WSS 3.0: Permission To Add Users to SharePoint Groups

General information

• The Group Owner of a SharePoint group has permission to add / remove users from a group.
• The Site Collection Administrator has permission to add / remove users from a group.
• Only one person (or group) can be assigned as the Group Owner.
• SharePoint Groups belong to the Site Collection.

Set an individual as the Group Owner

• Navigate to the Change Group Settings page. One way to do this is:

1. Browse to any site within the site collection.
2. On the Quick Launch Click People and Groups.
3. On the Quick Launch Click on the group you wish to modify.
4. Click Settings – Group Settings

• Change the Group Owner to the desired individual.

Set a group as the Group Owner

• Create a SharePoint Group for all individuals that will have the Group Owner permissions (such as MySite Group Owner).
• Add individuals to this group.
• Follow the steps for setting an individual, but enter the SharePoint group name. HINT: You can use the address lookup to help find (and insure correct spelling) the desired group.

MOSS 2007 - How To: Edit default.aspx for a Site Collection

Imagine that you don't have Frontpage or SharePoint Designer installed in an environment and you have to make changes to web pages that are stored in the content database. This is a very natural scenario in a production environment but we normally don't make changes directly in production. However if this scenario arises there is a really neat and quick way to do this by using Internet Explorer and Notepad (a very handy tool...reminds me of 10 years back my initial days Java coding using Textpad) . So, here goes simple steps to achieve this:

1. Open the site using web folder in Internet Explorer (File->Open...) and check "Open as Web Folder" checkbox.




2. Download the required on the local filesystem.



3. Make the required changes and upload it back to server.

Deciding Between Custom Site Template and Site Definition

An Overview of Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0

Introduction

I have been come across many people thinking that WinFx is not related to .NET Framework. The funniest answer I have gotten is that it is a fix related to Windows PC protection similar to WinFix. It is good decision from Microsoft for changing its name from .NET Framework 3.0. This article gives a clear explanation about the additional technologies/features that are included in .NET Framework 3.0, namely Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Windows Workflow Foundation (WF), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows Card Space (WCS).

What Happens when we install Framework 3.0

Does it install new version of the Framework? No. It is just an upgraded Framework from 2.0 that comes along with WPF (Avalon), WCF (Indigo), WCS (InfoCard) and WF. It is a Framework that sits on the top of the 2.0 Framework along with Common Language Runtime (CLR) and BCL (Base Class Library). Framework 3.0 comes with CLR version 2.0. We are still using version 2.0 compilers for the Framework 3.0. So if we have Framework 2.0 installed in our system, it will install managed API's that are required for workflow, presentation, communication, etc. If Framework 2.0 is not installed, it will install Framework 2.0 and then install all other upgraded required components. The serious question that comes to mind is "why the version number is changed if we are still using 2.0 compliers." The reason for choosing the new version number is Avalon, Indigo, Workflow, and Info card are all major new pieces of platform technology.

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)

This is formerly known as the code named "Avalon," a graphical feature in Framework 3.0 that makes easy to build next generation web applications with the help of rich User Interface (UI), documents and media. This is used to display more advanced graphics that helps a developer to improve his/her designing skills using programming skills, which would be quite challenging. We developers can produce outstanding user interfaces using multimedia and document services in WPF. We can also make use of vector graphics, user interface, 2D and 3D drawing, fixed and adaptive documents, typography, raster graphics, animation, data binding, audio, video and develop graphic/animation through declarative programming. WPF allows developers as well as designers to collaborate and develop awesome visual user interfaces. Here are the two different developer environments that are used to make developer and designer work together.
1. Microsoft Visual Studio
2. Microsoft Expression Interactive Designer

The language that is used to develop application user interfaces in WPF is called XAML (Extensible Application Markup Language). XAML is based on XML (Extensible Markup Language). Separation of model and view is possible in XAML by placing design related information in FileName.xaml file and business logic is placed in FileName.xaml.cs file.

Core Components

The major components of WPF are:
1. Presentation Framework
2. Presentation Core
3. MILCore (Media Integration Layer)
4. DirectX

Presentation Framework and Presentation core are written in managed code. The DirectX engine is responsible for displaying. MILCore is written in unmanaged code in order to enable tight integration with DirectX. MILCore (MILCore.dll) also consists of a composition engine which is responsible for performance reasons.

Microsoft Silverlight

WPF comes with its subset Microsoft Silverlight formerly named as Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere (WPF/E) and is a subset of WPF which depends on XAML and JavaScript. Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences for the Web and mobile applications. Silverlight offers a flexible programming model that supports AJAX, VB, C#, Python, and Ruby, and integrates with existing Web applications. It is lightweight, just 1 MB download and pretty fast. We can play many videos simultaneously without stuttering or dropping frames. No doubt WPF is next-generation graphics API. More explanation on Silverlight is out of the scope of this article. For more details on Silverlight, visit http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight.

Windows Workflow Foundation (WF)

"Workflow" is a declarative way of implementing result oriented business process in software. WWF is a programming model that helps in defining, building, executing, debugging and managing work flow related applications that are in sync with business processes. It consists of a Microsoft NET Framework version 3.0 namespace, an in-process workflow engine, and designers for Visual Studio 2005.

We can build as many work flow styles as we need based on the requirement.

Graphical designer and debugger are provided to implement work flow related software. We can make use of imperative code along with declarative modeling. It enables us to build workflow software that is more flexible and transparent.

Core Components
WF core components include:
1. Base Activity Library: This provides functionality for control flow, conditions, event handling, state management and invoking web service. One can build his or her own custom domain specific activities using the base activity.

2. Runtime Engine: This is responsible for Workflow execution and state management.

3. Runtime Services: This provides hosting flexibility and communication.

4. Visual Designer: It is responsible for graphical and code-based construction.

Once a workflow model is compiled, it can be executed inside any windows process including console applications, WinForms applications, Windows Services, ASP.NET Web sites, and Web services. Extensible Object Modeling Language [XOML] based on XAML is the language that is used for declaring the structure of workflow, business logic for the workflow.

In order to create workflow, activities using WWF are:

1. VS 2005 (comes by installing Visual Studio 2005 add-ins to design and program workflow)

2. SharePoint designer that permits building workflows for Share Point 2007

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)

WCF is formerly known as the code “Indigo” is the first Unified Programming Model (UPM) for Service Oriented Applications (SOA). It is the unification of the technologies used to deliver distributed systems such as Enterprise Services, Messaging, .NET remoting, ASMX and WSE that run on the Microsoft platform. In other words, Windows Communication Foundation is an advanced technology to provide web services/remoting functionality with better features and reduces the time to develop a distributed system. It makes development interoperable with Non-MS Platform and integrates with existing products. We can build amazing services that would add more weight using WCF. WCF uses SOAP messages for communication between two processes. WCF has a set of API's for creating systems that send messages between services and clients. The same API's are used to create applications that communicate with other applications on the same system or on a system that resides in another company.

Core components

Here is a list of core components in WCF.

1. End Point: A WCF service is exposed to the world as a collection of endpoints. It is the point where messages are sent or received. It consists of Address, Binding and Contract.

• Address: End point consists of location where message can be sent/received. This is equivalent to a service address in WSDL. An example of Address components are URI, Identity & Headers.
• Binding: This is a communication mechanism that describes how messages can be sent. This represents configuration. It is made up of various binding elements like Transport protocol, such as TCP, HTTP, MSMQ, named pipes, Encoding such as text, Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism such as MTOM, binary, and security like asymmetric, symmetric and transport.
• Contract: It is a definition for a set of messages that can be sent or received (or both) at the address that describes what message can be sent. It describes the WCF contracts and their operations like One way, request/reply, duplex, and queuing.

2. Channel: A channel is a concrete implementation of a binding element. The channel is the implementation associated with that configuration.

3. Client: A program that exchanges messages with one or more endpoints using channels.

4. Service: A service is a construct that exposes one or more endpoints, with each endpoint exposing one or more service operations.

5. Behavior: A behavior is a component that controls various run-time aspects of a service, an endpoint, a particular operation, or a client.

Facts:

• WCF has rich communication capabilities.
• WCF is 25%—50% faster than ASP.NET Web Services and approximately 25% faster than .NET Remoting.
• It is secured, Confidential in keeping messages.
• Using WCF message transfer is reliable.