SharePoint Lists vs Database (RDBMS)

SharePoint is not meant to replace database, SharePoint is evolving as a "Enterprise Content Management and Collabration" Software or Application Development Platform depending on the target audience.

SharePoint List doesn't support
1) Relationship (other then simple relationships)
2) Transactions

SharePoint List supports
1) Indexing
2) Sorting
3) Filtering
4) Views

There are some third party tools (like SLAM), which helps in making relationships between lists. But keep in mind they have limitations and performance issues as SharePoint is not a RDBMS. We can't fly a passenger plane to moon, you need a rocket.

Branding SharePoint 2007

Branding SharePoint 2007 Site using CSS

In SharePoint CSS can exists at places:

* In the 12'hive in the core.css
* In the Theme folder of 12'hive depending on the theme
* In the Master Page itself, i.e. inline css
* Page referring custom css files
* Content editor webpart
* WebPart code behind

So what's the order of execution of the CSS at page render time (i.e. CSS inheritance).

Well, this is kinda complicated it depends upon bunch of factor:

* Ghosted/Unghosted Master Page
* Unghosting Core.css using SPD
* Making copy of layouts folder
* How the master page is deployed
and so on ...

As Thumb Rule to keeps things simple,easy and efficient, do the following:

* Inline CSS inside the MasterPage
* CSS for only certain pages, use content editor webpart

BTW, Use IE developer toolbar to see whats styles from CSS is finally applied to the page content.

SharePoint Custom Application Logs in the EventViewer (source code)

Custom Logging to Event Viewer by SharePoint Custom code:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Diagnostics;

namespace My.Foo.Bar
{
public class EventLogHandler
{
static string sSource = "My Portal";
static string sLog = "Application";                   //Change it to any specific name for categorization purpose in the Eventviewer.
//static string sEvent = "Error Occurred";

public static void AddApplicationEventLog(string exceptionDetails)
{
try
{
System.Security.Principal.WindowsImpersonationContext wic =
// make impersonation = false in the code.
System.Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity.Impersonate(IntPtr.Zero);

if (!EventLog.SourceExists(sSource))
EventLog.CreateEventSource(sSource, sLog);

if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(exceptionDetails))
{
//EventLog.WriteEntry(sSource, sEvent);
EventLog.WriteEntry(sSource, exceptionDetails,
EventLogEntryType.Error, 234);
}
else
EventLog.WriteEntry(sSource, "No Error Message", EventLogEntryType.Information, 234);

// again roll back the Impersonation = true
//ExceptionManager.Publish(e);
wic.Undo();
}
catch (Exception e1)
{
//do nothing
}
}
}
}

Usage from your custom code, once you have the above class as a part of your application:

EventLogHandler.AddApplicationEventLog("Your message for event viewer");
The Event Viewer doesn't display the custom log message, if the application is not registered for the logging in the event viewer. To register your custom application with the eventviewer,
Run the following console application:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Diagnostics;

namespace EventLogWriter
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
try
{
string sSource = "My SP Web Portal";
string sLog = "Application";
string exceptionDetails = "Sample Entry";
try
{
System.Security.Principal.WindowsImpersonationContext wic =
// make impersonation = false in the code.
System.Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity.Impersonate(IntPtr.Zero);

if (!EventLog.SourceExists(sSource))
EventLog.CreateEventSource(sSource, sLog);

if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(exceptionDetails))
{
//EventLog.WriteEntry(sSource, sEvent);
EventLog.WriteEntry(sSource, exceptionDetails,
EventLogEntryType.Error, 234);
}
else
EventLog.WriteEntry(sSource, "No Error Message", EventLogEntryType.Information, 234);

// again roll back the Impersonation = true
//ExceptionManager.Publish(e);
wic.Undo();
}
catch (Exception e1)
{
//do nothing
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
}
}
}
}

Database Transactions in NetTier

Transactions are must when working on real time projects, always compliy with ACID properties

Try the following:

TransactionManager tran = DataRepository.Provider.CreateTransaction();
tran.BeginTransaction();
bool success = false;
try
{
// do some inserts / updates / etc
DataRepository.TicketProvider.Update(tran, ticket); //OR INSERT METHOD
UpdateSharePointLibrary(ticket.XML);
success = true;
}
Catch(Exception ex)
{
Success = false;
}
finally
{
if (success)
tran.Commit();
else
tran.Rollback();
}

If the above approach doesn't work try the one below:

try
{
using (TransactionScope scope = new TransactionScope(TransactionScopeOption.Required, TimeSpan.MaxValue))
{
//web service call
// db calls
...
scope.Complete();
}//scope

}
catch (Exception ex)
{
.....
}

SharePoint WebService Response and XML Parsing

XML Parsing

XML Returned by WebService Call
<br /> <groups xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/soap/directory/"><br /> <br /> <group id="9" name="ABELNOSERCORP-BrokerDealer-USER-GROUP" description="" ownerid="1073741823" ownerisuser="True"><br /> <group id="5" name="SharePoint Development Portal Members" description="Use this group to give people contribute permissions to the SharePoint site: SharePoint Development Portal" ownerid="3" ownerisuser="False"><br /> <group id="3" name="SharePoint Development Portal Owners" description="Use this group to give people full control permissions to the SharePoint site: SharePoint Development Portal" ownerid="3" ownerisuser="False"><br /> <group id="4" name="SharePoint Development Portal Visitors" description="Use this group to give people read permissions to the SharePoint site: SharePoint Development Portal" ownerid="3" ownerisuser="False"><br /> </group><br /> <br /> </groups><br />

XML Parsing

private bool IsGroupExisting(ugWebService.UserGroup ugws, ArrayList grps)
{
bool flag = false;
try
{
if (grps != null & grps.Count != 0)
{
for (int i = 0; i < grps.Count; i++)
{
//Find the groups in the SP Level and if any exists notify
System.Xml.XmlNode ndGroup = ugws.GetGroupCollectionFromWeb();
System.Xml.XmlDocument doc = new System.Xml.XmlDocument();
doc.LoadXml(ndGroup.InnerXml);
System.Xml.XmlElement root = doc.DocumentElement;
System.Xml.XmlNodeList lst = root.GetElementsByTagName("Group");

foreach (System.Xml.XmlNode n in lst)
{
string name = n.Attributes[1].Value;
EventLogHandler.AddApplicationEventLog("IsGroupExisting Name ..." + name);
if(name.Trim().Equals(grps[i].ToString().Trim()))
{
flag = true;
break;
}//if
}//for each
if (flag)
break;

}//for
}//if
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
throw new Exception(ex.Message);
}