I need to bind a dropdown list control to some data from an XML document. Initially, I tried to specify the DataSource as a node list and the DataText & DataValue properties to “@attribute_name”. No luck.

Thanks to the internet, I found the ASP.NET DropDownList XML Binder Class from the XML for ASP.Net site. This class is written to read an XML file from the specified path and create the ListItems that are added to the control.  It's not databinding in the same sense as ASP.Net, but it works!

The class uses an XMLTextReader. Since I already have a document, I can use the XMLNodeReader and I'm done. 

I was in the middle of answering a question on the message board at SharePointU and I thought it would make a good blog entry.

The WSS framework provides a mechanism (called tokens) to uniquely identify the HTML DOM elements of each part. When writing client-side script in a web part, you can use the token _WPQ_ to refer to the current web part. The poster in the forums is using the token to reference the WebPartCaption element:

            var wpc = WebPartCaption_WPQ_;

However, this is not working because the _WPQ_ token has been changed by WSS. Looking at the page source in IE will show WPQ1, WPQ2, etc. To get the script to work, we need to use the ReplaceTokens method of the WebPart object.

ReplaceTokens takes a string as input and returns the same string with all of the WebPart tokens converted in to their appropriate values. A list of the available tokens is included in the SDK page on ReplaceTokens().

I also posted a sample.

If you're not bringing new ideas to the table, You're signing your own pink slip.

Tom Yager, InfoWorld, 04.19.04

We are live with our WSS site. The cut-over actually happened Thursday of last week. On Friday, the network team worked on the latest patches, so having multiple machines was very nice.

On the to-do list now is migrating legacy content into the WSS lists. The ultimate goal is to have our content in the search results, but keep our existing user interface. I've written a console program to syncronize a list (and other list activities like viewing the schema and contents). I'll try to post the concepts later this week.

Now that you have your PowerPoint presentation ready using the Sharepoint template, here is a tip about presenting and viewing your speaker notes.

I have a few overview/training sessions coming up, so why not use the WebPart user interface look for the slides. Download the WebPart-inspired PowerPoint template (created in PP 2003).  SharePoint.pot (35 KB)

A few items about searching with WSS (not Portal) that are worth remembering:

• SQL Server is required. WMSDE does not support search.
• To search non-office file types, an IFilter must be installed on the SQL Server machine.
• Acrobat IFilter: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=1276
• If you already have Acrobat files in the system, you need to rebuild the full-text index. In SQL Enterprise Manager, expand the content database. In the Full-Text Catalogs node, right-click on the catalog (ix_databasename) and choose Start Full Population. 
• Configuring WSS to display Acrobat (and other) icons in search result: KB 832809

I was refering to the production server via two different names (//MachineName and //portal.company.net). The web-service based operations (FrontPage, WPSC) would not work.

I found a few different KBase articles that lead me to an answer. 830342 discusses adjusting the virtual server to match the host header name. 832816 discusses the inability of WSS to find a server instance.

In IIS Admin, I added portal.company.net to the Web Site Idenfication for the Virtual Server:

- Right-click on virtual server (i.e. Default Web Site) and choose Properties
- On the Web Site tab, click Advanced
- In the "Multiple identies for this Web site" section, Click Add
- For IP address, choose the same setting as the existing entry
- For TCP port, choose the same setting as the existing entry
- For Host Header value, enter [portal.company.net]

This post echoes my experience...