Viva Connections is ready for GA

 

Really you say? What does that mean? Well checkout what Mercy thinks it could mean here.

Clutter or creator???

 wow, amazing what digital clutter we can create as we adopt online life as the new norm. what was once an active side project has been discarded to other arenas of sharing my thoughts and ideas.
well here goes take # who knows but just writing feels good. no worries on comments or likes or shares.
just me again. for dev and dad to create. lessgooo!!!

peep the fam. thinking opening day might be in the works. 

Microsoft Viva Connections to start rollout to general availability

End of March is here and Viva continues to deliver:

Microsoft Viva Connections to start rollout to general availability: As hybrid work models become widely embraced, reimagining how we nurture employee development and training and how we keep employees connected to each other and to benefits and wellbeing opportunities becomes critical to success. Last month, we launched Microsoft Viva, our new employee experience pl...

Texas Stix 9UAAA Vs Benbrook Lake Monsters10UAA

SharePoint 2010 Hide Site Collection Root and Path Separator in Breadcrumb

In SharePoint 2010 there are a lot of times where you do not want to display the site collection root sites to users in navigation or in the bread crumb.  There are many ways to achieve the task of hiding the root node in the bread crumb but in my opinion this gets you only half way to where you want to be.  Most solutions you will find only hide the root node and leave the Path Separator displayed in the bread crumb.  Whether this is the default > or a custom styled image who wants that to be displayed as the first level of a breadcrumb?  Not my customers that's for sure.  

So how to not only hide the root node but the separator as well?  Well that's where jQuery comes to save the day.  The path separator element has no ID and no style attributes applied which has to contribute to the lack of solutions on the web.  These problems are areas that jQuery excels in.  By being able to select any element from the DOM jQuery really flexes its muscles in these type of scenarios.  Well long story short I have included the jQuery script and HTML used to hide the root node and separator from the SharePoint 2010 breadcrumb.  You can add this to the master page along with references to the jQuery libraries and let the magic happen.

<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderBreadcrumb" runat="server">
    <div id="master-page-breadcrumb">
        <asp:SiteMapPath   
            ID="contentNavigation"
            runat="server"                           
            SiteMapProviders="SPSiteMapProvider,SPXmlContentMapProvider"
            RenderCurrentNodeAsLink="false"
            NodeStyle-CssClass="breadcrumbNode"
            CurrentNodeStyle-CssClass="breadcrumbCurrentNode"
            RootNodeStyle-CssClass="breadcrumbRootNode"
            HideInteriorRootNodes="false"
            SkipLinkText="">
            <RootNodeTemplate></RootNodeTemplate>
        </asp:SiteMapPath>
    </div>
                   
</asp:ContentPlaceHolder>
<script>
    $(document).ready(function(){
                   
        var rootNode = $("span[id$=contentNavigation] > span:eq(0)");
                       
        if (rootNode.attr("class") == "breadcrumbRootNode")
        {                           
            rootNode.hide();
            $(rootNode).next("span").css('display', 'none');                           
        }
                   
    });
</script>

SharePoint 2013 App for WP8

As promised during SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas the Windows Phone 8 App for SharePoint 2013 has been released and is available for download in the Marketplace.  I have included a link to the page below just to speed up the install for those instant gratification types like myself.

http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/sharepoint/21951931-4a31-47c9-bf8b-e50c8fb7b4c1

SharePoint 2010 on Windows8. Sure why not....

How to deal with the dilemma of a new Windows 8 PC and the need to stay a productive SharePoint dev for your customer's???  Get SharePoint 2010 working on your Windows 8 PC, simple as that or it would seem.  Luckily like most things these days I was not the first person to try this or blog about the scenarios and gotchas.  Thank goodness for that new fangled internet thingy.  Below are a couple of blogs that I used to get my environment up and running.  There were a couple of issues that I encountered that were not identified or addressed by these posts and I have provided those as well.  Good luck to all and who needs a Start button anyways!

John Livingston has a good post and a great script for updating IIS on your Windows 8 machine:

http://johnlivingstontech.blogspot.ca/2011/09/installing-sharepoint-2010-on-windows-8.html

I also found the blog by Pradip on installing SharePoint on Windows 7 helpful to get past some initial issues and prerequisites:

http://spradip.wordpress.com/2011/01/08/installing-sharepoint-2010-in-windows-7-64-bit/

Between the 2 blogs I was able to get a successful install and that's when the real fun started.  I was unable to successfully complete the configuration wizard after install due to a couple of issues.

Issue 1: Was with InfoPath 2013.  Every time I attempted to run the Config wizard I received this error.

"Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.Office.InfoPath, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified. Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.Office.InfoPath, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c' or one of its dependencies.

and it would cause the wizard to fail.  I was unable to find a solution for this issue other than to modify my Office install and remove InfoPath 2013.  This work around removed this issue.  Now just need to hope I don't need InfoPath 2013 for a bit.

Issue 2:  Was casused by my dev machine not being connected to the dev domain that I was using.  Dumb mistake I know but hopefully by me posting this it can save someone else a few minutes.  This is the error I received for the no contact with domain error.

Exception: System.ArgumentException: Specified value is not supported for the {0} parameter.

Issue 3: Was caused by the .Net 4.0 Framework that comes with Windows 8.  The script by John Livingston does attempt to address this but the issue I encountered was with the new app pools that SharePoint attempts to create during configuration.  Once SharePoint creates the app pool you have to go into IIS and change the Advanced Settings of the App Pool to run as the 2.0 .Net framework.  This resolved my issues with the Central Admin web app but did not work when creating a new port 80 default Web App.  To get my default port 80 Web App to work I had to first create a new App Pool and set the .Net framework to 2.0.  Then in Central Admin when creating a new Web App I selected the option to use an existing App Pool and selected the newly created 2.0 App Pool.

And like magic I had a new SharePoint 2010 Publishing Web App up and working on Windows 8.

I hope this can help save someone some time and keep them productive while enjoying all the new toys and trinkets of Windows 8.  

WHO NEEDS A START BUTTON ANYWAYS!!