SharePoint Web Application could be defined as an IIS Web Site specifically configured to run WSS sites.

 

So the question arises what is an IIS Web Site?

 

IIS Web Site could be defined as an entry point in the IIS Web Server infrastructure.

 

Default web site created listens for incoming HTTP requests on port 80. We could create additional web sites as well, having different port numbers or IP addresses. Every IIS Web site could be configured independently. For e.g. we could have Default Web Site allowing anonymous access and a second IIS Web site that uses integrated authentication.

 

Creating IIS Web Site

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/tcywfea7(VS.80).aspx

 

Creating a Web site by using IIS Manager does not create content, but merely creates a directory structure and configuration files from which to publish the content. To publish the Web content, we can place content in the default home directory, or we can create a different home directory or virtual directory and place content there.

 

Creating or extending WSS Web application

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc287954.aspx

 

 

Using Central Administration application we could easily create web site which would be automatically configured to be a WSS Web Application. A new content database gets created for each newly created web application. Normally we would be having one content database per web application. However it is possible to distribute sites within a web application across multiple content databases.

 

Understanding Content databases

http://www.sharepointblogs.com/ethan/archive/2007/09/16/inspecting-the-sharepoint-content-database.aspx

 

http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2006/08/03/sharepoint-content-database-restrictions-there-are-none.aspx

 

 

Creating multiple content database in a web application

 

http://trycatch.be/blogs/tom/archive/2007/06/21/multiple-databases-for-1-web-application.aspx

 

http://manish-sharepoint.blogspot.com/2009/01/creating-sitecollection-in-new-content.html

 

 

So what happens when a IIS Web Site is transformed to a WSS Web Application?

 

• WSS makes few entries into the IIS Metabase.
• Creates virtual directories which maps to 12 hive (installation directory\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\)
  • _controltemplates – where user controls are kept.
  • _layouts – has application pages in it.
  • _vti_bin – dlls and web services repository
  • _wpresources – resource file repository for Web Parts
• Adds WSS-specific web.config to the root directory of the IIS Web site.
• Extends routing architecture of IIS and ASP.NET to properly route all incoming requests through WSS runtime.

 

A single web application could have multiple site collection within it and each site collection has a top level site and could have multiple sub sites in it. A WSS site collection acts as a container of WSS Sites.

 

 

Bye ..

 

WSS is included as a part of the Windows Server 2003 whereas MOSS is a separate product.

 

WSS doesn’t have its own licensing model, it is controlled through Windows Server licenses whereas MOSS has it own licensing model that includes both Server-Side as well as client accesses licenses.

 

WSS provides the underlying platform on which MOSS is built on. MOSS includes all the features of WSS and adds its own set of components as services.

 

Additional features that are part of MOSS includes

 

Collaboration

Social networking web parts – Colleague Web Part, Colleague Tracking Web Part, In Common Web Part etc.

 

Enterprise portal

MySite, RSS, Site Directory, User Profile, Audience Targeting,

 

Enterprise search

Enterprise content sources– Files shares, Web sites, SharePoint sites, Exchange Public Folders, and Lotus Notes databases, more relevant results, people search, business data search.

Enterprise content management, Forms-driven business processes, Business intelligence.

For complete listings

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/FX101758691033.aspx

 

 

Bye..

For creating Custom List Definitions through Feature as a Provisioning Component, we need to create our Feature.xml file that would be pointing to element.xml having our List Definition.

The feature file would be something like this

<?xml version=“1.0“ encoding=“utf-8“?>

<Feature Id=“00BFEA71-DE22-43B2-A848-C05509900111“

    Title=“My Custom List Feature“

    Description=“This is a custom list feature“

    Version=“1.0.0.0“

    Scope=“Web“

    Hidden=“TRUE“

    DefaultResourceFile=“core“

    xmlns=“http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/“>

                <ElementManifests>

                                <ElementManifest Location=“elements.xml“ />

                </ElementManifests>

</Feature>

The elements.xml would contain the following information

<?xml version=“1.0“ encoding=“utf-8“?>

<Elements xmlns=“http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/“>

    <ListTemplate

        Name=“CustomList“

        Type=“10001“

        BaseType=“0“       

        Sequence=“2000“

        DisplayName=“My Custom List“

        Description=“Creating a custom list“/>

</Elements>

 

Element manifest contains ListTemplate element.

Name – Name of the List. One important thing about Name attribute is that there must be a directory with the same name as value of this attribute within the feature directory which would contain schema.xml. All the information for the list would be defined in the schema.xml.

Type – List Type Identifier, for custom list types the value should be more that 10000.

BastType– Value 0 indicates that this list type is for standard list. ( 1- Document library, 3-discussion forums, 5- issue lists)

Sequence– It defines where the link would appear for the list type on the Create Page.

So we would have a folder for feature say My Custom List, this folder feature would have feature.xml,elements.xml and one more folder with name CustomList ( same as Name attribute value at elements.xml) . The CustomList folder contains schema.xml.

Schema.xml would be defining the content types, fields within the content types, views and forms for the list.

This is the basic structure of Schema.xml

<?xml version=“1.0“ encoding=“utf-8“?>

<List Title=“My Custom List“ Url=“Lists/CustomList“ BaseType=“0“>

                <MetaData>

                                <ContentTypes></ContentTypes>

                                <Fields></Fields>

                                <Views></Views>

<Forms></Forms>

                </MetaData>

</List>

In content types, we could add reference to standard as well as custom content types.

Fields- Here we need to include all fields for our referenced content type.

Views- Defining different views for the list.

Forms – We could associate our custom New, Edit or Display form. If not specified than default forms would be used.

Bye…