Getting Started with SharePoint (MOSS) 2007

By Staff Writer | Published Nov 10, 2006

In a thoughtful and much welcomed move Microsoft has delivered the best way to jump start your SharePoint (MOSS) 2007 development projects. A new Visual Studio 2005 extension kit promises to make your geek life much simpler. In brief, the extension shortcuts creating, managing, and publishing WSS/MOSS websites, WebParts, and site data lists. This ties-in timely like with the recent MOSS release announcement.

Once installed, users can kick off Visual Studio, customize MOSS templates and get things rolling instantly — like, F5 instantly. Literally, you can debug and push things to the server context just by pressing F5.

The extension also walks you through the process of building SharePoint List Definitions and Content Types. And as you'd expect, there are some VS project templates included in the kit. The initial version comes with templates for Web Parts, Site Definitions, and List Definitions. Bingo. That's money.

Among the most impressive of its features is the SharePoint Solution Generator Tool. This handy util walks you through a step-by-step wizard, generating Site Definitions for your SharePoint and WSS sites. With this addition you’re able to build a more professional site in less time and with fewer complications than you would in trying to tweak a vanilla Visual Studio project.

The extension is ready to go today and its compatible with the currently available Beta 2 Technical Refresh as well as the forthcoming production release of MOSS 2007.

Check out Tony Bierman's excellent VS 2005 walk-through screen shots, and once you’ve realized you can’t live without, download the community technology preview (CTP).

An important note as you jump in: as part of the configuration, you'll want to have MOSS or WSS v3.0 installed locally and you'll also need to extend your default web application as a WSS app. Happy coding.