PDF loader popup using SharePoint Visual Web Part with progress bar wait till report is loaded

I was facing a problem to load pdf generated document in a popup window. The problem was user saves some information from a custom front end to SharePoint List and on the list event handler there was a code written to generate a SQL report and export it into pdf document all through code and save the pdf document to another SharePoint library.

Now the actual problem is when user saves the information, immediately user wanted to see the pdf document generated in a popup window. Now if I code everything (document generation code) on click of Save button then it takes a lot of time and frustrate user for waiting for a long to save the data.  So to follow a disconnected approach, on click of save we are just saving the data in SharePoint list and on the list there is an asynchronous event handler which generates the document when any item is added in the list.

Now you might have understood the background, here is what I am going to present the code which actually loads the pdf document in a popup window. I call it PDFLoader. It is a visual web part in SharePoint.

Visual Web Part: HTML Part

<div>

    <div id="documentLoadingMessage" >

    <b> Please wait while system is generating the document......   </b>

    </div>

     

    <div style="text-align: center; vertical-align:middle;padding-top:50px">

     <img src="../../../_layouts/myImages/images/progressbar.gif"  alt="Processing..." />

     </div>

</div>

Visual Web Part: Code Behind

using System;

using System.Linq;

using System.Web;

using System.Text;

using System.Web.UI;

using System.Web.UI.WebControls;

using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;

using Microsoft.SharePoint;

using Microsoft.SharePoint.Linq;

using System.IO;

using Microsoft.Reporting.WebForms;

using System.Data;

namespace mynamespace

{

    public partial class PDFLoader : UserControl

    {

        //Default value is 5 second; page refresh time interval is used to reload the page if document has been generated from the event handler

        private const string PGAE_REFRESH_TIME_INTERVAL = "5";

        protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

        {           

            try

            {

                if (!loadDocument())

                {

                    //If document is not loaded (i.e. not generated by event receiver) then try to reload it after the refresh time interval, so waiting for some time for event hander to execute completely

                    Response.AppendHeader("Refresh", PGAE_REFRESH_TIME_INTERVAL);                  

                }

               

            }

            catch (Exception ex)

            {

              //handle exception

            }

        }

        private bool loadDocument()

        {

            bool isDocumentLoaded = false;

// code to load the pdf document if it is generated from the Event hander

// code will first check in the SharePoint library if isDocumentLoaded  flag is True, and accordingly return, if it is true then load the data and return, if not then just return the flag, according to this flag the auto refresh meta property is set in the header of the page

            

return isDocumentLoaded;

         

    }

}

SharePoint 2013: App Development Environment

To develop apps on SharePoint 2013 there are various configurations which are required to make your environment ready for SharePoint 2013 app development. Following settings would be required as given in below sequence to make SharePoint ready for app development.

Services:
Make sure to start following services

1. App Management Service
2. SharePoint Foundation Subscription Setting Service

Service Applications
Make sure to configure following service applications

1. App Management Service Application (this can be done from Central Administration)
2. SPSubscriptionSettingsServiceApplication (this wont be visible in Central administration so it should be configured using PowerShell script)

DNS Settings

1. Create host record for SharePoint site 
2. Create forward look-up zone (you can name it apps.com)
3. Create an alias in apps.com zone, this alias should point to the SharePoint site host created in step 1

Web Application

1. Configure App URL from central administration under app configuration section
2. Create  SharePoint web application with host header which you created a host name in step 1 under DNS setting

Top 10 on Microsoft TechNet Wiki Leaderboards [October-2013]

Glad to see myself in top 10 list on Microsoft TechNet wiki contribution

Here is how the weekly leader board displayed on Microsoft TechNet

C# code to create Site Column, Content Type, and add fields to Content Type

You can use below code to create following:-
1. Site Columns
2. Content Types
3. Add Fields to Content Type

using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using System.Threading.Tasks; using Microsoft.SharePoint; namespace LAB {     public static class SPDevUtility     {         public static SPContentType CreateSiteContentType(SPWeb web, string contentTypeName,         SPContentTypeId parentItemCTypeId, string group)         {             if (web.AvailableContentTypes[contentTypeName] == null)             {                 SPContentType itemCType = web.AvailableContentTypes[parentItemCTypeId];                 SPContentType contentType =                     new SPContentType(itemCType, web.ContentTypes, contentTypeName) { Group = @group };                 web.ContentTypes.Add(contentType);                 contentType.Update();                 return contentType;             }             return web.ContentTypes[contentTypeName];         }         public static SPField CreateSiteColumn(SPWeb web, string displayName,             SPFieldType fieldType, string groupDescriptor)         {             if (!web.Fields.ContainsField(displayName))             {                 string fieldName = web.Fields.Add(displayName, fieldType, false);                                 SPField field = web.Fields.GetFieldByInternalName(fieldName);                                 field.Group = groupDescriptor;                                 field.Update();                 return field;             }             return web.Fields[displayName];         }         public static void AddFieldToContentType(SPWeb web, SPContentTypeId contentTypeId, SPField field)         {             SPContentType contentType = web.ContentTypes[contentTypeId];             if (contentType == null) return;             if (contentType.Fields.ContainsField(field.Title)) return;             SPFieldLink fieldLink = new SPFieldLink(field);             contentType.FieldLinks.Add(fieldLink);             contentType.Update();         }     } }

SharePoint 2010 Indexed Columns – Best Practices

The concept of indexing a column in SharePoint is somewhat same as you can index a column in database table. The internal working and methodology to use and maintain the index column is different than how it works in case of Database indexes.

In General index on a column help you locate the row or item quick and in efficient manner and avoid scanning of several other rows. And it help improve the performance of a large list or library. When you are writing a query on your List or you are creating a filtered view, you can use the index columns as filter criteria by which you can quickly retrieve the item you want.

Also as a good practices you should not end up creating several columns of your list as index columns, there has to be logical decision on that, you can take a look at the Type of the column, values of the columns, how the value of the column is used, is it used in filter criteria’s at several other places, keep in mind that each additional column index consumes extra resources in database and add some overheads on SharePoint to perform some additional operations to maintain the indexes. It is very important that you take a look at the usability of the column across all the views, filters criteria where is most commonly used as to filter the information for retrieval. And accordingly you can decided if you want to create the column as indexed column. However SharePoint has imposed some limitation on how many and on what you can create an index column. In SharePoint list or library you can index up to 20 columns.

The following table summarizes what columns can and cannot be indexed.

Column Types that can be indexed

Single line of text

Choice (single value)

Number

Currency

Date and Time

Lookup (single value)

Person or Group (single value)

Yes/No

Managed Metadata

Column Types that can NOT be indexed

Multiple lines of text

Choice (multi-valued)

Calculated

Hyperlink or Picture

Custom Columns

Lookup (multi-valued)

Person or Group (multi-valued)

External data

Improve SharePoint Performance by limiting memory allocation of SQL Server

Many times I have seen developers complaining about their SharePoint development environment performance. Since they have SharePoint standalone installation on their development Virtual Machine they always complain their machine is too slow.

This is not only the case with development environment, even for SharePoint Test, Staging and Production environment, we always blame SharePoint the cause of performance hit. But wait a min the problem is not with SharePoint there could be other factors which might be causing performance issue. And one of the factor is default settings of SQL Server database. In this article I am not going to touch all other factors but yes I am going to touch base very important and quick setting which you can do to boost your SharePoint environment performance.

SQL Server is the one who eats all your memory every time, because by default it is given freedom to SQL Server to consume all memory on the server. By Default, SQL Server is set to use max 2TB of RAM. You might not be having 2 TB RAM in your environment, you might have 8 GB, 16 GB, 32 GB or more depending upon your farm and size of SharePoint installation. So what will happen if SQL Server itself is free to take up to 2 TB RAM, then whenever any operation comes to SQL Server it will try to consume as much as it can consume. What will happen to the OS and other processes you have running on the server, they also need some memory, they are also responsible for doing their task. So here is what you can do to limit the memory size of SQL Server and tell him that you are not the one there are others who also needs some memory. At the end you need to make sure your SQL Server and your Server they are not competing themselves to the same memory resource this causes bad performance on the server.

Read entire post at this link  http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/18899.sharepoint-performance-best-practices-limit-sql-server-memory-allocation.aspx

SharePoint Custom Accordion Menu Sample Code HTML and CSS

You can download the source code for accordion menu from below link

SharePoint Custom Accordion Menu Sample Code HTML and CSS

The attached sample code contains custom menu which can be used in SharePoint as a vertical menu or in any other asp.net web application.

The code sample contains:-

·         HTML code for the vertical menu

·         CSS for styling on the menu

·         JQuery script to provide accordion behavior

·         Icons which are rendered as CSS without using any image 

For building vertical menu in SharePoint, the attached code can be used in a user control. The attached code renders the menu in aspx page.

Common mistakes SharePoint 2010 administrators need to be careful of

Here are the top 10 common mistake generally made by SharePoint 2010 administrators:-

Not having "SharePoint" in your job title

Creating too many Web applications

Making changes in IIS manually

Failing to use the SharePoint solutions framework

Inadvertently installing a standalone server

Using the default SQL DB growth settings

Failing to document the farm configuration

Manually changing SharePoint databases to "fix" things

Believing that PowerShell is only for developers

Disregarding SharePoint capacity planning recommendations

 

To read the details on each of these mistakes visit on this link reference of this post http://www.benjaminathawes.com/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=22