Book Image

Advanced Microsoft Content Management Server Development

Book Image

Advanced Microsoft Content Management Server Development

Overview of this book

Microsoft Content Management Server 2002 is a dynamic web publishing system with which you can build websites quickly and cost-efficiently. MCMS provides the administration, authoring, and data management functionality, and you provide the website interface, logic, and workflow. Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server (SPS) also features in the book. SPS 2003 enables enterprises to deploy an intelligent portal that seamlessly connects users, teams, and knowledge so that people can take advantage of relevant information across business processes to help them work more efficiently.You've mastered the basics of MCMS, and setup your own MCMS installation. You've only scratched the surface. This book is your gateway to squeezing every penny from your investment in MCMS and SPS, and making these two applications work together to provide an outstanding richness of content delivery and easy maintainability. As a developer, the Publishing API (PAPI) is at the heart of your work with MCMS, and this book starts by taking you on the most detailed tour of the PAPI you will find anywhere. As a live example, a component that reveals the structure of your MCMS site is created, taking you through how to manage the common elements of MCMS programmatically. Getting SharePoint and MCMS to work together is the next stop in the book. You will see how to use SharePoint's search engine to search MCMS content, publish content between the two systems, and create SharePoint Web Parts to draw content from MCMS.To ease your everyday work with MCMS, there are chapters on placeholder validation, and some useful custom placeholders for common MCMS tasks, such as a date-time picker, a placeholder for multiple attachments, and a DataGrid placeholder among others. There are a number of ways to consume MCMS content from the outside world, and we look at two exciting ways here; RSS and InfoPath/Web Services. The InfoPath solution provides another interface to MCMS content that allows content authors to concentrate on content and not the presentation. The book is rounded off with a number of must-have MCMS tips and tricks. Revert a posting to a previous version Change a postingÔø???s template Build a recycle bin Deal with links to deleted resources Update a postingÔø???s properties directly from a template file Re-write ugly URLs to friendly URLs Export resource gallery items using the site deployment API (SDAPI) Configure the position and size of the Web Author Console Dialogs Get frames and IFrames to work correctly in a template file
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
Advanced Microsoft Content Management Server Development
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
Index

About the Authors

Lim Mei Ying is a Senior Consultant with Avanade and has extensive experience in setting up MCMS systems at the enterprise level. She has spent many hours figuring out the dos and don’ts of the product, and enjoys finding new ways to solve MCMS-related problems.

She contributes actively to the newsgroup community and is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for Content Management Server. Mei Ying lives on the sunny island of Singapore and blogs at http://meiyinglim.blogspot.com . She also co-authored the earlier book, Building Websites with Microsoft Content Management Server (ISBN: 1-904811-16-7, Packt Publishing January 2005).

Note

Thanks to my husband, Louis, for the much needed support throughout the many months of writing. Special thanks to my family and friends for their encouragement.

Stefan Goßner works for Microsoft as an Escalation Engineer in the Developer Support department. He provides customers with technical solutions to problems related to Microsoft Internet Server Products. Stefan has a broad and deep understanding of all areas of MCMS. His contributions to the newsgroup community have helped many people implement MCMS solutions in corporations around the globe, to the point where it has been said that if you don’t know Stefan, then you’re probably new to MCMS.

He maintains a huge MCMS 2002 FAQ on the Microsoft website and provides MCMS tips and tricks on his personal blog at http://blogs.technet.com/stefan_gossner .

He lives in Munich, Germany.

Note

I would like to thank my girlfriend, Michaela, for her support throughout months of writing, reviewing, and coding for the book. Also many thanks to my colleagues in the European Developer Support Team and to my friends in the MCMS product team in the US.

Angus Logan is a Product Specialist at Data#3 Limited ( http://www.data3.com.au ), Australia’s leading IT solutions company, and is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. Angus is a MCAD.NET and MCDBA, as well as a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for Content Management Server. His specialities are Content Management Server, SharePoint Portal Server, .NET development, SQL Server, and Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

You can usually find Angus in the microsoft.* newsgroups or blogging ( http://www.anguslogan.com ).

Angus gets a real buzz from using these technologies in a presales or delivery capacity to find solutions to his customers’ real-world problems.

Note

To my friends and family, especially Michael, thank you! Working with a great team on this book made all the time and effort worthwhile.

Andrew Connell has worked with content-management solutions since obtaining his degree from the University of Florida. As one of the original developers for the most successful versions of AdmiNET, a custom web content administration product, he has consistently focused on the challenges facing businesses today as they strive to maintain an up-to-date site without having to constantly rely on technical expertise.

Andrew’s background is in content-management solutions and web development using Microsoft technologies. He enjoys working with MCMS and integrating it with other products such as Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies.

As a Client/Server Consultant for Fidelity Information Services, Andrew has leveraged both MCMS and SharePoint Portal Server to redeploy Fidelity’s intranet site as a single solution that capitalizes on the best features of both products. In 2005, he was recognized as a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his contributions to the MCMS community.

Andrew lives in Jacksonville, Florida in the United States, and maintains a blog at http://www.andrewconnell.com/ .

Note

Thank you to my wife, Meredith, and first born son, Steven, for their patience and support. Thanks to my girls Maggie and Sadie for providing me company during the many late nights it took to finish this project. Thanks also to my parents and brother for their support and the confidence they showed in me.

Shared Acknowledgements

We the authors would also like to thank the following people for supporting us and helping us along the way:

Our editors, Douglas Paterson and Richard Deeson, and the rest of the team at Packt for accepting our book proposal and for the wonderful work they have done in bringing this book to life.

Our project manager, Joel Ward, for his exceptional project management skills. Thanks for being there for us!