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One thing missing is printing.  Certainly, there are “work arounds” but that is a fundamental feature missing right out of the box.

From a coding perspective one can use Visual Studio which is unquestionably the best Integrated Development Environment on the market today.  As for learning curve it’s no more complex then any other language or set of controls.  However, the techniques and skills one hones using Silverlight are unique to Silverlight.  Developers will not apply their Silverlight expertise to app’s that aren’t using it.  Moving Silverlight requires a serious commitment because refactoring to replace it with something else is not for the faint of heart.

Development teams employing the Model View Controller (MVC) architecture will find coding for Silverlight in the View layer much easier to transition to than developers using conventional ASP.Net or WPF.  I say that because of the clear distinction between data and display layers in MVC applications.  There will be significant learning curve anyway, but even greater for developers that aren’t accustomed to maintaining a very clear delineation between layers.

Like Adobe’s Flash, Silverlight requires the users to download and install a plug-in on their workstations.  This could be an issue in corporate environments where users are prohibited from installing anything on their workstations and IT departments do not wish to support a new

Applications developed in Silverlight will run on any modern Windows Server or PC, Apple Mac OS X and Linux (provided it has Novell’s Moonlight product installed).

I have to mention Expression Blend because it would be such a great tool to have if you’re working with Silverlight.  However, it has a retail price of $599 per developer so it’s not an impulse buy.  Expression Blend is a development environment that makes application flow and UI layout drag and drop.  Things move seamlessly between it and Visual Studio, so the UI can be laid out and even prototyped for users in Expression Blend and then moved right into Visual Studio for coding.

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2. Add Status Icons to SharePoint List With Calculated Field Providing

FTE
Full Time Employee

Going Native
This is what happens when a consultant stops acting like a consultant and starts thinking they are a full time employee.  They are no longer providing the same value they were.  They either need to become an FTE or be replaced.  There is no in between.

Boil the Ocean
As in, "We’re not trying to boil the ocean here. We just need to," when people start getting carried away with scope creep on a project.

Drink the Kool-Aid
To be very enthusiastic about following a plan of action.

Holistic 
A term used by someone that doesn’t really have any idea how something’s supposed to get done, who really thinks they’ve got a great idea.

Running in parallel
Processing data through two systems simultaneously to compare performance and output.

White paper 
Report or guide published to share technical or business information, particularly related to solving common problems. Writing white papers is a great way to get exposure and develop a reputation as an expert.

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Our objective is to add a column and have it display an icon image based on the value of another field.  First impulse is to simply put an img tag in an IF statement within a Formula on a Calculated field.  I will tell you now that is a bit of a Schrodinger’s cat paradoxical experiment.  That is to say it can be thought of as both true and false at the same time.  We will add the img tag in an IF statement, but we must also add a bit of JavaScript to each View from which we wish to view the icons.  Otherwise, SharePoint will display our image tag HTML as text in the field.

Couple of quick things before we start the walkthrough.  I got everything for this article by adapting information from various links off a blog post you can find here:

http://pathtosharepoint.wordpress.com/2008/09/01/using-calculated-columns-to-write-html/

If you haven’t worked with Calculated fields in SharePoint yet, now would be a good time to review Microsoft’s online help for SharePoint Formulas.  Here’s a direct link:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointtechnology/CH100650061033.aspx

Here’s a direct link to the Logical operators like IF, which is one you have to be familiar with straight away.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/CH101760371033.aspx

With the fundamentals out of the way; on to making icons display as desired.

First put the icon images where they can always be reached from within SharePoint as follows:

• Navigate to your site. https://keep.corp.kroll.com/sites/kbs_se/Projects/NOVUS/default.aspx
• Click Lists >> Lists (drop down) >> Picture Libraries

• Select Shared Pictures >> Upload (top menu) >> Browse (button)
• Select icon image file and upload it to the Share Pictures library
• Click the icon image displayed in the Share Pictures library.
• Click the Preview image displayed on the next screen to view the image itself.

• Copy the URL for the image from the browser location.
• Store the URL somewhere, you’ll need it for the Calculated field Formula later.

For the purposes of this article we’ll use a Task List with an existing drop down called Status and we’ll display an icon in a new field called Status Icon based on the following options:

Not Started	No Icon
In Progress
Completed
Deferred
Pending

• Navigate to the List you want to have the icons displayed in.
• Select – Settings
• Select – List Settings
• Select – Create column
• Column name
  • Enter Status Icon (for example) as the column name
• Calculated (calculation based on other columns)
  • Select radio button for this option
• The data type returned from this formula is:
  • Select – Single line of text
• Add to default view
  • Place check in check box for this option
• Formula
  • Enter the code below as the Formula.
  • There are four nested if’s in this formula.  The max SharePoint allows is 7.
  • Status is the name of the field who’s value we’re basing our decision on.
  • I include the Status column value in the title and alt attributes on the image tag.
  • The image paths come from the Share Picture library.
  • The JavaScript in following steps requires the div tag the image tags are wrapped in.

=IF([Status]="Not Started",
"",
  IF([Status]="In Progress",
"<DIV><img title=’In Progress’ border=’0′ alt=’In Progress’ src=’http://rockwebcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/vision.png‘></DIV>",
  IF([Status]="Completed",
"<DIV><img title=’Completed’ border=’0′ alt=’Completed’ src=’http://rockwebcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/vision.png‘></DIV>",
  IF([Status]="Deferred",
"<DIV><img title=’Deferred’ border=’0′ alt=’Deferred’ src=’http://rockwebcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/vision.png‘></DIV>",
  IF([Status]="Pending",
"<DIV><img title=’Pending’ border=’0′ alt=’Pending’ src=’http://rockwebcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/vision.png‘></DIV>",
"end"

)))))

• Select – OK
• Return to your List.
  • At this point the image tag HTML will be displayed as plain text in the field.  This issue will be corrected as follows.

The following MUST be performed for each VIEW the icons will be displayed in.

• Select the View: you want to have the icons display in.  With the desired view showing the HTML image tag.
• Add a Web Part to the bottom of the page for the View that contains the code provided below.
• Select – Site Actions
• Select – Edit Page
• Select – Add a Web Part
• Add Web Parts dialog will display
• Scroll down to Miscellaneous section
• Select – Content Editor Web Part
• Select – Add
• Select – open the tool pane within Content Editor Web Part on page
• Select – Source Editor
• Text Entry Webpage Dialog will display
• Copy and page the JavaScript provided below

<script type="text/javascript">
//
// Text to HTML
// Feedback and questions: Christophe@PathToSharePoint.com
//
var theTDs = document.getElementsByTagName("TD");
var i=0;
var TDContent = " ";
while (i < theTDs.length) {
try {
TDContent = theTDs[i].innerText || theTDs[i].textContent;
if ((TDContent.indexOf("<DIV") == 0) && (TDContent.indexOf("</DIV>") >= 0)) {
theTDs[i].innerHTML = TDContent;}}
catch(err){}
i=i+1;}

//
// ExpGroupRenderData overwrites the default SharePoint function
// This part is needed for collapsed groupings
//
function ExpGroupRenderData(htmlToRender, groupName, isLoaded) {
var tbody=document.getElementById("tbod"+groupName+"_");
var wrapDiv=document.createElement("DIV");
wrapDiv.innerHTML="<TABLE><TBODY id=\"tbod"+ groupName+"_\" isLoaded=\""+isLoaded+ "\">"+htmlToRender+"</TBODY></TABLE>";
var theTBODYTDs = wrapDiv.getElementsByTagName("TD"); var j=0; var TDContent = " ";
while (j < theTBODYTDs.length) {
try {
TDContent = theTBODYTDs[j].innerText || theTBODYTDs[j].textContent;
if ((TDContent.indexOf("<DIV") == 0) && (TDContent.indexOf("</DIV>") >= 0)) {
theTBODYTDs[j].innerHTML = TDContent;}}
catch(err){}
j=j+1;}
tbody.parentNode.replaceChild(wrapDiv.firstChild.firstChild,tbody);}
</script>

• Select – Save
• Select – + Appearance to expand the Appearance options
• Enter Custom JavaScript as the Title
• Select OK
• Mouse over title bar of the new Web Part.
• Drag Web Part to the desired location on the page.
• Select – Exit Edit Mode

Return to you list and you should see icons for corresponding values in your IF statement.

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A true programmer is someone that will analyze a situation, break it down into it’s component parts, create a solution, move on to the next challenge and someone else can maintain what they created.  Note that what separates the great from the weak, is that others can follow what they did, why the did it and make use of what they created.

Really good development shops mentor junior developers; pair them up with a programmer who has truly proven they can deliver quality and watch them grow, until eventually one of the pair moves on.  The place where it falls apart at most places is that the person teaching the apprentices, isn’t actually a master of their craft.

In today’s IT community, people that ought not be typing are getting hired by people that don’t know what to look for.  These "developers" spout all sorts of buzz words they read in somebody else’s blog. Then they Google whatever they’re trying to do, copy and paste and fill in the gaps with what little code they remember from class.  Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with reusing code. In fact at the other extreme are egotists who insist on writing everything from scratch.

Here’s my brick wall analogy. 

You see some with bricks evenly spaced and the mortar between them nice and smooth.  You can tell the artist lovingly ran their finger between each one to make it just so.  That is as it should be.

Others have bricks stacked up, mortar bulging out between them and spilled onto the bricks. Sure it may work but there’s invariably cracks throughout. In time you’ll see patch work because somebody has to spend a lot of time maintaining it.

Every now and then you’ll see a wall that was clearly made from scratch.  You don’t see many of those because the people that insist they can build better bricks from scratch, seldom actually finish anything.  They move on to another job leaving someone else to make something of the mess they leave behind.

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animated_box_001_0_diffuse ZIP

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protected static string GetUniqueFileName(
                  string directoryName, string originalName, string extension)
{
    string filePath = directoryName +originalName + extension;
    string fileOut = Server.MapPath(filePath);
    string alphabet = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz";
    int target = -1;
    int sequenceQuantity = 0;
    string sequenceCharacter = "";
    string sequence = "";

    while (File.Exists(fileOut))
    {   
        target++;
        sequence = "";

        if (target > 25)
        {
            sequenceQuantity++;
            target = 0;
        }
        sequenceCharacter = alphabet.Substring(target, 1);

        for (int i = 0; i <= sequenceQuantity; i++)
        {
            sequence = sequence + sequenceCharacter;
        }

        filePath = directoryName + originalName + sequence + extension;
        fileOut = Server.MapPath(filePath);
    }

    return fileOut;
}

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The common members of all classes in a hierarchical structure should be declared in the base class.  That way any changes that need to be done to any of the common features need only be done in one place.  Derived classes inherit the changes.  If you find yourself having to copy a method to all or even most of your child classes come back to this rule.

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