We are working on revising the ins and outs of our surveying application currently known as SPA. I am working on UI functionality and design changes in order to give a more unified look to our flagship web application. Exciting changes are in store!

So many platforms and so much to learn! I've transitioned somewhat away from Sharepoint at the moment and made my way back to something a little more familiar to me.  Well not entirely.  

I've been working on a WPF application that will be used at the reception desk at the front of the building that will allow people to check in and out. The icing on the cake is that the application will be driven by a touch screen to allow for quick interaction. The typical user interaction with an application can vary greatly in comparison to a web page.  It's been an interesting look not only at the user experience for standalone apps but at WPF itself. Sometimes it seemed like some tasks were so much more complicated than they needed to be that left me furiously searching Google and muttering to myself 'why on earth would you do it like that'. Coming from a generally more web-based background, it's been a bit of a challenge moving away from the web and working with a standalone app. There is a complimentary web application that will work closely with the desktop app and both pieces are moving further and further towards completion.

As of right now there is another upcoming project that will be using DotNetNuke so I'm starting to work my way through learning that.  It's a pretty robust platform and I'm interested to see what other things it's capable of in the upcoming days.

After some more dabbling in Sharepoint 2007 I started to look at what sort of data integration I could do using Sharepoint and using custom web parts.  Enter the DataView Web Part control. 

DataView is only available through the Sharepoint Designer (which is now offered for free from Microsoft).  It allows you to set up numerous data connections through the Data Source Library panel. Sharepoint can connect to database sources, Sharepoint lists and libraries, XML files, scripts, and even create linked sources between data sets that can allow for merged data views.

For our purposes the database connections was the most pertinent but there was a problem that I couldn't seem to fix for a good couple hours until a forum post online helped me figure it out. It seemed like no matter how much I toyed around in SQL Server Management Studio with user permissions and making sure that the ASP.net temprorary space for Sharepoint wasn't stale and IIS resets I still got this error.

Until finally after poking around forums and such someone noted that Sharepoint Designer, when building these queries, doesn't attach a schema name to the table.  The query runs but doesn't include a schema, if any, in front of the table that's being queried.  I was using sample data from Microsoft's site, the Adventure Works package, and noticed there was a schema of [SalesLT] in front of the table name.  Went back to the custom query that it built and added that as a custom string, and voila! 

Now the fields could be picked and bound to the web part control in whatever manner desired.  I'm not really sure if this issue has been fixed in Sharepoint 2010 but it seems like Microsoft could have caught this and done something about it sooner.  It could just be that the sample data I'm using is in the Sharepoint database itself and is forced to use a schema.  A database without a schema would be fine and usually is the case, but this little oddity could have saved me 3-4 hours wanting to hit my head against the desk.

I've spent a week or two getting more familiar with Sharepoint 2007 and namely researching custom web parts to develop customized solutions for users. Never really spent any time with Sharepoint before but it seems robust in what it offers. I had some troubles at first with deployment of custom web parts due to permission settings on the .dll that is generated when building a web part. A bit of a rookie mistake it might seem but I'm learning. Walk before run.

As of now I'm still working through the book Professional Sharepoint 2007 Development from Wrox Publishing. Seems very comprehensive on Sharepoint development but a lot of it is still over my head.

Along the Sharepoint journey I've become familiar as well with how Sharepoint works and what sort of solutions it offers as well as run through Sharepoint Designer (which is offered for free now).

More to come in the week to follow.

The new site has launched and we're happy to showcase the new face of MID Technologies.  The site was built from the ground up as an ASP.net application and we're working to add features that will allow visitors to see what we're all about.