Johnny's RIA Corner

Integrating a custom processor in FAST pipeline - part 1 of 2 by johnnyt

FAST for SharePoint 2010 allows us to integrate our own custom processor into the search engine's processing pipeline. While attempting to modify the default processing pipeline may sound like an hazardous task, its actually not that bad. In part 1 of the series we will set the stage for our custom processor by creating a BCS connector, set the managed properties and add a refiner to the refinement panel. For the purpose of this article, we'll use BCS as a connector for a database with the...

SharePoint Repository for NuGet is alive! by johnnyt

I'm happy to announce that my new open source project, created together with Eyal Vardi , SharePoint Repository for NuGet , is now live on Codeplex! SPRNuGet is a powerful integration between NuGet , the renowned .net package management system and Microsoft SharePoint 2010. SPRNuGet combines SharePoint 2010 powerful features such as security, publishing and UI to help you organize your code packages using build-in features of SharePoint such as folders, item level forms, ratings and enterprise...

Fast Tips for FAST for SharePoint #2 by johnnyt

When trying to query for a document that has a question mark (?) in its name or address as part of a FQL query, you may notice weird behavior from FAST. For example, let's send a query that look for a document with the URL address of http://localhost/blogs.aspx?blogid=5: string fqlQuery= @"and(path:(string(""http://localhost/blogs.aspx?blogid=5"", Mode=""PHRASE"")), filter(sitename:equals(""Local SharePoint"")))" ; Sending...

Working with FAST Search For SharePoint 2010 Document Promotions Programmatically by johnnyt

As much as I love working with the FAST for SharePoint 2010 search engine, finding documentation for it online is quite a challenging task. This is why I'm going to try and document as much as possible about the little 'gems' I find while working with FAST. Using FAST for SharePoint you can define documents to be promoted within the search results list, indicating that they are highly relevant results for a particular keyword or its synonyms. The promoted documents will appear at the...

Fast Tips for FAST for SharePoint #1 by johnnyt

It sure been a while, but nothing spells busy like work and university ;) In the next couple of short articles I’m going to give some fast tips (pun intended) for developing with the FAST search engine for SharePoint 2010. My first tip deals with setting Managed Metadata Properties for FAST without the use of PowerShell. 1) Start by going to your central admin->Manage service applications. 2) Click on your FAST Query SSA service: 3) Click on FAST search administration. 4) Click on Managed Properties...

Social SharePoint project on Codeplex updated! by johnnyt

My Codeplex project, Social SharePoint, just got updated with the Silverlight Twitter Trends web part. Go check it out at http://socialsharepoint.codeplex.com/ .

Working with SharePoint 2010 User Activity NewsFeed by johnnyt

I was recently tasked with creating an application that once used will add an entree to the user's activity feed. The activity feed is a fun and social feature (one of many) of SharePoint 2010, and its purpose is to present a feed of actions that the user or his colleagues performed on the site. You can see how the activity feed looks on the following screen shot, taken from my local SharePoint development environment : Now hopefully that got you excited enough to read on ;) We are going to build...

Fun with Silverlight and SharePoint 2010 Ribbon Control - Part 2 - An In Depth Look At The Ribbon Control by johnnyt

Welcome to part 2 of the "Fun with Silverlight and SharePoint 2010 Ribbon Control" series. If you haven't read part 1 go ahead and click here . So how do we deal with this ribbon? Well, by using the powers of XML! Let's take a closer look on how the OOTB ribbon is constructed: If we open the ribbon definitions file - cmdui.xml (which can be found at C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\GLOBAL\XML) we will see the following structure: <...

SharePoint Social Networking project on CodePlex by johnnyt

Last week i presented a session on the Israeli SharePoint user group about the ribbon control in SharePoint 2010. One of the things i showed in that session was a ribbon tab built for sharing and bookmarking links from the organizational intranet with other users using many providers such as Twitter, Facebook, Google, Reddit and others. The tab generated a lot of excitement in the audience so i decided to make it an open source project on CodePlex and in time add other social networking projects...

Fun with Silverlight and SharePoint 2010 Ribbon Control - Part 1 by johnnyt

So, my first REAL post of 2011... Let's make it count! A few days ago i started looking into the possibility of integrating Silverlight into the SharePoint 2010 Ribbon control. Naturally i checked my favorite blogs to see if someone has experimented with this already but i couldn't find a single mention of Silverlight and the ribbon working together, so i decided to create a small, fun (and to be honest quite useless) POC of using Silverlight as a control inside the SharePoint 2010 ribbon...

Getting SharePoint's user properties in your Silverlight 4 application by johnnyt

Recently i was tasked with creating a Silverlight LOB application that query SharePoint for it's data. One function of this application has to do with showing the details of a user based on the information found in SharePoint's user profile service, and in this tutorial i will focus on getting this information from SharePoint to Silverlight. In this tutorial we will build a simple application that shows the details of the user from SharePoint's user profile service using SharePoint's...

Twitter Trends jQuery web part gets redone in Silverlight by johnnyt

I've recently stumbled upon this awesome post by Shoban Kumar detailing the creation of a Twitter Trends web part for SharePoint 2010. I really liked the simplicity of the web part, its style and its purpose, so i contacted Shoban asking his approval to post a tutorial on how to create his web part in Silverlight. Shoban, all the credits for the idea and design goes to you my friend! Here is what the Silverlight counterpart of Shoban's web part looks like: To see how the application will...