How to Integrate MOSS (SharePoint 2007, SharePoint 2010 or WSS 3) with Joomla, Drupal, WordPress or MediaWiki!

Update 2011-11-11!

This is an old post which turned into a real project. You may download the result here http://www.bendsoft.com/downloads/sharepoint-joomla-tools/. Any other php-based platform not using Joomla should use the Camelot PHP Tools for SharePoint framework instead, have a look at http://www.bendsoft.com/downloads/sharepoint-php-tools/, documentation available at http://docs.bendsoft.com/camelot-php-tools/

 

Original post

This is just a little announcement, we are soon ready with a product that will bring you an ADO.NET interface towards Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, 2010 and WSS 3. In other words you will be able to query your SharePoint server with common sql language. Like

SharePoint /> SHOW TABLES;

SharePoint /> SELECT * FROM List1.Item;

SharePoint /> UPDATE List1 SET Title = 'My New Title' WHERE Title = 'Old Title';

Note! We are not working towards the MsSQL but towards the actual SharePoint Server as a data layer!

Now, imagine what you can do with this stuff and tools like SharePoint Designer!

Use it with OpenSource!

Some really neat features are standardized php-classes to handle automated data exports from SharePoint. These php-classes are currently getting converted to work with the major OpenSource CMS platforms, and will accordingly be OpenSource themselves. However, we intend to charge yearly for the core-products, they will not be OpenSource (Hey, we got to pay our rent!).

Some other features

• Export any list to MySQL dump (standardized xml format)
• Schedule data export or import from or to any SharePoint MOSS (2007, 2010) or WSS 3.0
• Sync data between two SharePoint installations
• Smooth integration with Hibernate and it’s siblings
• Laughingly easy to create versatile web services and web parts
• Use your SharePoint Server as a backend for your website
• Directly import form data from your website to SharePoint
• Backup a singular List (and restore if needed!)
• Query your MOSS from .net, or php, or…
• And more…

Setup a subversion (svn) server in Debian

There are quite a few guides and howto’s out there. Some a relevant but as usual most of them are crap and made without any regards to the one who will use them. Compatibility and usability should always be ranked high when setting up such an environment.

One such thing is how to access the svn-server, there are these fancy ssh+svn://blabla which undoubtedly tightens the security by encrypting the connection in a pretty sophisticated manner. However the setup is complex and the usability disappears for “normal” users.

The way to go is by http or https, I promise
The compatibility with applications and platforms are unmatched, and the set up is fairly easy!

Lets start

Installation

# Install required packages
$ sudo apt-get install subversion libapache2-svn

# Create subversion repositories:
sudo mkdir /var/svn
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/svn

# Edit the DAV_SVN Configuration
$ sudo nano /etc/apache2/mods-available/dav_svn.conf

It should look somethink like this (the dav_svn.conf file that is)

# IMPORTANT!
# remove the # in front of the <location and </location
<Location /svn>
  DAV svn
  SVNParentPath /var/svn
  AuthType Basic
  AuthName "Subversion Repository"
  AuthUserFile /etc/apache2/dav_svn.passwd
  Require valid-user
  #SSLRequireSSL      # this line must be added if you want SSL enabled
</Location>

Let’s set up the Apache-server mod and create a repository

# Enable modules and restart 

$ sudo a2enmod dav_svn
$ sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

# Create/enable a user account for dav_svn (the -c indicates the main user)
# Replace user1 with the adminname
$ sudo htpasswd -c /etc/apache2/dav_svn.passwd user1

# Next user2, user3, user4 etc...
$ sudo htpasswd /etc/apache2/dav_svn.passwd user2

# Testing
$ sudo svnadmin create /var/svn/test
$ sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/svn/test

# Testing (first enter local user password, then your svn user/pass)
$ svn co http://localhost/svn/test

To create new repositories just login and type

$ sudo svnadmin create /var/svn/myrepository
$ sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/svn/myrepository

To connect to your svn, simply type http://yourserverurl/svn/myrepository. This can be done in either a browser or svn-application like tortoise or versions (there are quite a few).

Happy versioning!

Sleep in Flash AS3

I’ve noticed a lot of questions around the Internet regarding sleep() functions in Flash. Well, there isn’t exactly a direct command to pause a Flash movie, instead we have to rely on the same type of functions available in JavaScript, setTimeout or setInterval.

Alright, here it is

// Call the function, time in seconds
sleep(5);

function sleep(sec) {
	// Stops the script on the current frame
	stop();

	// The actual pause, and starter
	setTimeout(this.gotoAndPlay, sec*1000, this.currentFrame + 1);
}

I usually place the function inside a class, or in a bottom layer that’s always included. That way I can just call the sleep() whenever I want.