Professional SharePoint 2010 Development E-Book

Thomas Rizzo

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

Learn to leverage the features of the newest version of SharePoint, in this update to the bestseller

More than simply a portal, SharePoint is Microsoft's popular content management solution for building intranets and Web sites or hosting wikis and blogs. Offering broad coverage on all aspects of development for the SharePoint platform, this comprehensive book shows you exactly what SharePoint does, how to build solutions, and what features are accessible within SharePoint.

Written by one of the most recognized names in SharePoint development, Professional SharePoint 2010 Development offers an extensive selection of field-tested best practices that shows you how to leverage the vast power of this multi-faceted tool to build custom workflow and content management applications. Plus, you'll discover how to take advantage of the new features to roll out new SharePoint sites or upgrade existing sites.

• SharePoint guru Tom Rizzo offers broad coverage of the newest version of SharePoint, Microsoft's popular content management solution
• Addresses how the new version adds enhanced developer support for ASP.NET, Ajax, LINQ, and Silverlight
• Demonstrates how to take advantage of new features, including improvements to offline and mobile client capabilities, social networking additions, and more
• Covers user experience development, platform services, social media features, event handling, the business data catalog, forms and workflow, business intelligence, and more

With this book, you'll get exhaustive coverage on the many possibilities that exist with SharePoint.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO SHAREPOINT 2010

What’s New in the SharePoint Platform and Tools

Language Integrated Query (LINQ)

List Enhancements

Business Connectivity Services

Silverlight Integration

Client-Side OM

Web 2.0 Protocols and New Standards

Sandbox Solutions and Resource Governors

SharePoint Designer

Visio and Access Services

InfoPath (Forms, List Forms, Mobile Forms)

Visual Studio

Web Solution Packages

Developer Dashboard

What’s New in Collaboration/Social Computing

Enhanced Blogs and Wikis

Social Tagging and Ratings

Activity Feeds

Social Bookmarking

Organization Browser

Outlook Social Newsfeeds and Expertise

Microblogging and Mobile Client

Social Search

What’s New in Search

New Core Search Query Capabilities

Enhanced Core Search Results

Enhanced People Search: Phonetics

Enhanced People Search: Address Book Style Lookups

Enhanced People Search Results

New Search Connector Framework

FAST Integration

What’s New in ECM

What’s New in ECM: Document Management

What’s New in ECM: Records Management

What’s New in ECM: Web Content Management

What’s New in ECM: Digital Asset Management

What’s New in ECM: Workflow

What’s New in Forms

What’s New in Groove (SharePoint Workspace)

Summary

CHAPTER 2: DEVELOPER TOOLS FOR SHAREPOINT 2010

OOB Developer Experience

SharePoint Designer

New User Interface

Top Ten New Features in SPD

Visual Studio 2010

Importing WSPs

SharePoint Server Explorer

Solution Explorer Integration

Feature Designer

Package Designer and Packaging Explorer

Project Type Templates

Mapping Folders

Setting Up Your Development Environment

System Requirements

Troubleshooting with Debugging, and Testing

F5 Debugging

Debugging Using the Dev Dashboard

Debugging Using SharePoint Logs

Debugging Silverlight Code

Unit, Capacity, and Load Testing

Other Useful Tools for Debugging and Testing

Deploying and Maintaining Your Code

Customizing Deployment in VS

ALM with VS 2010 and SharePoint

Moving from Test to Production

Upgrading Code from 2007

Summary

CHAPTER 3: IT PRO ENHANCEMENTS FOR THE DEVELOPER

Performance Improvements

List Throttling

External List Throttling

HTTP Request Throttling

Remote Blob Storage

Streaming Media and Bit Rate Throttling

High Availability Improvements

Database Mirroring and Clustering

Read-Only Databases

Security Improvements

Claims-Based Authentication

Code Access Security

Sandbox Solutions

Cross-Site Scripting

Management Improvements

Health Monitoring and Reports

Service Applications

PowerShell Support

Summary

CHAPTER 4: SHAREPOINT PLATFORM

Platform Overview

New User Interface

General Platform Improvements

Master Pages and _Layouts

The Ribbon

Status Bar and Notification Area

Working with Dialogs

Theming Infrastructure

List, View, and Event Enhancements

List Enhancements

View Enhancements

Events Enhancements

New Events

New Event Registration Feature

Post-Synchronous Events

Custom Error Pages

Impersonation Enhancements

Overview of Data Technologies

SharePoint LINQ Support

Managed Client OM

Sandbox Solutions

Types of Solutions You Can Build

Executing Code in the Sandbox

Solution Monitoring

Managing Solutions

Summary

CHAPTER 5: COLLABORATION AND SOCIAL COMPUTING

People-Centricity

User Profile Service Application

Profile Synchronization

Social Networking and My Site

Social Tagging and Ratings

Blogs and Wiki Site Definitions

Summary

CHAPTER 6: SEARCH

Search Options with SharePoint 2010

SharePoint Foundation

Search Server 2010 Express

Search Server 2010

SharePoint Server 2010

FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint

Choosing the Right Search Product

Common Platform and APIs

Search User Experience

Search Center

Visual Cues in Search Results with FAST

“Conversational” Search

People Search

Search Architecture and Topologies

SharePoint Search Key Components

FAST Architecture and Topology

Scale-Out with FAST

How Architecture Meets Applications

Developing with Enterprise Search

Range of Customization

Top Customization Scenarios

Search-Driven Applications

Customizing the Search User Experience

Example: New Core Results Web Part

Example: Adding Sorting to Your New Web Part

Web Parts with FAST

Search Connectors and Searching LOB Systems

New Connector Framework Features

Creating Indexing Connectors

FAST-Specific Indexing Connectors

Customizing Connectivity in Summary

Working with Federation

Customization Examples Using Federation

Further Considerations in Federation

Working with the Query OM

Query-Side APIs and OMs

Query Syntax

FAST Query Language (FQL)

Examples Using Query Customization

Social Search

End-User-Visible Functionality

Social Search Architecture and Operations

Content Enhancement

Metadata, Linguistics, and Search

Advanced Content Processing with FAST

Multilingual Search

Extending Search Using the Administrative OM

Authentication and Security

Search Reports

Summary: Customizing Search with SharePoint 2010

CHAPTER 7: ECM: RECORDS MANAGEMENT

SharePoint 2010 Records Management Overview

Recordization

eDiscovery and Holds

Auditing and Reporting

Programming RM in SharePoint

Declaring and Undeclaring a Record

Creating Retention Schedules

Creating Organizer Rules

Creating Workflows That Use RM

Summary

CHAPTER 8: WEB CONTENT MANAGEMENT

The Content Lifecycle in Web Content Management

Separation of Content and Development

The Important Role of Information Architecture

Foundations of Web Content Management

Page Processing Model

Site Columns

Content Types

Page Layouts

Master Pages

Navigation

Content by Query Web Part

Content Conversion

Summary

CHAPTER 9: ELECTRONIC FORMS

Introducing the Training Management Application

Customizing SharePoint List Forms

Creating the Trainings List

Customizing SharePoint List Forms

Adding Intelligence Using Rules and Views

Publishing List Forms

Distributing the Trainings List

Designing InfoPath Form Templates

What Is a Form Library?

Designing Your Form Template

Querying SharePoint Lists in Forms

Querying REST Web Services

Submit Behavior

Form Programming

Publishing an InfoPath Form

Publishing to a Form Library vs. Publishing to a Content Type

Form Security

Sandboxing Your Forms

Form Anatomy

Extracting the Form’s Data

Tools for Form Developers

The Rule Inspector

The Design Checker

IE Developer Tools

Fiddler Tool

Tiny Inline Tools

Building Web Parts Using InfoPath

InfoPath Form Web Part

Using InfoPath to Create Connected Web Parts

Getting Data from Other Web Parts

Empowering Users with Mashups

Summary

CHAPTER 10: ECM: DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT

A New Enterprise Content Mindset

New ECM Features

Expanded ECM Object Model

Getting the Most Out of the Document Center

Visual Studio and the Document Center

Content Routing

Managing the Content Organizer

Using Document Libraries in the Document Center

Metadata Navigation and Filtering

Visual Studio and Document Libraries

Managed Metadata

Types of Metadata

Managed Metadata Service Application

Content Types

Document ID Service

Create a Custom Document ID Provider

Summary

CHAPTER 11: BUSINESS CONNECTIVITY SERVICES

Introducing Business Connectivity Services

Creating Simple BCS Solutions

Understanding BCS Architecture

Understanding Connectors

Understanding Business Data Connectivity

Understanding the Secure Store Service

Understanding Package Deployment

Understanding Authentication Scenarios

Configuring Authentication Models

Accessing Claims-Based Systems

Accessing Token-Based Systems

Managing Client Authentication

Managing Authorization

Creating External Content Types

Creating Operations

Creating Relationships

Defining Filters

Using ECTs in SharePoint 2010

Creating Custom Forms

Using External Columns

Business Data Parts

Creating a Profile Page

Searching External Systems

Supplementing User Profiles

Using ECTs in Office 2010

Using the SharePoint Workspace

Understanding Outlook Integration

Using Word Quick Parts

Creating Custom BCS Solutions

Using the Runtime Object Model

Using the Administration Object Model

Creating .NET Assembly Connectors

Summary

CHAPTER 12: WORKFLOW

Training Approval Workflow

Creating the Training Content Type

Workflow Development Lifecycle

Prototyping in Visio

Customizing the Workflow in SharePoint Designer

Creating Custom Actions with Visual Studio 2010

Importing to Visual Studio 2010

Building Workflows with Visual Studio 2010

Site Workflows

Pluggable Workflow Services

Tapping into Workflow Events

Summary

CHAPTER 13: BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

Challenges with Traditional Business Intelligence

Integration with SharePoint: The History

Highlights of Business Intelligence in SharePoint Server 2010

Important Terms and Concepts

Using the Adventure Works Sample Databases

The Starting Point: Business Intelligence Center

Excel Services

Excel Services Architecture

Office Data Connection

Authoring Workbooks in Excel

Publishing the Workbook

PerformancePoint Services

Dashboard vs. Scorecard

PerformancePoint Services Architecture

Introducing Dashboard Designer

Creating Your First Dashboard

One-Click Publishing to SharePoint

Time Intelligence Filtering

Reporting Services 2008 R2

Integration Modes

Local Mode Architecture

Connected Mode Architecture

Configuring the BI Center

BIDS 2008 R2 or Report Builder 3.0?

Building and Deploying Reports

Caching and Snapshots

Reporting on SharePoint Data

Claims and BI Solutions

Summary

CHAPTER 14: SHAREPOINT ONLINE

SharePoint Online Overview

Developing in the Cloud

Visual Sandbox Web Parts

Debugging Your Solutions

Example Cloud Scenarios

Summary

Appendix A: Additional Help and Resources

Index

Professional SharePoint® 2010 Development

Published byWiley Publishing, Inc.10475 Crosspoint BoulevardIndianapolis, IN 46256www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN: 978-0-470-52942-3

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone]. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ  07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

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Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley logo, Wrox, the Wrox logo, Wrox Programmer to Programmer, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates, in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. SharePoint is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc. is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

This book is dedicated to the memory of Dyana Eckstein who was a loved sister, aunt, and friend. She will always be loved and remembered in our thoughts. We miss and love you.

—TOM RIZZO

I would like to dedicate this book to S. Khatoon. Thank you for being the love of my life, my best friend, and my family!

—REZA ALIREZAEI

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

TOM RIZZO is a senior director in the SharePoint team at Microsoft. This is Tom’s second stint with SharePoint having worked in the SharePoint and Exchange Server teams back in the SharePoint 2001 timeframe. Before working in SharePoint, Tom worked in the SQL Server team and also as a technical specialist in the Microsoft field organization, where he evaluated and deployed Microsoft technologies for the United States Department of Defense. You can reach Tom, who authored chapters 1 through 4, 7, 14, and Appendix A, at [email protected].

REZA ALIREZAEI is an independent consultant and a five-time recipient of Microsoft’s Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award for Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server & Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. He is focused on designing and implementing enterprise solutions for SharePoint, related .Net technologies, and Microsoft Business Intelligence stack. Reza can be reached at [email protected].

PAUL J. SWIDER is a freelance consultant and the Enterprise SharePoint Strategist for OnClick Solutions. In addition, he is President of the Charleston SharePoint Users Group and an accomplished entrepreneur. Paul has trained and consulted thousands of SharePoint administrators, developers, and architects. In addition, he writes and teaches about enterprise collaboration concepts with demonstrated knowledge you can only get in “the trenches.” His specialties include enterprise information architecture, SharePoint development patterns, and social media integration. When not working, Paul enjoys sailing and snowboarding. He wrote chapters 5 and 10.

SCOT HILLIER is an independent consultant and Microsoft SharePoint Most Valuable Professional focused on creating solutions for Information Workers with SharePoint, Office, and related .NET technologies. He is the author/coauthor of 12 books on Microsoft technologies including “Inside SharePoint 2010.” Scot splits his time between consulting on SharePoint projects and training for Critical Path Training (www.criticalpathtraining.com). Scot is a former U. S. Navy submarine officer and graduate of the Virginia Military Institute. Scot authored chapter 11 and can be reached at [email protected].

JEFF FRIED is a senior product manager at Microsoft, specializing in strategic applications of search technology. Jeff is a frequent speaker and writer in the industry, holds 15 patents, has authored more than 50 technical papers, and has led the creation of pioneering offerings in next generation search engines, networks, and contact centers. He wrote chapter 6.

KENNETH SCHAEFER is an independent developer and designer focusing on SharePoint and web-based solutions. Ken lives in the Chicago area with his daughter, Alexa. Ken, who authored chapter 8, can be reached at [email protected].

ABOUT THE TECHNICAL EDITORS

MATT RANLETT, a SQL Server MVP, has been a fixture of the Atlanta .NET developer community for many years. A founding member of the Atlanta Dot Net Regular Guys (www.devcow.com), Matt has formed and leads several area user groups. Despite spending dozens of hours after work on local and national community activities such as the SharePoint 1, 2, 3! series (www.sharepoint123.com), organizing three Atlanta Code Camps, working on the INETA Board of Directors as the Vice President of Technology, and appearing in several Pod Casts such as .Net Rocks and the ASP.Net Pod Cast, Matt recently found the time to get married to a wonderful woman named Kim, who he helps to raise three monstrous dogs. Matt currently works as a Senior Consultant with Intellinet and is part of the team committed to helping people succeed by delivering innovative solutions that create business value.

KANWAL KHIPPLE is an independent consultant and Microsoft SharePoint MVP working with enterprise clients in America and Canada. Kanwal strives to build SharePoint solutions that make life easier for Information Workers. His passion lies with Information Architecture, Governance, Business Process Automation, and Branding. Kanwal is an integral part of the global SharePoint Community, contributing through his blog www.sharepointbuzz.com. He can be reached at [email protected].

CREDITS

ACQUISITIONS EDITORPaul Reese

DEVELOPMENT EDITORSLori Cerreto

PROJECT EDITORAmi Frank Sullivan

TECHNICAL EDITORSMatt RanlettKanwal Khipple

PRODUCTION EDITORRebecca Anderson

COPY EDITORFoxxe Editorial

EDITORIAL DIRECTORRobyn B. Siesky

EDITORIAL MANAGERMary Beth Wakefield

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF MARKETINGDavid Mayhew

PRODUCTION MANAGERTim Tate

VICE PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE GROUP PUBLISHERRichard Swadley

VICE PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE PUBLISHERBarry Pruett

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHERJim Minatel

PROJECT COORDINATOR, COVERLynsey Stanford

PROOFREADERBeth Prouty, Word One

INDEXERJohnna VanHoose Dinse

COVER DESIGNERMichael E. Trent

COVER IMAGE© Stephen Strathdee/istockphoto

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I WOULD LIKE TO THANK Spencer Harbar and Robert Bogue who answered some of my technical questions during the process of writing my chapters. I also want to thank those at Microsoft who provided their kind support: Chris Keyser, Arpan Shah and Pej Javaheri. And, a special thanks goes to Vahid Haeri, a close friend who always made sure that I had access to my testing farms with the latest bits installed.

—REZA ALIREZEAI

INTRODUCTION

THIS BOOK IS FOR ANYONE INTERESTED in developing applications on top of SharePoint 2010. While some knowledge is assumed about SharePoint, readers will find the examples comprehensive and easy to follow if they have previous knowledge of web development and development tools.

WHAT THIS BOOK COVERS

SharePoint 2010 is a big product and this book is a big, diverse book. So, before you dive into the book, we wanted to give you a little feel for what each chapter entails and what you can expect once you have read the chapter.

Introductory Chapters

The first couple of chapters provide an introduction to SharePoint 2010, since the 2010 release is a large release across all the many SharePoint workloads. In these chapters, you will develop an understanding of the features that 2010 provides, from creating collaboration sites to managing your content.

From there, you will explore the new developer tools in Visual Studio 2010 for SharePoint. With the 2010 release of Visual Studio, Microsoft has invested in making Visual Studio a first-class SharePoint development tool with new development, debugging, and testing tools targeted specifically at SharePoint 2010.

Finally, you will see the IT professional improvements for developers. These improvements make deploying and debugging with your IT counterparts faster and easier.

Platform Services

The next section of the book is about the base platform services and APIs provided by SharePoint. This is a big section since SharePoint is a big product with a lot of platform services. This section also serves as a basis for the rest of the book when it comes to the APIs and protocols that you will use to develop with SharePoint.

Workload Chapters

The majority of the book focuses on the workload services and platform provided by SharePoint. This includes social networking, content management, search, forms, and business intelligence. This section of the book is where you can learn to build applications that extend the built-in workloads of SharePoint and shape them to perform the functionality you need to solve your business problems.

Online Services

The last section introduces you to moving your applications to Microsoft’s cloud services called Microsoft Online Services. Through these cloud services, specifically Microsoft SharePoint Online, you can start hosting and sharing your application in the cloud with either coworkers or business partners without having to run the IT infrastructure yourself.

HOW THIS BOOK IS STRUCTURED

This book is structured to build logically on the skills you learn as you progress through it. After the initial introduction and base platform chapters, the book moves into the more advanced part of the platform. Each chapter builds on knowledge acquired from earlier in the book, so you will want to read through the chapters in succession or at the very least read the introduction and platform chapters before reading later chapters in the book.

WHAT YOU NEED TO USE THIS BOOK

First, you will need a copy of SharePoint 2010. The book is written to the public beta of SharePoint 2010, so you will want to download the beta. We have done our best to also test against the released version of SharePoint, so please check the WROX site regularly to see if there are updated code samples available.

Besides SharePoint 2010, you will need Visual Studio 2010 and Office 2010. The easiest way to get all these products is to download the pre-build virtual machine, which includes these products that Microsoft will release after the RTM of SharePoint 2010.

CONVENTIONS

To help you get the most from the text and keep track of what’s happening, we’ve used a number of conventions throughout the book.

Boxes like this one hold important, not-to-be forgotten information that is directly relevant to the surrounding text.

Notes, tips, hints, tricks, and asides to the current discussion are offset and placed in italics like this.

As for styles in the text:

New terms and important words are

italicized

when introduced.

Keyboard strokes are shown like this: Ctrl+A.

File names, URLs, and code within the text looks like this:

persistence.properties

.

Code is presented in two different ways:

We use a monofont type with no highlighting for most code examples.We use bolded code to emphasize code that is of particular importance in the present context.

SOURCE CODE

As you work through the examples in this book, you may choose either to type in all the code manually, or to use the source code files that accompany the book. All the source code used in this book is available for download at http://www.wrox.com. When at the site, simply locate the book’s title (use the Search box or one of the title lists) and click the Download Code link on the book’s detail page to obtain all the source code for the book. Code that is included on the Web site is highlighted by the following icon:

Listings include the filename in the title. If it is just a code snippet, you’ll find the filename in a code note such as this:

code snippet filename

Because many books have similar titles, you may find it easiest to search by ISBN; this book’s ISBN is 978-0-470-52942-3.

Once you download the code, just decompress it with your favorite compression tool. Alternately, you can go to the main Wrox code download page at www.wrox.com/dynamic/books/download.aspx to see the code available for this book and all other Wrox books.

ERRATA

Every effort is made to ensure that there are no errors in the text or in the code. However, no one is perfect, and mistakes do occur. If you find an error in one of our books, like a spelling mistake or faulty piece of code, your feedback is welcome. By sending in errata, you may save another reader hours of frustration and at the same time you will be helping us provide even higher quality information.

To find the errata page for this book, go to www.wrox.com and locate the title using the Search box or one of the title lists. Then, on the book’s detail page, click the Book Errata link. On this page, you can view all errata that has been submitted for this book and posted by Wrox editors. A complete book list including links to each book’s errata is also available at www.wrox.com/misc-pages/booklist.shtml.

If you don’t spot “your” error on the Book Errata page, go to www.wrox.com/contact/techsupport.shtml and complete the form there to send us the error you have found. Once the information is checked, a message is posted to the book’s errata page and the problem is fixed in subsequent editions of the book.

P2P.WROX.COM

For author and peer discussion, join the P2P forums at p2p.wrox.com. The forums are a Web-based system for you to post messages relating to Wrox books and related technologies, and interact with other readers and technology users. The forums offer a subscription feature to email you topics of interest of your choosing when new posts are made to the forums. Wrox authors, editors, other industry experts, and your fellow readers are present on these forums.

At http://p2p.wrox.com you will find a number of different forums that will help you not only as you read this book, but also as you develop your own applications. To join the forums, just follow these steps:

1.  Go to p2p.wrox.com and click the Register link.

2.  Read the terms of use and click Agree.

3.  Complete the required information to join, as well as any optional information you wish to provide, and click Submit.

4.  You will receive an email with information describing how to verify your account and complete the joining process.

You can read messages in the forums without joining P2P, but in order to post your own messages, you must join.

Once you join, you can post new messages and respond to messages other users post. You can read messages at any time on the web. If you would like to have new messages from a particular forum emailed to you, click the Subscribe to this Forum icon by the forum name in the forum listing.

For more information about how to use the Wrox P2P, be sure to read the P2P FAQs for answers to questions about how the forum software works, as well as many common questions specific to P2P and Wrox books. To read the FAQs, click the FAQ link on any P2P page.

1

Introduction to SharePoint 2010

WHAT’S IN THIS CHAPTER?

Information about tools to integrate with Silverlight, LINQ, and BCS

New features in social computing

New features in ECM

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 introduces a lot of new functionality that you need to understand in order to write better applications on the platform. Beyond increasing the new features in each of the SharePoint workloads, such as collaboration or portal, Microsoft has added entirely new products to the SharePoint family, including the acquired FAST technologies for Enterprise Search and the PerformancePoint services that enhance SharePoint’s business intelligence (BI) capabilities. With these new additions, the surface area of SharePoint has doubled, so this chapter will quickly introduce the new set of features in both SharePoint and the Office client.

WHAT’S NEW IN THE SHAREPOINT PLATFORM AND TOOLS

SharePoint, as a development platform, has matured over time from server APIs to web services to now supporting the latest developer technologies, such as Silverlight, LINQ, and REST APIs. Developers who build on the SharePoint platform will find some very welcome additions to the platform, which users have been requesting for a number of years, such as the ability to develop and test on client operating systems, including Windows Vista and Windows 7. You no longer need to do remote development or run a virtual server OS on your client machine to develop on SharePoint. Let’s look at the top new enhancements in the platform that you can build against.

Language Integrated Query (LINQ)

In the 2008 release of Visual Studio and .NET 3.5, Microsoft introduced new technology and semantics that allow developers to write against objects that map back to a number of different datasources, even if those datasources do not store the data using object storage. Effectively, LINQ is an object mapper with special operators in the .NET languages. Therefore, you can take a relational database table, use Visual Studio to map the database to your objects, and then write to your objects. For LINQ to work, you need a provider that takes the object calls and translates them into the correct native calls of the underlying datasource, such as SQL queries for databases. With SharePoint 2010, a new LINQ provider for SharePoint converts object operations into the correct SharePoint operations using the native CAML language that SharePoint understands.

List Enhancements

Lists are a critical part of the SharePoint platform. In fact, everything in SharePoint is powered by lists, whether it’s a built-in application or your own custom application. With the 2010 release, lists have new, long-awaited functionality, including new scale limits, XSLT views for better customization, list relationships that allow cascade deletes and updates to work, and formula validation for columns in a list. There is also a new list type called the External Data List. This type of list allows you to surface external data, such as database or web service data, inside SharePoint with read/write capabilities. You’ll learn more about this new type of list later in the book.