Finally after lots of coding, testing and feedback; I have the new WSP listener ready. You can download it from codeplex.

In short, the improvements:

• All assemblies and required assets in one WSP
• Seperated code in library assembly
• Activate the WSP Listener with one simple feature
• Clear overview of (previous) installations in one document library
• Several bugfix and code improvements

Hope you like it as much as I do.

Finally my first codeplex project is finished: http://wsplistener.codeplex.com/

Super easy copy paste installation of WSP files on different servers in your OTAP environments.

The WSP listener is a windows service application which waits for new config and WSP files in a specific folder. If a new config and WSP file are added, the WSP Listener will install the new SharePoint solution on the server based on values in de config file. The config file is a configuration file (for example MySharePointSolution.wsp.config) which defines the settings for the installation of the WSP solution file.

All feedback is welcome, hope this tool helps improvethe efficiency of your deployment

For a new project at work, I'm beginning to get the hang of content types and site columns. I think it's best practice to:

1. first think which content types you need in your project
2. create (or re-use) site columns in your content type
3. then create lists or pages based on your content type

All this is made by me in the Sharepoint UI and then exported to a feature. An interesting option to export is to use the stsadm extensions from Gary Lapointe. With this tool, you can create the elements file to use in your feature. In my experience, you still need some tweaking in the XML but other then that it's working like a charm. I'm working on a simple windows application to do the same, only with a friendly UI. If that is finished, I will probably post this on my blog.

Happy sharepointing ;)

An essential tool tool create CAML query for Sharepoint: Caml query builder

With URL rewriting, you can create search engine friendly URL's such as /products/cars/bmw.aspx. To accomplish this url to transform to products.aspx?category=cars&type=bmw, you need URL rewriting. There is an easy open source rewriter, which you can find here.

Have fun!

When you develop Sharpeoint solutions in Visual Studio, there is one tool you can't miss: WSP builder.

The description from codeplex: The WSPbuilder is a console application that creates SharePoint Solutions files
based on a folder structure. WSPBuilder will automatically traverse a "12" folder structure
and creates a SharePoint solution manifest.xml and the wsp file based on the files it finds.
Therefore you do not need the knowledge of how to create a solution manifest.xml
and wsp file any more.

The link to download: http://wspbuilder.codeplex.com/

The Sharepoint Manager 2007 is a tool you can't do without when developing Sharepoint. You can find the download here. The description from the author:

The SharePoint Manager 2007 is a SharePoint object model explorer. It enables you to browse every site on the local farm and view every property. It also enables you to change the properties (at your own risk). This is a very powerfull tool for developers that like to know what the SharePoint holds of secrets.