Search results matching tag 'VSeWSS'

Visual Studio 2008 extensions for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, v1.3 - Mar 2009 CTP released

hvdkamp — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 12:36:37 GMT

A new CTP version of the SharePoint project and item templates for Visual Studio 2008 are available. Remember that an CTP version is still in development, so Microsoft Support doesn’t officially support them.

Download VSeWSS v1.3 March 2009 CTP from the Microsoft Download Center.

Error logging

The descriptive error’s, which I blogged about in “Getting the Visual Studio 2008 extensions for SharePoint v1.3 CTP to work on Windows Server 2008”, are better documented now. VSeWSS creates a log file with debug information, e.g. why the deployment of a web part has failed. Some example errors that VSeWSS shows you are:

The feature name WebPart1 already exists in SharePoint. You need to rename the feature before solution deployment can succeed.
The solution can not be deployed. The feature '7c05e196-d953-4b90-a910-0f6802648e7d' uses the directory "MyList instance" in the solution. However, it is currently installed in the farm to the directory "List Definition1 instance". Uninstall the existing feature before you install a new version of the solution.
No SharePoint Site exists at the specified URL.

VSeWSS 1.3 Overview

For those who are new to SharePoint development with VSeWSS, here is Microsoft’s overview.

This is the SharePoint developer tools for Visual Studio 2008. These tools are suitable for use with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. It includes project and item templates for common SharePoint artifacts, it includes build, packaging and deployment for SharePoint solutions and it includes the SharePoint Solution Generator which creates a new Visual Studio 2008 project from a SharePoint site.
The tools provide item templates for List Definition, List Definition from Content Type, Content Type, Field Control, Web Part, Module, Root File, Template, Event Receiver, and List Instance. It provides project templates for Team Site Definition, Blank Site Definition, List Definition, Web Part and Empty. It works with Visual Basic .NET and C# languages and a comprehensive user guide is included. It does not include the SharePoint Workflow templates as they are built in with Visual Studio 2008.
New features in version 1.3 include:

Can be installed on x64 Server OS machines running SharePoint x64. Previously only x86 Server OS could be used
Separate build commands for package, deploy and retract are added as Visual Studio menu items
WSP View improvements for consistency of deleting feature elements, merging features and adding event receivers to features
Command line build, package and retract commands are included enabling continuous integration and build servers. Previously command line build of SharePoint projects was very difficult
Refactoring support for renaming of Web Parts. Previously renaming a web part required changes in several files in the project
Solution Generator can now generate solutions from publishing sites. Previously only regular sites could be generated
Allowing partial trust BIN deployments of web parts
New project item template for SharePoint RootFiles items
Deployment will now optionally remove conflicting existing features on the development server prior to redeployment. Previously any feature name conflicts would result in an error
Ancillary assemblies such as for business logic can now be added to the SharePoint Solution WSP
Hidden features related to Site Definition projects are now shown in WSP View. They are no longer hidden
For advanced users a fast deploy is included to update only the compiled assembly on the SharePoint development installation
Deployment step logging is included
The List Definition from Content Type template now allows for the creation of a List Definition Event Receiver
The User Guide is now installed with the extensions instead of being a separate download

Getting the Visual Studio 2008 extensions for SharePoint v1.3 CTP to work on Windows Server 2008

hvdkamp — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 16:21:00 GMT

January 2009 the Microsoft SharePoint Product Group announced the Community Technology Preview of Visual Studio 2008 extensions for SharePoint v1.3 (VSeWSS). Previous VSeWSS versions were not out-of-the box installable on x64 machines, therefore I blogged about Installing Visual Studio Extensions for Windows SharePoint Services on 64-bit machines. It’s great to see that x64 support has been added to version 1.3. The complete list of new features are:

Can be installed on x64 Server OS machines running SharePoint x64. Previously only x86 Server OS could be used.
Separate build commands for package, deploy and retract are added
Command line build, package and retract commands are included enabling continuous integration and build servers. Previously command line build of SharePoint projects was very difficult
Refactoring support for renaming of Web Parts. Previously renaming a web part required changes in several files in the project
WSP View improvements for consistency of deleting feature elements, merging features and adding event receivers to features
Solution Generator can now generate solutions from publishing sites. Previously only regular sites could be generated
Allowing partial trust BIN deployments of web parts. CAS configuration must still be provided by the developer.
New project item template for SharePoint RootFiles items
Deployment will now optionally remove conflicting existing features on the development server prior to redeployment. Previously any feature name conflicts would result in an error
Ancillary assemblies such as for business logic can now be added to the SharePoint Solution WSP
Hidden features related to Site Definition projects are now shown in WSP View. They are no longer hidden
For advanced users a fast deploy is included to update only the compiled assembly on the SharePoint development installation
The User Guide is now installed with the extensions instead of being a separate download

The final release of VSeWSS 1.3 is planned for the North American Spring of 2009. The CTP version is available on the Microsoft Connect VSeWSS website where you are welcome to post your feedback.

What I did to get the VSeWSS 1.3 CTP working on my Windows Server 2008 development machine

The new VSeWSS version makes use of a Web Service to connect to local SharePoint sites and WCF is used to connect to that Web Service. Because the current VSeWSS version is a CTP version, it’s not marked as stable and contains bugs. Error messages can contain very little information about the problem and how to fix it, so here are my tips to get you started.

Read the “Release Notes”

The Release Notes document contains a lot information how to get this VSeWSS version working and needs to be your starting point.

Getting around the error “The communication object, System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannel, cannot be used for communication because it is in the Faulted state.”

The deployment of my SharePoint solutions failed with the error “The communication object, System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannel, cannot be used for communication because it is in the Faulted state”. On my x86 environment I re-registered WCF using the command:

%Windir%\Microsoft.Net\Framework\v3.0\Windows Communication Foundation\ServiceModelReg.exe -r

x64 users can re-register WCF using the command:

%Windir%\Microsoft.Net\Framework64\v3.0\Windows Communication Foundation\ServiceModelReg.exe -r

More information on the MSDN Forums thread “VSeWSS 1.3 Deploy fails with Faulted state”.

Getting around the error “Error: Assembly {0} not found.”

After I fixed the previous error, the deployment of SharePoint solutions failed with the cryptic error “Error: Assembly {0} not found.”. The VSeWSS Web Service account needs to be in the local administrator group and have SharePoint Farm Administrator rights. My Windows Server 2008 machine is enrolled into it’s own domain, so I did the following:

Started IIS7
Created a new application pool with the administrator account as its identity
Put the VSeWSS Web Service into the new application pool
Added the administrator account to the WSS_RESTRICTED_WPG user group.

Maybe not the most security friendly way, but for me it is acceptable at the moment for my development environment. More information on the MSDN Forums thread “Problems with use of VSeWSS 1.3 in Visual Studio 2008”.

After all this work I’m able to make use of the new VSeWSS version, hope this helps you.

Installing Visual Studio Extensions for Windows SharePoint Services on 64-bit machines

hvdkamp — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:04:00 GMT

The Visual Studio Extensions for Windows SharePoint Services (VSeWSS) is a set of tools for developing custom SharePoint applications. It adds project templates and project item templates to your Visual Studio 2008 environment and contains a SharePoint Solution Generator to generate Visual Studio projects from existing SharePoint environments.

By default the VSeWSS Extensions installation program only supports 32-bit machines, you cannot install VSeWSS on 64-bit machines. By modifying the MSI installer using Microsoft's Orca tool, available inside the Windows SDK, you can change the installer to add 64-bit installation support.

SharePoint Buzz already created a modified MSI for you. Download the VSeWSS 64-bit version of SharePoint Buzz.