Richards blog

The 'Sign in as Another User' has been removed by default, but it can be easily added. There are a few options at your disposal: 1. Run your favourite browser 'as another user' by right clicking on it. 2. Navigate to the url <http://mysite>/_layouts/closeConnection.aspx?loginasanotheruser=true 3. Perform the following steps to add it to the user menu: a        Locate and then open the following file in a text editor: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server  Extensions\15\TEMPLATE\CONTROLTEMPLATES\Welcome.ascx b.       Add the following element before the existing "ID_RequestAccess" element: <SharePoint:MenuItemTemplate runat="server" ID="ID_LoginAsDifferentUser" Text="<%$Resources:wss,personalactions_loginasdifferentuser%>" Description="<%$Resources:wss,personalactions_loginasdifferentuserdescription%>" MenuGroupId="100" Sequence="100" UseShortId=...

My intranet homepage has a navigation menu displaying the large number of sub sites in the site collection. The problem with the menu items is that they were disappearing behind the user control at the top of the page. Fortunately, there is an easy fix - thank you  Z-Index ul.dynamic{ z-index:999; }

The intranet I am working on requires limited access to certain document libraries. This is easy enough - as I make my way through my configuration file in PowerShell, I gave the required users access to the document libraries they could see. The only problem is that the users did not have access to the root site, so the sub site did not appear in the Navigation Bar. I tried adding 'View Only' permissions at the end, but that undid all my good work. The solution was a change of approach; give the users access to the site and remove access from the items they should not see. Its always helpful to  sharpen the saw . $list = $web.Lists["MyList"] $web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = $true if ($list.HasUniqueRoleAssignments -eq $false) { $list.BreakRoleInheritance($true) } $user = $web.EnsureUser("Domain\user") $list.RoleAssignments.Remove($user) $list.Update() $web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = $false $web.Update() $web.Dispose()

My project was an intranet, a sub site monster that needed a query to show all the tasks for the current user. There were two options - recursive code (no thank you) or  SPSiteDataQuery . The key to the code is to limit the list query to the appropriate list type (see  here  for a list from Microsoft). In my case, it was "<Lists ListTemplate='107' />". Then add some simple CAML (thank you  Camldesigner ) and you are there. My final query was as follows:             SPSiteDataQuery q = new SPSiteDataQuery();             q.Webs = "<Webs Scope='SiteCollection' />";             q.Lists = "<Lists ListTemplate='107' />";             q.Query = "<Where><And><Or><Membership Type='CurrentUserGroups'><FieldRef Name='AssignedTo'/></Membership><Eq><FieldRef Name='AssignedTo'></FieldR...

Adding SPDisposeCheck to your VS solution is a good way to find potential performance and best practices issues early in the development cycle. The code can be downloaded from  http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/spdisposecheck The installed executable (if you use the default settings like I did) is stored in "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\SharePoint Dispose Check\SPDisposeCheck.exe" The final step is to add the following script as a post build event: cd $(ProjectDir) “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\SharePoint Dispose Check\SPDisposeCheck” “$(TargetPath)” > “$(ProjectName)”.SPDisposeCheck.log findstr /C:”Total Found:” “$(ProjectName)”.SPDisposeCheck.log This will write the 'Total Found' with the number of SPDisposeCheck errors generated by the tool

Switching users in SharePoint can be a pain - there is not 'Log In as Another User' in the suitebar. The simple solution is to navigate to ~sitecollection/_layouts/closeConnection.aspx?loginasanotheruser=true and you will be prompted to log in again.

I recently created a carousel control that read a few properties from AD. I found this post  here  very useful - an extensive list of available properties.

Starting and stopping a service in PowerShell is pretty straight forward: Start-SPServiceInstance and Stop-SPServiceInstance The tricky bit is passing in the correct parameter - the identity of the Service Instance. The service can be found using Get-SPServiceInstance | Select TypeName, Id. This will provide a list of the services and their corresponding Ids. You can then cut and paste the Guid into the appropriate command: Start-SPServiceInstance -Identity <Guid>

It can be quite frustrating when the name of a list does not correspond to the URL.  For example, the default Images library maps to /publishingimages/.  I had this problem a little while ago and the solution was staring me in the face - the answer is held in the object model. If you pass in the name of the list ("Images"), you can get the SPList the old fashioned way:  SPList list = SPContext.Current.Web.Lists["Images"]. However, if you manufacture a link, you need to use list.RootFolder.Name (or SPContext.Current.Web.Lists["Images"].RootFolder.Name)

Adding a CSS reference to a visual web part is quite simple: <SharePoint:CssLink ID="Test" runat="server" DefaultUrl="Url/blah.css" /> The problem comes when referencing a relative url with spaces in it. To URL Encode or not, that is the question. Initially, I have the reference as DefaultUrl="/Style%20Library/blah.css", but it was not being picked up by the web part. When I opened the source of the page, I found why - the url was being URL encoded by Sharepoint. This means that the URL in the source was <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/Style %2520 Library/blah.css"/> The URL was now double encoded. I removed the %20 from the Url to resolve the problem.

It seems that the deployment code required for a masterpage in SharePoint 2013 is a little different from previous versions. The same logic applies - create a module and deploy it with a feature. Here is a sample module code, using my custom masterpage 'MyMaster.master' <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">   <Module Name="MasterPageModule" List="116" Url="_catalogs/masterpage">     <File Path="MasterPageModule\MyMaster.master" Url="MyMaster.master" Type="GhostableInLibrary" />   </Module> </Elements> And here is the code in the feature receiver on the FeatureActivated event. SPSite site = properties.Feature.Parent as SPSite; SPWeb curWeb = site.RootWeb; //create full master url Uri masterURI = new Uri(curWeb.Url + "/_catalogs/masterpage/MyMaster.master"); curWeb....

Here  is an excellent article outlining how to resolve the problem. The problem is that site template creation is disabled by default. This property can be easily changed through Sharepoint Designer (in the Site Options button -> change the value of 'SaveSiteAsTemplateEnabled' to 'true'). Navigate to ~site/_layouts/15/savetmpl.aspx and create the template.

The following script will add some managed metadata for navigation purposes. It will create a term store call 'My Group' and a term set  called  'My Term Set'. It will then add navigation links to Google and Hotmail. # define some variables $defaultMetadataServiceProxy = "Managed Metadata Service" $groupName = "My Group" $termSetName="My Term Set Name #create the function to add the terms function CreateNavigationTerm($termSet, $termName, $link, $termstore) { Write-Host "Add $termName" $term = $termset.CreateTerm("$termName",1033) $term.SetLocalCustomProperty("_Sys_Nav_SimpleLinkUrl", $link) $termstore.CommitAll() Write-Host "Successfully added $termName" } #get central admin $adminwebapp = Get-SPWebapplication -includecentraladministration | where {$_.IsAdministrationWebApplication} $caSite=Get-SPSite $adminwebapp.Url #get the Taxonomy session $session = new-object Microsoft.Sh...

My current masterpage contains some custom images and a banner. <div id="wrapper">     <div id="logo">           <a href="/"><img src="/Style%20Library/Images/MyLogo.jpg" alt="My Logo" /></a> </div> <div id="banner" /> and a little css around it #banner{ background-image:url(/Style%20Library/Images/MyBanner.jpg); background-repeat:no-repeat; } This makes the site look great until I try and upload a file to a document library - the banner is now appearing in the upload page. One way to get rid of it is to use a little JQuery to remove the images. $(document).ready(function () {                 var pathname = window.location.pathname.toLowerCase();                                     if(( pathname.indexOf('_layouts/15/upload.aspx') >0 )     ...