As a consultant, I have to create webparts that can be updated and maintained by the staff developers and at least in my experience, those developers have a lot of experience with custom ASP.NET Web User Control (ascx) creation and not a lot of experience with SharePoint 2007′s object model and API. In many of these environments I have found that using SmartPart v3, from Jan Tielens is a good middle ground.
The SmartPart is a general purpose webpart that can contain any ASP.NET User Control and also provides access to the MOSS object model. There are a variety of examples that already exist for creating User Controls, but the key here is the ability to integrate them by simply copying the files to each of the web front-ends (after the SmartPart webpart has been properly deployed, of course).
STSADM is a powerful utility for administering SharePoint solutions. The complete reference can be found on Microsoft TechNet, but the quick syntax is fairly easy and breaks down as follows:
‘deploysolution’ is used the first time a solution is deployed.
stsadm -o addsolution
stdadm -o deploysolution
‘upgradesolution’ is used to upgrade an existing solution.
While there are a variety of WebParts out there for embedding Virtual Earth / Bing into your SharePoint site, there is a much quicker and easier solution that only requires out-of-the-box features – namely the Content Editor WebPart and the EMBED tag.
The next quick clip shows Virtual Earth / Bing embedded in a public site that I created that uses XML to dynamically control the LONG and LAT of the points of interest (known as pushpins).
So what are the quick steps?
Step 1: create a custom SharePoint ASPX page to host the map. The easiest way to accomplish this (and what’s demo’ed in the next video clip) is with SharePoint Designer. The code that is pasted in the clip is contained in the source zip. Make sure you paste the code inside the <form></form> tag.
