Tech MOSS Team

Imtech Random Image Web Part displays randomly chosen Image. The Web Part takes as parameters URL of the Image Library containing images you would like to display. It is also possible to input multiple URL's separated by comma. Additional parameters you can set are: image width and height, in-line CSS style (like border, etc.), image link (you can make image point to the library where all the images are being shown) and the alternate text.

Imtech Site Members Web Part displays the list of users who belong to the Site's Members Group. As the Web Part produces XML and supports XSL you are free in setting the way the members are presented. Out of the box you get two styles: short (Picture and Preferred Name) and Long (Picture, Preferred Name, E-mail and Mobile Phone). To support setting custom XSL, there is an option to render the output as raw XML so you are able to see what fields there exactly are and how the Web Part expects you to build your XSL.

Both Web Parts are free and you can use them without any restrictions. To make it all easier the Web Parts are stored in a solution with the .webpart files supported. All you need to do is to deploy and install the solution and activate the feature.

Download Imtech.SharePoint.WebParts.wsp (10,1KB)

There has been a bug fixed posted. A new version (1.2.0.0) of Imtech Solution Setup is available. 

Imtech Solution Setup is a tool that installs and deploys SharePoint 2007 solution files (.wsp). The tool works in two modes: setup and standalone.

The standalone mode is meant for "each day" use: after starting the tool you have to select the .wsp you want to install. Then you have to select the Web Applications where you want to deploy the selected .wsp to and click "Setup".

In the setup mode the "Browse…" button is disabled: the .wsp has been passed to the setup tool as a command line argument. All the user has to do is select the deployment target(s) and click "Setup".

Although this tool is not extremely powerful and customizable its light weight and simplicity make it works for me. It turns pretty handy in MSI-kind installers.

Download Imtech Solution Setup v1.1.0.0 (44,5KB)

Imtech Solution Setup v1.1.0.0 is a free tool and you can use it without any restrictions.

Once in a while you need to paste one of these long strings into your C# code. I've set recently a record by pasting an exported SharePoint 2007 RSS Viewer Web Part: more than 400 lines! If it's only once during the solution development it's doable: you could get it well formatted using some Search and Replace with Regular Expressions. But what if you have to paste a dozen of such strings in your code?

That's when I thought that a tool would make life easier: Imtech C# String Converter. It's all for free so don't hesitate and try it out.

Download: Imtech C# String Converter v1.0.0.0.

Using CSS files is the recommended way for incorporating the chrome in a SharePoint WCM solution. Among the various definitions of the layout pieces there are also images' references. Each such reference can be defined using an absolute of relative URL. As long as you use images in the same directory as the CSS file there is no problem at all: you can manage all the paths easily by simply using one of the URL kinds. Unfortunately a problem occurs when you would like to use images from other directories for example the PublishingImages folder. They should be referenced via relative URLs. Using absolute URLs results in problems when a Site Collection doesn't reside in the root or /sites directory. Also sharing a CSS file among different Site Collections isn't possible while using PublishingImages folder: there is no simple way to make the images' paths be defined dynamically based on the Site Collection calling the CSS file.

Facing this challenge Erik and I figured out a solution: letting the CSS files be parsed by the ASP.NET handler and making SharePoint webcontrols write correct URLs based on the caller Site Collection. As this approach requires connecting of a file type with the parser it seems convenient to make all the files with .css extensions get parsed by ASP.NET. As there is a big possibility that you may use more than one CSS definition file within a solution it would create quite an overhead. That's why we have decided to define a new file extension for our dynamic CSS: CSSX.

Getting our .cssx files parsed by ASP.NET required two steps: sending a .cssx file to the ASP.NET pageHandler (code 1) and making the page built using the buildProvider (code 2). Below you can see both code snippets added within the web.config of the Web Application:

Code 1: Sending .cssx files to the ASP.NET page handler

<system.web>
  <httpHandlers>
    <add verb="GET" path="*.cssx" type="System.Web.UI.PageHandlerFactory" />
  </httpHandlers>
</system.web>

Code 2: Making the page built using the build provider

<system.web>
  <compilation batch="false" debug="true">
    <buildProviders>
      <add extension=".cssx" type="System.Web.Compilation.PageBuildProvider" />
    </buildProviders>
  </compilation>
</system.web>

Then it came to adjusting our CSSX files to the new situation and make them benefit of the SharePoint webcontrols. On the top of the .cssx file we've added:

<%@ Page Language="C#"%>
<%@ Register Tagprefix="PublishingWebControls" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.WebControls" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>

Registering the PublishingWebControls tag has granted us access to the $SPUrl prefix which helps creating the Site Collection URLs using ~SiteCollection.

It all worked out pretty well. in Microsoft Internet Explorer. Mozilla Firefox seemed to have problems with parsing the .cssx file. With the FireBug extension I've figured out that it doesn't recognize the .cssx files as CSS. I've fixed it by adding ContentType="text/css" to the Page directive:

<%@ Page Language="C#" ContentType="text/css"%>

Now we could use the solution and refer to all image resources like:

background-image: url("<asp:Literal runat='server' Text='<%$SPUrl:~SiteCollection/SiteCollectionImages/someimage.jpg%>'/>");

SharePoint would take care for the proper URL and the literal would render it in the .cssx file.

Knowing this approach will require adding some information in the web.config file, we've created a separate feature with a custom featurereceiver that would do this task. Later on we've found out that we could use the same feature for adding incorporating some more elements like URL rewriting and captchas. 

To make the feature put these code snippets in the right place we have use the SharePoint Add method of the WebConfigModifications collection. Before we did it we also had to define the XML to be added as an instance of the SPWebConfigModification class.

Code 3: Processing the modifications by the feature

SPWebConfigModification modification = new SPWebConfigModification("add[@path='*.cssx']","configuration/system.web/httpHandlers");
modification.Owner = "FeatureName";
modification.Sequence = 1;
modification.Type = SPWebConfigModification.SPWebConfigModificationType.EnsureChildNode;
modification.Value = "<add verb='GET' path='*.cssx' type='System.Web.UI.PageHandlerFactory'/>";
someWebApplication.WebConfigModifications.Add(modification);

modification = new SPWebConfigModification("buildProviders","configuration/system.web/compilation");
modification.Owner = "FeatureName";
modification.Sequence = 2;
modification.Type = SPWebConfigModification.SPWebConfigModificationType.EnsureChildNode;
modification.Value = "<buildProviders><add extension='.cssx' type='System.Web.Compilation.PageBuildProvider'/></buildProviders>";

someWebApplication.WebConfigModifications.Add(modification);

To process the changes we used the ApplyWebConfigModifications():

SPFarm.Local.Services.GetValue<SPWebService>(someWebApplication.Parent.Id).ApplyWebConfigModifications();