Want To Get In To SharePoint? Here's A Starter's Guide
Want to dabble in SharePoint? Before you do you'll need to setup a development environment. Here's how I did it:
- Purchased a decent-sized server which runs Hyper-V, so I can have lots of servers to mess about with.
- Added a Windows 2003 R2 SP2 Web Server (x86) to the Hyper-V host and enabled remote desktop connection on it, so I can remotely connect to it from my laptop.
- Installed SQL Server 2005 on the server.
- Enabled the Windows SharePoint Services (WSS 3.0) on the server, which is already installed on Windows 2003 and just needs enabling.
- Installed SharePoint 2007 server from the CD that came with my MAPS subscription yonks ago.
- Played with SharePoint's web front-end as the site admin for a day and got my head round the various different terms used (Sites, Lists, Views, Columns etc) and what it can do from a user's perspective. My first impressions were good.
- Installed Visual Studio 2008 (full version, which I got courtesy of Microsoft's WebsiteSpark program) on the server (not on my laptop!). I now have VS 2008 running in an RDC window on my laptop.
- Installed the WSPBuilder add-in for Visual Studio on the server (I tried VSeWSS but just couldn't get my head round it). WSPBuilder seems to make more sense. There are some good guides on using WSPBuilder here and here.
So, that's where I'm currently at with my endeavour to learn SharePoint. I'm somewhere deep in the "12 Hive" folder structure trying to work out what on earth is going on. It's still yet to "click" and make sense to me just what is what. All the separate pieces are starting to make sense, but the bigger picture of how they fit together isn't quite clear yet. Sure (hope!) that'll come soon though.
Starting to wonder whether item 9 on the list ought to be "Buy some books" or "Attend a training course". This isn't anything like learning something like ASP.NET or PHP. With traditional web programming all you need is an example of how to connect to a database and output the resulting HTML to the browser and you just build on top of that. With SharePoint nothing makes any sense and the amount of "help" out there is just a bit over-whelming.
It doesn't help that all of Microsoft's "getting started" material already seems to be geared solely towards SharePoint 2010. Perhaps it's just me but I'm really struggling getting to grips with it all.
Consultant Needed
Anybody out there confident enough in their SharePoint knowledge to provide me some paid consulting to help get me moving? I just want somebody I can fire emails off to in moments of desperation.
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personally i would never try out anything on 2003 anymore , might as welll jump the rock and get started on 2008
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Are you talking Windows Server versions or SharePoint versions? If the latter then do you mean skip from 2007 to 2010?
I'm using 2007 for now as I have a paid job to produce a site in that version.
Also, I'm hoping that, having cut my teeth on 2007, when I move to 2010 it will seem amazing and without fault ;o)
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Hi Jake,
I attend Sharepoint User Group UK (http://suguk.org) meetings, which can be quite useful just to meet people even if the presentations aren't of interest.
From a development point of view have you come across the Microsoft Ramp Up ? http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/rampup/dd221355.aspx
Ian.
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What a coincidence. There's one next Thursday in Nottingham. Might pop along. Where are you based Ian? Notts too far to come?
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jake - if you don´t get anyone then send me a line as we have pretty good MS SP developers .
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Hi Jake!
Just drop me a mail. I'm, like you, from the Domino world, and I moved over to full-time SharePoint development/consulting 3 years ago.
Ask me anything. I'll do it for free.
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Out of all the voluminous complaints I've heard from Sharepoint programmers, really the number one complaint is simply how confusing and counter-intuitive the API is. Seems like you're running head-first into that right now.
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Use Sharepoint designer to get into sharepoint.
Vis Studio is not really designed for SP esp in 2007, and is difficult. - 2010 is better.
SP Designer is a pretty easy thing to get your head around.
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Jake,
I've followed Linda's SharePoint learning video which was quite useful in learning basics of SharePoint. Check the table of contents here,
http://www.lynda.com/home/DisplayCourse.aspx?lpk2=503
Also, As Nick told most of the development in SharePoint can be done using SharePoint designer.I've nice pdf on SharePoint designer development , drop me an email if you need it.
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Jake,
Completely off-topic, but I have noticed an issue in your comments thread.
If I click on the first 'Show the rest of this thread'-button, it screws up the response below it. I will send you an email too, might be more clear than my explanation. Probably my IE, but I thought you might want to know..
PS: IE7 on Windows XP
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Hi Tom,
This is a "known issue". When I added this feature I took the approach that I would design it with the latest/greatest browsers in mind. If it didn't work with older versions of IE then I'd not worry too much about it spend time finding out why.
It works with IE8 ;-)
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