalink | No Comments »

SharePoint 2010 Sneak Peak

If you wonder how SharePoint 2010 is like, Microsoft has given you the opportunity to have (some of) your questions answered. A sneak peak is available, through a presentation of the features that SharePoint 2010 together with Visual Studio 2010 and LINQ offer for SharePoint development.
  
The information is structured in 3 categories - Overview, IT Professional and Developer - so that you can choose what you want/need to know.

  

Posted by Madalina at 14:55:40 | Permalink | No Comments »

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Sinteza Zilei

M-am saturat sa tot aud sintagma “loialitate fata de companie”. In primul rand pentru ca traducerea corecta este “loialitate fata de sef” si in al doilea rand pentru ca daca vrei loialitate, ia-ti un caine.
 
Posted by Madalina at 11:40:33 | Permalink | No Comments »

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Vocalizing SharePoint errors

Just like any one of us, SharePoint also has the need to vocalize its complaints, requests and dreams… and, of course, errors.
By default, when an error occurrs in Sharepoint, we are presented with this pretty picture:
 

 
Not very vocal.
 
To let SharePoint share the real reason behind the error with us, we need to edit the web.config of the web application twice:
1. CallStack=”true”
2. customErrors mode=”Off”
  
After an IIS reset and a refresh of the error page, here is the result:
 

 
Much better, isn’t it? :)
   
Posted by Madalina at 16:17:59 | Permalink | Comments (1) »