The new things in SharePoint 15 Object Model - Part 2

In the previous post, I introduced some new methods in come class’ in SharePoint 15 Object Model. In this post, I would like to show more new methods that help you prepare to upgrade your product to new baseline and improve your performance.

1. SPFieldLookup: As you known, the schema of this column contains information the original list and column that this column is looking to. If you need to get the original list and column, you must read and analyst data from schema. In new object model, you just get from method GetJsonClientFormFieldSchema() method and parse it to Json object. It’s easily to get an object and improve your code.

2. Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 15 has exposed the new class named “SPFileRightsManagementSettings” for getting information about the download file. This class defined 5 properties and without any method, I don’t know why Microsoft did not introduce any method for this class.

• AllowPrint: this property indicates whether the file is able to print or not. 
• AllowScript: allow the viewer can be run the script while reviewing the document. 
• AllowWritecopy: allow the viewer can write down a copy. 
• DocumentAccessExpireDay: get the day which document is available to download. 
• GroupName: show the group which has permission can be view this document. 

There is only 1 noticed for any object of this class is not guaranteed about thread safe, that means this object must be disposed and released the memory after used.

“Because companies often have restrictions that require their files to be stored in nonencrypted formats, SharePoint Foundation does not store files in encrypted, rights-managed file formats. However, SharePoint Foundation calls an IRM protector to convert the stored file to an encrypted format each time a user downloads the file. Similarly, when a user uploads a rights-managed copy of a file, SharePoint Foundation calls the appropriate IRM protector to convert that copy to a nonencrypted format before it is stored. As a result, you do not need to create custom solutions to enable searching or archiving of document libraries where IRM is enabled. Storing the files in nonencrypted format ensures that the current Search indexing service is able to crawl content stored on the servers. Search results are already scoped to user permissions, so the user never sees search results that include content to which they do not have some level of access.”

In SharePoint Foundation, IRM is enabled for any files in document libraries and Site Collection Admin can choose the method to protect the downloadable file. Thus, IRM must be enabled at the document libraries level. For more information read more here

3. SPSolutionExporter: used to export a web site as a template and export a workflow as a workflow template. This class expose new method called “ExportFolderToList” to export a specific folder as an object to the gallery.

public static string ExportFolderToList( SPFolder folder, string solutionFileName, string title, string description, SPList solutionList ) 

For being time, Microsoft does not show how big the folder can be exported. The folder size exports as a solution file template must be less than the maximum size allowed unless it throws exception exceeds the maximum allowed.

The new things in SharePoint 15 Object Model - Part 1

From the technical preview document, SharePoint 2015 has been updated a lot of methods that help developers improving the code.

1. The first thing is from SPUtility, this class gives a supplementary the method GetLayoutsFolder to specify the layout folder.

SPUtility.GetLayoutsFolder(SPWeb);
SPUtility.GetLayoutsFolder(SPSite);

If site.CompatibilityLevel returns the value greater than or equal 15, the method GetLayoutsFolder() returns "_layouts/site.CompatibilityLevel", otherwise returns "_layouts".

In aditional, there are 3 new propertie:

ContextCompatibilityLevel: Gets the compatibility level of the context site ContextLayoutsFolder: Gets the versioned layouts folder for the context site CurrentThemeFolderName:  Gets the name of the current theme folder

2.  ASP.NET has been supported Control.Page to regist the script on client by ClientScript. Almost developers often use this object to regist, but with SharePoint 2015 object model we can use the new class to replace Control.Page class.

SPPageContentManager also has fully methods to perform like Control.Page such as IsClientScriptBlockRegistered, IsStartupScriptRegistered, RegisterClientScriptBlock, RegisterHiddenField, RegisterScriptFile, RegisterStartupScript

3. SharePoint 2015 also expose new properties of SPWorkflowEventProperties

•  AssociationId: Gets the identifier of the workflow SPWorkflowAssociation. 
• AssociationName: Gets the name of the workflow SPWorkflowAssociation.
• CorrelationId: Gets the correlation identifier for the workflow, if supplied.
• Created: Gets the DateTime value for when the workflow was created.
• ItemGuid: Gets the identifier of the workflow ParentItem.
• ItemId: Gets the identifier of the workflow ParentItem.
• ListId: Gets the identifier of the workflow ParentList.
• Modified: Gets the last DateTime the workflow was modified
• StatusText: Gets the string that represents the status of the workflow.
• StatusValue: Gets the integer that represents the workflow status.
• TemplateId: Gets the identifier of the workflow association base template.

This helps us improve performance a lot because these properties can be access directly when workflow is running. Of course, defends on the purpose of your project but these properties reduce the time to build a workflow a lot. That's good upgrading.

Could not create site or list by reserved name?

As you know, Windows reserved some words as a device configuration such as CON (CON known as console), PRN (PRN known as printer device)…Thus, we cannot create a folder or file name which the name were registered. I don’t think this issue affected to SharePoint because before SharePoint save anything, it always validates the input data to be sure all texts are correct.

When I show my issue to my colleague, they were for sure that I didn’t configure SharePoint farm correctly or my SharePoint server had have a big problem. I didn’t have any comment or idea for this issue, but I was ensured that there was a problem with SharePoint.

Let’s try with these steps:

• ·        Create a site or a list with named “CON”, “COM1” or any name which are reserved by windows.
• ·        No validation and continue saving, but after finish, the page redirected look like:

In general, SharePoint will show the message after validated data input, but in this case, SharePoint didn’t. Anyone knows is it a work as design or SharePoint issue?