Tag Archives: sharepoint

Strange behavior with Silverlight when showing modal dialogs in SharePoint

Recently I have been working seriously on integrating Silverlight applications in SharePoint. I already have some experience with SharePoint but with my everyday work I discover more and more “features” of that system.

The Scenario

Everything started with a scenario I had to implement within SharePoint and ended up to be related just to Silverlight. So, my scenario involves creating a small Silverlight application, which is displayed within a web part. This application requires showing a modal dialog, which hosts another application. As my web part may be placed in small space, I preferred to use SharePoint’s dialog feature instead of using ChildWindow. Those two Silverlight applications (the one in the web part and the one in the dialog) communicate via local message infrastructure, which Silverlight provides. Continue Reading…

Custom BDC Connector for SharePoint 2010 – Part 2

In my previous post I started a simple tutorial of how to create your own custom connector for Business Data Connectivity Services for SharePoint 2010. I created my own project in CodePlex where to store the code of these posts. So in this article I will show you the basics of creating your own connector.

Custom connectors are the ultimate abstraction in BDC services. Basically you have the model definition as .NET objects and you can manipulate it as you wish. Internally you can call services, read files, access databases, etc. As a result you need to provide an object which conforms to method’s return type description in the model definition.

Here are the steps when creating a custom connector:

  1. Create your model definition
  2. Write code-behind
  3. Deploy the solution

Note, that the first two steps can be interchanged. Some people prefer to start by writing the code-behind, deploy it and then start wirting their models. However I think it’s a better approach if you start with the model. Having it done in advance you can concentrate on its interpretation. So in this post I will exaplain how to create your model definition. Continue Reading…

The Social Motives in SharePoint 2010

Have you already had a look at the newest SharePoint 2010? If not, do it as fast as possible! SharePoint 2010 offers not only great design but also an improved user experience. Silverlight has become an irreplaceable part of it. You can find its usage everywhere and thus making the experience smoother.

SharePoint has become much more than a document sharing server. The first things I was impressed by were the social elements. As you all know we live in the social networks era, that’s why you are not surprised to find such motives in SharePoint 2010.

Tags, rating, like functionality are all present and you may benefit from them. But it is not limited to this. The entire structure of the platform is made to accommodate a social network. The relation between employees is enhanced in a manner that everyone can see and read details about others. Continue Reading…