Windows Phone Apps, SharePoint 2013 Online and Getting Free Development Started Using Visual Studio Express

Over at Christian Heindel's blog I read the post about authenticating with SharePoint 2013 from a Windows Phone app and thought I'd give it a try.

If you are impatient and just want to start developing here is what you have to do to get your development system on Windows 8 up and running:

• Install Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Phone (as IDE)
• Get the SharePoint SDK; For me worked:
  • Install Visual C# 2010 Express
  • Install Visual C# 2010 Express SP1 via Windows Update
  • Install Windows Phone SDK 7.1, ignore compatibility warnings and XNA error
  • Install SharePoint SDK Windows Phone 7.1
• Get a sample solution and start coding!

Setting up the Development Environment

First I needed to set up my development environment. My operating system is a Windows 8 Pro and has until today been SharePoint-free. I used only Express editions of Visual Studio which you can get for free here.

Since I had already developed Windows Phone apps I had Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Phone installed and ready.

Next I needed to install the Microsoft SharePoint SDK for Windows Phone to get the necessary SharePoint assemblies. Seems like version 7.1 of the SDK is the only one available. Quote from the download page:

The Preview SDK installs Windows Phone CSOM libraries for Windows Phone, SharePoint Auth library for Windows Phone and Windows Phone Project Templates, which can be used to build Windows Phone 7.1 Applications against SharePoint 2013 Preview or SharePoint 2010.

The SDK setup did not recognize my Visual Studio Express 2012 and demanded a Visual Studio 2010 to be present. I searched some time for a newer SDK but did not find any.

So I sighed and installed Visual C# Express 2010. Next I installed SP1 via Windows Update so I could install Windows Phone SDK 7.1.

On Windows 8 I got a compatibility warning for the Windows Phone SDK and an error at the end of the setup which is related to XNA Game Studio. Just ignore it.

After the phone SDK I could finally install Microsoft SharePoint SDK Preview for Windows Phone 7.1. (Update: Install the final version instead, see below for details.)

The SharePoint SDK setup put the following assemblies to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\SharePoint\v15.0\Phone\v7.1\Libraries:

• Microsoft.ProjectServer.Client.Phone.dll
• Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Phone.dll
• Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Phone.Runtime.dll
• Microsoft.Sharepoint.Client.Taxonomy.Phone.dll
• Microsoft.Sharepoint.Client.Userprofiles.Phone.dll
• Microsoft.SharePoint.Phone.Application.dll

Quick Win Using One of the Sample Apps

You can download sample solutions from the Dev Center Page Christian linked to.

I chose the sample solution SharePoint 2013: Store and retrieve SharePoint list items on a Windows Phone since it sounded like it would be easy to test.

If you don't have a SharePoint 2013 Online site to test you can sign up for free for an Office 365 Developer Site.

After downloading the solution I opened it with Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Phone and built it - which succeeded without any problems. This was surprising since I expected that I have to add Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Phone.Auth.UI.dll like Christian needed to do.

I didn't have to change the sample at all, it worked right out of the box. Which is good since Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Phone.Auth.UI.dll is not present anywhere on my machine. The SharePoint-related references of the sample app look like this:

Apparently Authenticator in my case is coming from Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Phone.Runtime.dll.

Now it was time to test, so I created a list, added a test item, modified TargetSiteUrl and TargetList in the sample app accordingly and that's it:

Hello SharePoint in the Cloud!

Update: SharePoint Preview SDK for Windows Phone 7.1 vs. Final Version

Seems like MSDN and the Sample Solutions need to be updated - they link to and reference the SharePoint Preview SDK while there is already the final version available!

The SharePoint SDK for Windows Phone 7.1 is available for download.

When building the sample projects you will now get errors for type Authenticator:

Error 1 The type or namespace name 'Authenticator' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

The solution indeed is to add a reference to Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Phone.Auth.UI. There are two other assemblies which are new in the final SDK, so if you are missing these make sure you don't have the preview installed:

• Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Search.Applications.Phone.dll
• Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Search.Phone.dll

Thanks Christian in the comments.

Working on it...

It took 3 minutes.

Solved: "Prefix '..' does not map to a namespace" when binding to a custom dependency property

I quickly want to share some information about a strange error I got when binding to one of my dependency properties and how to solve it.

The error is a TypeNameParserException with the following additional information: Prefix 'dp' does not map to a namespace.

TypeNameParserException

I got this when binding to one of my dependency properties with namespace, like this:

<ContextMenu x:Key="contextMenu" Tag="{Binding PlacementTarget.(dp:MyClass.MyDependencyProperty), RelativeSource={RelativeSource Self}, Mode=OneWay}">

As you can see the element is a context menu (which is defined in a Resources section, don't know if this matters). And I am binding to the dependency property dp:MyClass.MyDependencyProperty of the context menu's PlacementTarget (PlacementTarget is the element the context menu is invoked for).

This binding caused the problem because as soon as I opened the context menu I got the TypeNameParserException. When I removed this binding the error went away.

So this lead to the error:
Binding PlacementTarget.(dp:MyClass.MyDependencyProperty)

(Note: there were no compiler warnings, no squiggly lines, everything seemed valid.)
After some fiddling and googling I found the solution.

This solved the error:
Binding Path=PlacementTarget.(dp:MyClass.MyDependencyProperty)

It's simple: you explicitly have to specify the Path part! See the difference? Let's highlight it a bit more:

Binding Path=PlacementTarget.(dp:MyClass.MyDependencyProperty)

Maybe this helps you when you get strange namespace-related errors.

A Better ULS Log File Viewer

While analyzing SharePoint ULS logs I felt the need for a better ULS log viewer. With more capabilities than the existing ones ^{1, 2}. I don't like them. They are either old, look ugly or don't provide the capabilities I need.

Time to create a better one. Time for Heu's ULS Viewer.

I will provide more information soon.

Update - Download Heu's ULS Viewer here.

Until then here are some teaser screenshots:

Main View

Main view of Heu's ULS Viewer

Features:

1.  Support for multiple log files
• file contents will be concatenated
• Drag & Drop support
• fast log file parsing
2. Extended filtering capabilities
• decide in which of the columns you want to filter
• two different filter types; you can choose to include items matching your search term, or to exlude items matching it
3. Grid view of all log entries
• sort by clicking column header
• fast sorting even for large data sets
• select multiple rows and copy them to clipboard by pressing Ctrl+C (good for quickly pasting them to a mail or support ticket)
4. Detailed display of selected log entry
• multi-line log entries are merged to one
• proper formatting of stack traces

Visualization

Visualization of message count over time

Visualizing SharePoint ULS log messages provides a general survey you don't easily get when looking at the raw log data. For now there are two series: one for the overall log message count (in blue) and one for the log messages with level "Unexpected" (in red).

The diagrams respect your current filters.

That's all for today. I hope you are as excited as I am. Stay tuned for more!

Getting Shell Integration for TFS when using TFS Cloud Services and Visual Studio Express 2012

I recently started using Team Foundation Service 2012 in the cloud together with Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop. The cloud service allows me to easily put my sources under version control and schedule automatic builds without having to set up any servers.

From TortoiseSVN I am used to access source control features from the context menu of files and folders. For instance I want to be able to add files to source control directly from the right-click menu.

This is possible. The short-named Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2012 Update 1 Power Tools contains a shell extension which does exactly that. Cool!

But my first attempt to install the Power Tools failed. It thought having Visual Studio Express installed would be enough. But apparently you first have to install Team Explorer for Microsoft Visual Studio 2012.

Having done this the Power Tools installation succeeds and you get the full context menu goodness:

TFS shell integration

Remember: How to delete a Crawled Property

Deleting a crawled property from SharePoint is easy but sometimes requires a little preparation.

Summary | This post shows how to delete a crawled property and how to prepare it.

Deleting a crawled property might be necessary if

• you are developing a custom indexing connector and are still testing it; obsolete properties will accumulate over time
• your BDC changes from time to time and every change leads to new crawled properties being created with the next full crawl
• $otherReason 

The list of all crawled properties can be found at Central Administration -> Search Service Application -> Queries and Results -> Metadata Properties -> Crawled Properties.

Deleting unused crawled properties

In SharePoint 2010 deleting a single crawled property is not possible. But you can delete all unused crawled properties of a category.

Go to Metadata Properties and click Categories:

In the context menu of a category click Edit Category:

Check the option Delete all unmapped crawled properties and click OK:

All unused crawled properties should be gone after clicking OK. But if the one you want to delete is still present then the next chapter is for you to read.

Unmapping and unindexing 

You have to remove all mappings from the property and you also have to remove it from the search index.

Click Edit/Map Property in the context menu of a crawled property:

The Edit Crawled Property page opens.

Make sure you

• remove all mappings for this property
• do not include values for this property in the search index

Repeat this for all properties which should be deleted when deleting unused properties of its category.

Note: Some OOB SharePoint crawled properties cannot be deleted.

Translation of SharePoint Terms from English to German

When writing technical documentation for SharePoint I frequently need to switch between the English and German terms for SharePoint interior. The German translation tends to produce constructs which often are funny and very long - and hard to remember. So I decided to assemble some vocabulary for quick reference.

Summary | This blog post provides you with SharePoint terms in English and their German translation. The post will be extended over time.

General

English	Deutsch	Version
Site	Website	2007
Site Collection	Websitesammlung	2007
Farm	Farm	2007
Web Application	Webanwendung	2007
Page	Seite	2007
Site Actions	Websiteaktionen	2007
Site Settings	Websiteeinstellungen	2007
People and Groups	Benutzer und Gruppen	2007
Site collection administrators	Websitesammlungsadministratoren	2007
Advanced permissions	Erweiterte Berechtigungen	2007
Look and Feel	Aussehen und Verhalten	2007
Save site as template	Website als Vorlage speichern	2007
Site features	Websitefeatures	2007
Template	Vorlage	2007

Permissions

English	Deutsch	Version
Permission Levels	Berechtigungsstufen	2007
Limited Access	Beschränkter Zugriff	2007
Read	Lesen	2007
Contribute	Teilnehmen	2007
Design	Entwerfen	2007
Full Control	Vollzugriff	2007
List Permissions	Listenberechtigungen	2007
Manage Lists	Listen verwalten	2007
Override Check Out	Auschecken außer Kraft setzen	2007
Add Items	Elemente hinzufügen	2007
Edit Items	Elemente bearbeiten	2007
Delete Items	Elemente löschen	2007
View Items	Elemente anzeigen	2007
Approve Items	Elemente genehmigen	2007
Open Items	Elemente öffnen	2007
View Versions	Versionen anzeigen	2007
Delete Versions	Versionen löschen	2007
Create Alerts	Benachrichtigungen erstellen	2007
View Application Pages	Anwendungsseiten anzeigen	2007

Search

English	Deutsch	Version
Enterprise Search Center	Unternehmenssuchcenter	2010
Basic Search Center	Basissuchcenter	2010
Search Results Action Links	Links für Suchaktionen	2010
Search Action Links	Hyperlinks für Suchergebnisaktionen	2010
Search Core Results	Kernergebnisse der Suche	2010
Refinement Panel	Verfeinerungsbereich	2010
Refinement Panel Caption	Überschrift des Einschränkungsbereichs	2010
Result Query Options	Abfrageoptionen für Ergebnisse	2010
Refinement	Einschränkung	2010
Accuracy Index	Genauigkeitsindex	2010
Number of Categories to Display	Anzahl der anzuzeigenden Kategorien	2010
Number of Characters to Display	Anzahl der anzuzeigenden Zeichen	2010

Search Alerts

English	Deutsch	Version
New Alert	Neue Benachrichtigung	2010
Alert Title	Benachrichtigungstitel	2010

Central Administration

English	Deutsch	Version
Application Management	Anwendungsverwaltung	2010
Manage web applications	Webanwendungen verwalten	2010
Manage service applications	Dienstanwendungen verwalten	2010
Manage content databases	Inhaltsdatenbanken verwalten	2010

Search Service Application

English	Deutsch	Version
Queries and Results	Abfragen und Ergebnisse	2010
Authoritative Pages	Autorisierende Seiten	2010
Federated Locations	Partnerspeicherorte	2010
Metadata Properties	Metadateneigenschaften	2010
Scopes	Bereiche	2010
Search Result Removal	Suchergebnisse entfernen	2010
Search Federation	Partnersuche	2010
New location	Neuer Speicherort	2010
Federated Location	Partnerspeicherort	2010