Visual Studio extensions for Windows SharePoint Services
Hello all,
My name's Alex Malek, I'm a Lead PM on the SharePoint Designer team. During my day job, I focus on the workflow experience in SharePoint and SPD. However, for the last year or so, I've been working on a little side project called the "Visual Studio extensions for Windows SharePoint Services" (VSeWSS). Simply put, VSeWSS is all about making developers more productive on SharePoint. This last week, we released our first version, which you can download here: link. As with many v1’s, this release doesn’t do everything, but it’s a first step on the road to having great dev tools for SharePoint.
The VSeWSS installer consists of two pieces: 1) an add-in to Visual Studio that adds some SharePoint-specific project templates (e.g. Web Part, Site Definition, Content Type, etc.) and 2) a little utility program, called the SharePoint Solution Generator, which enables you to take site "instances," customized in SPD and the browser, and convert them into site definitions, which you can then continue editing in VS.
In short, our goal with VSeWSS was to "make F5 work" for the most common SharePoint objects, such Web Parts. Fortunately, we got a bit farther than that - over the next few weeks, I'll blog a little about how to use VSeWSS for some of more advanced scenarios it support, e.g. creating content types with event handlers.
Thanks, alex
Comments
Anonymous
March 27, 2007
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March 27, 2007
Alex - thanks for sharing, and thanks for the solution. MVPs know this "make F5 work" will save a lot of questions in the msdn forums... There is one thing people keep asking in the forum and I was hoping one of you gueys will answer (and Maarten mentioned it) - most of the developers keep expecting it to work on development workstations, with windows xp (or vista) installed. I feel it is important that you clear this issue and explain the supported development methods to develop for sharepoint.Anonymous
March 27, 2007
Nice tools, but as Maarten stated out, why do I need to have WSS installed on my Dev-Machine? Is there a trick to avoid this (copy Sharepoint-DLL's to GAC or any registry settings?)Anonymous
March 28, 2007
Hello, I came across this blog recently. Please tell me this: do SharePoint Designer and Expression Web use the same underlying rendering engine? Also, is it true that this engine is different from IE's Trident?Anonymous
March 28, 2007
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April 12, 2007
I agree with everyone who wants an XP-friendly version. This seems like a big limitation to me. Any word from the Sharepoint team on plans for an XP release?Anonymous
April 20, 2007
"it’s a first step on the road to having great dev tools for SharePoint"... you are correct. Unfortunately the journey is still 1000 miles.. developing for sharepoint is nowhere near great. It is at the opposite end of the spectrum. It is ridiculous that it is necessary to have sharepoint installed to be able to develop for it. ( not to mention 2003 ) I am not going to copy dll's to my XP machine just to be able to use the API and build, and then copy that build to a 2003 sharepoint server just to run it. It is not feasible to develop code for a corporation when it is impossible to debug the code. It is also not feasible to jointly develop an application with several developers remotely using the same server for development. Where is the MSDE, the Express, the Casini... Sharepoint is definitely not developer friendly. I am not an MS hater. I gladly develop using .Net. Search anywhere on the web, you will see loads of developers with the same gripes. It is amazing to me that this has not been addressed.Anonymous
June 11, 2007
aaaaaaaGHHH - neeed win2003 to develop for Sharepoint on my DEV machine :( :( :( :( :( :( noooooo.....................Anonymous
June 26, 2007
Why dont you reply to all the above dear Alex? We developers still use Windows Xp....Anonymous
June 28, 2007
It's extremely disappointing to run Win2k3 on a developer's machine just to be able to develop for MOSS and it's even more disappointing that VSeWSS developer has nothing to add here. This is the MS way to deal with the community. Unless you're an MVP or something similar MS will not listen, as always. It's a shame...Anonymous
June 29, 2007
hey guys, sorry for the slow response. Per the comments above: SPD and Expression: yup, these share the same "editor" technology, though it is not related to the Trident engine. Requiring Win2k3: I feel your pain :). It really came down to feasibility - we interact with the SharePoint Server Object Model during "F5 Deploy", as well as in the Solution Generator. Those APIs can not currently be "remotely" accessed. We hope to work with WSS to add those APIs as web services in a future release. Thanks, Alex Malek PM - SharePoint DesignerAnonymous
August 01, 2007
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August 06, 2007
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August 12, 2007
Same problem here, and as far as I am concerned this is a dead technology as I don't see many people installing VS on server machines (the idea itself seems ridiculous) for development purposes. I hope MS comes to it senses and takes this problem seriously as I am very keen on getting to grips with Sharepoint development.Anonymous
August 12, 2007
Hi Alex, A quick question here. The SSG(SharePoint Solution Generator) does not seem to be taking any parameters. My requirement is from a .NET Application can i invoke SSG by passing the parameters.so that the users need not invoke SSG and select the options.Anonymous
August 13, 2007
I would say that if you don't have a separate desktop running Win2K3, or a dedicated development server, then either use VirtualPC/Virtual Server or the VMWare equivalent, and develop on that. You should have some sort of test and deployment process for your work anyway--developing on production hardware is a bad idea. Virtual machines are a convenient way to set up separate test and maintenance environments, so that development can continue while testing of a release is underway. If you have an MSDN license, you can build a library of base images of different kinds, sysprep each one, and store them. Setting up a new environment for development is then simply a matter of copying the base image to a working directory, starting the machine, running through a mini-setup that takes a couple minutes (and run the database sproc if SQL Server runs on that image). It may not be as convenient as developing directly on your workstation desktop, but it can work just fine. You can run a number of virtual machines on a single workstation, if you have plenty of memory. Regards, Mike SharpAnonymous
August 14, 2007
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August 20, 2007
Ya, a virtual PC is definitely the way to go if you can't put SharePoint on your local machine. I definitely hear your pain on this topic, and it's something we'll look at closely for subsequent releases. As i mentioned earlier, it's a tough technical problem. Likely, we would need changes from SharePoint (e.g. new remote APIs) in addition to changing VSeWSS. Sowmya, I don't believe the Solution Generator currently takes parameters. I'll add this to our list of feature suggestions. thanks, Alex Malek Program Manager - SharePointAnonymous
August 20, 2007
Greetings all, Alex Malek here, PM for SharePoint Designer. I'm pleased to announce that today we releasedAnonymous
August 20, 2007
[Cross-posted from the SharePoint Designer Team Blog .] Greetings all, Alex Malek here, PM for SharePointAnonymous
August 21, 2007
When will this be available for 64bit servers? Thanks.Anonymous
August 21, 2007
Unfortunately, 64-bit is not in scope at the moment. Along with support for WinXP/Vista, this is at the very top of our list of pain points we hope to address in subsequent releases. thanks, Alex MalekAnonymous
August 23, 2007
VSeWSS has been revised and a new CTP is available here . For those not familiar with VSeWSS, you canAnonymous
October 10, 2007
"I have the most unfortunate task of developing WSS for my company" - heh! An excellent comment. SharePoint isn't what I spend most of my time doing, but I am seeing it more and more. I think SharePoint, on the whole, is a terrible piece of software (like most of the dynamics stuff). As a web application, it is very poorly implemented. But that's not the point here, the point is that there is nothing that would stop WSS running on Windows XP, except for Microsoft's desire to sell more Windows Server and artificially lock things down. Greed is a really poor excuse for making our lives more difficult. Let us install WSS on XP. That way, we can develop and test without needing a virtual image. You'll make lots of friends. There is no technical reason why WSS will not run on XP.Anonymous
October 16, 2007
People really... you dev on XP??? Work on the target platform is all I have to say about that, it saves plenty of headaches, not to mention the single website pain. Regarding the Visual Studio Extension for SharePoint Development, they are fantastic! Thank you so much, the F5 deploy is brilliant. I'd like to see that the scripts that are used to generate the packages included in the project though and not hidden while you're in VS. Also a standalone 'Feature' project could be useful.Anonymous
December 10, 2007
I agree with Gavin Barron. Always it is good to develop in target platform and 'version'. I use Virtual PC in my machine since I hate dual boot ;).Anonymous
February 07, 2008
Well, it only manes sense to develop in teh target platform if it doesn't usually change or if your product is platform specific. If you're exclusively a WSS developer then it makes sense to put your VS on a Windows Server. If on the other hand WSS is only one of your tasks then it probably doesn't make much sense.Anonymous
February 11, 2008
Hello all, Alex Malek here, PM for the "Visual Studio extensions for Windows SharePoint Services".Anonymous
February 11, 2008
Hello all, Alex Malek here, PM for the "Visual Studio extensions for Windows SharePoint Services"Anonymous
February 11, 2008
Disclaimer Ce post est une "traduction" du blog SharePoint, le message d'origine est consultable iciAnonymous
February 12, 2008
Why first version of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Tools: Visual Studio 2005 Extensions works on Windows XP and latest version doesn't?????????Anonymous
February 12, 2008
Why first version of Visual Studio extensions for Windows SharePoint Services works on Windows XP and later versions doesn't????Anonymous
February 13, 2008
It kind of took them some time. Some of you might remember my old (ish) post ( http://dotnet.org.za/zlatanAnonymous
February 14, 2008
Rick, Garenovich - unfortunately, version 1.0 did not support XP either. Might you have been using a different tool - perhaps something from the community? The reason we don't support XP is that the extensions depend heavily on the sharepoint object model, for reading values, pushing the solution package up, etc. sorry about the confusion. thanks, Alex Malek VSeWSS PMAnonymous
February 17, 2008
Everyone moans about needing Server 2003 on the dev machine, why not just run a virtual machine and develop in that for MOSS?Anonymous
February 18, 2008
Alex, could it be a beta version, it was "Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for Windows SharePoint Services" and i have installed it in my Windows XP, the file is named VSeWSS.msi and the size is 1,81 MB, i download it from microsoft web. But it's true that i have to copy sharepoint dll to build the solutions. Thanks.Anonymous
February 23, 2008
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February 26, 2008
It kind of took them some time. Some of you might remember my old (ish) post ( http://dotnet.org.za/zlatanAnonymous
February 29, 2008
So to use the Extensions, the developers need Win 2k3 Server running on a virtual machine? That would require a server license for each developer and is without a doubt the most ridiculous concept for a set of development tools that I have ever heard.Anonymous
March 10, 2008
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March 13, 2008
Will there be any new release of WSS that could be installed on WinXP for development purposeAnonymous
March 13, 2008
Alex Many thanks for you and your teams supreme efforts building the extensions, this really is excellent, F5 deployment is a killer and the new WSP view is super cool. Can you tell me if there is a support forum for the extension or should I just post here? Regards, LeeAnonymous
March 18, 2008
I seem to have broken my ability to publish to SharePoint from InfoPath after installing Visual Studio Extensions for WSS v1.1. I had this same problem with v1.0 but was able to fix by simply uninstalling. This does not work with v1.1. I am running this on Windows XP. The error that I get is "The following URL is not valid: ..." when trying to publish an InfoPath 2007 form to MOSS 2007 running InfoPath Forms Services. I'm not sure how these are connected. I've tweaked my registry to allow installation on XP (http://blogs.msdn.com/jannemattila/archive/2007/08/16/how-to-install-windows-sharepoint-services-3-0-tools-to-xp-or-vista.aspx) and to try cleaning the Server Cache at "HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice12.0CommonInternetServer Cache" (http://serena-yeoh.blogspot.com/2006/08/infopathformurlnotvalid.html). Any ideas on how to get InfoPath working again? I no longer need VSE on my local machine. Thanks.Anonymous
March 19, 2008
I am tasked with setting up an environment for our developers to use the VSE to develop for WSS/MOSS. I don't want to use VPC for the obvious reasons and I am wondering if anyone has successfully deployed MOSS, Visual Studios and the extensions on a Terminal Server? Please reply with any other suggestions for creating a centralized environment for developing on MOSS with VSE. Thanks,Anonymous
March 31, 2008
Looking forward to seeing VSeWSS 1.2 for VS 2008. Will the first iteration be a CTP? The lack of VSeWSS for VS 2008 is a serious impediment to fully moving over to VS 2008 for custom MOSS workflow development. My most important need is automatic wsp generation that automatically includes InfoPath workflow association, intialization and task forms, just like the current VSeWSS does for VS 2005.Anonymous
April 07, 2008
SDKs and development tools SharePoint Server 2007 SDK: Software Development Kit Revised and updated AugustAnonymous
April 16, 2008
@John Mc Development and staging do not require that the server software be licensed. Don't you have an MSDN subscription? If not, I suggest that you get one. They are a pretty good deal for the price.Anonymous
May 16, 2008
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July 28, 2008
I just want to add the microsoft.sharepoint.dll on windows xp machine (non sharepoint server)Anonymous
February 17, 2009
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June 07, 2010
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