Reminders for Continuous build for SharePoint projects in Team Foundation Server (TFS)

Based on this MSDN article How to Build SharePoint Projects with TFS Team Build I setup the build machine. When doing so and tested it on my current SharePoint 2010 project I found some issues. As a reminder-to-self here some notes:

Deployment of DLLs to GAC

Some dll’s should be deployed to GAC. Use gacutil (of the .NET 4 framework) to do this, using a .NET 2 or 3.5 version doesn’t work.

- Download and install the Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 4
- Gacutil location for 64bit systems is C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.1\Bin\NETFX 4.0 Tools\

SharePoint DLLs

Copy all SharePoint dll’s from the C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\ISAPI\
When your SharePoint project references Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, also copy System.Web.DataVisualization.dll (.NET 3.5). It location is C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Chart Controls\Assemblies\ This is because the publishing assembly references the DataVisualization assembly.

Updating SharePoint 2010

When installing cumulative or Service Packs on SharePoint 2010, you need to update the dll’s on your build server to keep them aligned.

SharePoint 2010 Workflow: Could not load file or assembly '$assemblyname$'

During workflow development I got the following error when starting a Site workflow:

Load Workflow Assembly: System.IO.FileNotFoundException:
Could not load file or assembly '$assemblyname$' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.  File name: '$assemblyname$'

Very strange, it did worked for months. So I checked the workflow feature in the 14-hive. The element manifest was wrong. It contained the $assemblyname$ tag instead of the assembly name.

<Workflow
     Name="Ctalk - MailCtalkEditieWF"
     Description="Workflow for sending Ctalk Editions"
     Id="15f3ae38-12bc-4dbf-ad2b-9281ff09d43e"
     CodeBesideClass="Ctac.Ctalk.MailCtalkEditie.MailCtalkEditie"
     CodeBesideAssembly="$assemblyname$">

After a ‘normal’ deployment in VS2010 the element manifest file was correct:

<Workflow
     Name="Ctalk - MailCtalkEditieWF"
     Description="Workflow for sending Ctalk Editions"
     Id="15f3ae38-12bc-4dbf-ad2b-9281ff09d43e"
     CodeBesideClass="Ctac.Ctalk.MailCtalkEditie.MailCtalkEditie"
     CodeBesideAssembly="Ctac.Ctalk, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=6a509658686505f0">

So what was the problem… It’s the VS2010 ‘Copy to SharePoint Root’ command part of the CKSDev extension. It just copied the file as is, it doesn’t replace the tag. So keep this in mind when using the ‘Copy to SharePoint Root’ command in combination with workflow development.

Provisioning URL values with description using element manifest

When provisioning files/items that contain an URL typed field you probably want to provide an url and description. When using an element manifest to provision some content you probably use something like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
  <Module Name="Banners" Url="Banners">
    <File Path="Banners\banner1.png" Url="banner1.png" Type="GhostableInLibrary">
      <Property Name="URL" Type="string" Value="http://www.yellowred.nl"/>
      <Property Name="NewWindow" Value="true"/>
    </File>
</Module>
</Elements>

There’s no room for providing a description. The property element has the following ‘Type’ attribute options: int, string, datetime. So no url type.

As you know the URL value is just a string with in specific format: <url>, <description>
You can also find this format when using SharePoint Manager 2010. Open the item containing the url field. Check the schema.xml and search for the url.

To provide a description to the url, provision your data like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
  <Module Name="Banners" Url="Banners">
    <File Path="Banners\banner1.png" Url="banner1.png" Type="GhostableInLibrary">
      <Property Name="URL" Type="string" Value="http://www.yellowred.nl, Yellow and Red"/>
      <Property Name="NewWindow" Value="true"/>
    </File>
</Module>
</Elements>

Issues with RemoveFieldRef and ContentTypes

When inheriting from content types you can use RemoveFieldRef to remove unused fields. The RemoveFieldRef however is very picky when you want it to work.

Example content type “SampleInheritance” (inherits from content type: Event (0x0102))

<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
    <ContentType 
        ID="0x0102002748FB863AA69C449E1D30D488B1DFDD"
        Name="SampleInheritance"
        Description="Create a new meeting, deadline or other event."
        Group="Sample"
        Inherits="FALSE"
        Hidden="false"
        ReadOnly="false"
        Sealed="false">
        <FieldRefs>
            <FieldRef ID="fce16b4c-fe53-4793-aaab-b4892e736d15" Name="EMail" DisplayName="E-Mail" />
            <FieldRef ID="114bf263-2846-4854-839b-715c0f573cea" Name="Header1" DisplayName="Header" />
            <FieldRef ID="f9589629-6f74-403e-83f6-8da3316dcca2" Name="BedankPagina" DisplayName="BedankPagina" />
            <RemoveFieldRef ID="{7d95d1f4-f5fd-4a70-90cd-b35abc9b5bc8}"/>
        </FieldRefs>
        <XmlDocuments xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
            <XmlDocument NamespaceURI="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/v3/contenttype/forms">
                <FormTemplates xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/v3/contenttype/forms">
                    <Display>ListForm</Display>
                    <Edit>ListForm</Edit>
                    <New>ListForm</New>
                </FormTemplates>
            </XmlDocument>
        </XmlDocuments>
    </ContentType>
</Elements>

Follow these rules:

1. in <RemoveFieldRef> the GUID in the ID should start with ‘{‘ and ends with ‘}’
2. in <RemoveFieldRef> the GUID in the ID must be lowercase
3. set "Inherits=false” or remove the attribute.