When Software Attacks!

Six tips when deploying SharePoint 2013 masterpages, page layouts and display templates

I’ve been hat-swapping again since just before christmas (which explains the lack of Azure IaaS posts I’m afraid). I’ve been working on a large SharePoint 2013 project, most lately on customising a number of elements around publishing. Getting those custom elements into SharePoint from my solution raised a number of little snags, most of which were solved by the great internet hive mind. It took me a long time to find some of those fixes, however, so I thought I’d collect them here and reference the original posts where appropriate.

A Virtual Ice Cream Sandwich: Android 4 x86 in a Hyper-V VM

More and more of our projects include a stipulation from the client that any web sites must work on the tablet devices of senior management. Up until recently that was exclusively iPads, but we are now seeing more Android devices out there. I wanted to find a straightforward way for us to test on such devices, preferably without needing to build up a collection of expensive physical kit. I read with interest Ben Armstrong’s post about running Android 2.

Mix Remixed

I don’t visit the Mix community site often – historically, the content has been of little interest and infrequently updated. Imagine my surprise, then, to find a relaunched Mix Online with a new Microformats project – Oomph. In short, it’s cool – a microformats extension for IE plus other goodies to help implement them, including a live writer plugin for creating hcards. Go check it out, and I’ll try to post more later…

Browsers are like buses

You wait around for ages and then two come along, all at once! No sooner have I downloaded IE8 beta 2 than Google announce Chrome! I’ve been using IE8 for a few days and I’m quite impressed. I’ve just downloaded Chrome and I have to say, it’s a darn good browser. The feature I most wanted from any tab-based browser and one I’ve mentioned before in the context of IE is present in Chrome - tabs you can drag between windows.

Workflow and SQL Error: Update

I posted last week about a couple of issues we were experiencing with SharePoint. I made some traction on the Workflow History issue at the end of last week and the revelation was pretty far-reaching, so I’m posting again. It turns out that the stuff I said about systemupdate was wrong… up to a point. There is a bug with systemupdate and triggering events, but it’s not the one we thought it was!

Workflow History and SQL Error

When trying to view an item in a list which has workflows run against it, you get an error: Some part of your SQL statement is nested too deeply. Rewrite the query or break it up into smaller queries Problem Background Trying to explain the exact nature of our configuration in this case would break many people’s heads. This, therefore, is a bit of a simplification. We have a custom webpart which allows users to log an enquiry.

Insightful

Joel Spolsky has a biting and articulate article on the IE8 standards debate.

A great article on handy SharePoint controls

I don’t know about you, but I always mean to gather various bits of knowledge into one place, but just like tidying my filing at home, I never quite get around to it. Fortunately for me, Chris O’Brien is a bit more organised and in my ever expanding blogroll today I saw a great article about really useful SharePoint controls to use in custom pages for that handy bit of functionality.

IE8 Rapid Fire Site Test

I can’t spend much longer playing with IE8 or my wife will skin me. However, from my cursory browsing experience I’m worried. Either the devs have a good deal of work to do or I’m going to be very busy with CSS rules for a while. Here’s the University of Bradford site in IE8: And to try to compare apples with oranges, here it is in Firefox 3 beta 3:

Internet Explorer 8...

Well, as expected, the public beta of IE8 appeared on the web pretty much straight after the Mix08 keynote mentioned it. I managed to grab it within mere moments and I now have it installed on my trusty laptop. As announced only a day or two ago, it defaults to the new rendering mode, with a big toolbar button to toggle back to IE7 mode. I haven’t had time to test the browser with any sites yet, but I’ll try to do that in the next few days and maybe post again.