Great Tools for SharePoint Development

 

The community has really been active for quite awhile putting together some great tools to help us all out. Here's some of my absolute favorite tools to use for SharePoint Development.

 

SP Deploy

 

SPDeploy is a great tool for SharePoint development by my co-worker Clint Simon. He has been working on it for quite awhile and it's near perfect. It's a very simple system that allows you to do development of SharePoint solution packages from a remote machine. From Clint's site: SPDeploy is a tool that allows developers to create SharePoint customizations inside Visual Studio, then package and deploy those changes to a remote SharePoint server. With SPDeploy you can create a project that contains SharePoint customizations and deploy those customizations to a remote SharePoint server in 10 minutes or less. SPDeploy consists of an MSBuild extension and a Visual Studio Project template. I've been using SPDeploy on projects and it has really improved my productivity. It automatically reads the tree of files in Visual Studio and builds my wsp package. Additionally, I know he's working on expanding the tool even more than he already has. The latest version is available here: http://www.spsimon.com/2007/09/introducing-spdeploy.html

 

SharePoint Developer Explorer

 

For all of us who are unhappy with some of the downfalls of SharePoint Designer 2007, SharePoint Developer Explorer can really add value. This project is a Visual Studio 2005 add-in which will expose the SharePoint tree as seen from SharePoint Designer. It allows check-ins, check-outs and publishing from right within Visual Studio. This means you get a well-formatted syntax colored environment to edit ASPX page layouts, master pages, CSS files and XSLT files. Additionally, you can get at the declarative CAML behind content types which will help if you need the CAML to create your solution packages. A few of us here at Ascentium have already interacted with this and I know it's in use on one project! We are grateful for Vincent Rothwell for his great addition to the community. The latest information is available here: http://blog.thekid.me.uk/archive/2007/10/15/sharepoint-developer-explorer-visual-studio-add-in.aspx

 

Search Query Web Service Test Tool

 

If you've had to interact with the Search Web Services, you know how tough it can be when you have queries go awry. How about testing out those queries in advance? The Search Query Web Service Test Tool is an invaluable way to test out whether or not your web service queries should return data. You also get the XML to view. It will run any of the four functions from the web service. The latest information is available here: http://www.mosssearch.com/searchwebservice.html

 

Andrew Connell's WCM STSADM Commands

 

Commands include: PublishAllItems GenSiteColumnsXml GenContentTypesXml

I'm sure if you've done MOSS publishing, you've been frustrated by creating tons of items and just wanting everything published for that latest demo. Well, there's a way to do it! STSADM -o PublishAllItems! Andrew Connell has added a couple of great commands to STSADM and they add great value. He supplies not only the executables but the source code too. The latest information is available here: http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog/archive/2007/10/29/My-MOSS-WCM-STSADM-custom-commands-have-been-updated.aspx

 

YACAMLQT

 

So, CAML queries aren't so easy when they get more complicated than "bring back my one thing based on my one parameter". However, you know SQL really well. You can even think how to write a WHERE clause to get at all the items you need. But putting together that complex CAML clause can be a royal pain. Well, Carlos Sanz to the rescue! YACAMLQT - Yet Another CAML Query Tool is a great tool that converts your WHERE clause into CAML markup, C# or even CAML.NET. This tool is invaluable when you have to do 10 nested OR clauses! The latest information is available here: http://www.ideseg.com/SharePointYetAnotherCAMLQueryTool2.aspx

 

Stramit SharePoint 2007 CAML Viewer

 

For anyone trying to interact with Caml and SharePoint, there is no end of helpful tools out there. The Stramit SharePoint 2007 CAML Viewer is one of those great tools that will allow you to test queries. Additionally, you can see queries in a tree format and view the results as XML. One of the greatest values of this tool, however, is the ability to get at list definitions, site column definitions and the schema XML. This tool can be used remotely as it uses the web services to get access to a SharePoint server. NOTE however that you have to have the URL to the specific site to look at items under that site (no hierarchy from the top level down.) Enjoy! The latest information is available here: http://www.codeplex.com/SPCamlViewer