Two custom development examples build for SharePoint 2007

September 30, 2007   19:26

SharePoint provides a lot of functionality out of the box, but of course there are always parts that have to be custom build. In this post I will show you 2 cool examples of what is possible with SharePoint when you add some custom development. Last week I’ve developed these two custom parts at Macaw to extend the functionality of the document library.

File preview
The standard document library allows the user to manage and download documents. One of the things missing in SharePoint is the option to show a preview of the document. To add this functionality we have decided to add a Web Part that streams the file inside an IFrame. The web part is then connected to the normal document list. I have created a small Flash movie that shows the final functionality.

Send a file attachment by e-mail
One of the out of the box functionalities that SharePoint provides is the possibility to e-mail a direct link to a document that is hosted inside SharePoint. The receiver of the e-mail can click the link inside the message to connect to SharePoint and view the file. This works fine for internal SharePoint users, but sometimes you must also mail a file to an external user.

It requires custom development to send an e-mail with the file attached. To make SharePoint email the file we have used a SharePoint feature to add a new menu option to the item menu that presents the user with an e-mail page. After filling in the form SharePoints sends out the message with the selected file as attachment. Of course you can see a demo of it in another Flash movie.

[UPDATE 12-11-2007]
Changed the flash html files. Because of an error in the script the flash movies where not visible in Firefox.

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How to open an Office 2007 document inside an Internet Explorer 7 window?

September 24, 2007   17:53

Trying to build a document preview window in Sharepoint, I noticed that it is no longer possible to stream a Word document inside a browser window. This problem occurs when you use Office 2007 in combination with Internet Explorer 7 and is behavior by design. Microsoft decided on this behavior to increase overall security and usability.

But what if you really need to open the document inside the browser? There is only one way around; Microsoft published a KB about the issue which can be resolved by making changes to the registry which you can read here. If you have no control over the end-user’s computer you’ll probably have to find another solution like generating PDF previews. What a bummer…

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