Adding Custom Properties to a Visual Web Part

When the Visual web part is generated in Visual Studio (Eg; VS 2013). It contains mainly 3 components. The web part file, user control a ASCX file and the code behind for the user control

The web part is generated with the following code in the CreateChildControls() method

private const string _ascxPath = @"~/_CONTROLTEMPLATES/15/....../MyWebPartUserControl.ascx";

protected override void CreateChildControls()
{
  Control control = Page.LoadControl(_ascxPath);
  Controls.Add(control);
}

Here, the .ascx could not access the custom web part properties.
When adding custom properties to the Visual web part,  few changes are required.

1) Create a property in the user control, of the web part class type.

public MyVisualWebPart ParentWebPart { get; set; }

2) Set the web part to the user controls parent property

Inside the web part file's CreateChildControls() method change the code to:

MyVisualWebPartUserControl control = (MyVisualWebPartUserControl)Page.LoadControl(_ascxPath);
//Set the web part to the users controls parent property                                                                             
control.ParentWebPart = this;
Controls.Add(control);    

Now the custom web part properties are accessible from the user control !                                                                                                              

3) Add the required custom properties into the web part file

        private string customPropertyOne;                           
        [Category("My WebParts Custom Settings"),           
        Personalizable(PersonalizationScope.Shared),          
        WebBrowsable(true),                                              
        WebDisplayName("Custom Property One"),            
        WebDescription("This is my first custom property")] 
        public string CustomPropertyOne                             
        {                                                                             
            get { return customPropertyOne; }                      
            set { customPropertyOne = value; }                    

        }                                                                            

4) Access the property in the ASCX file

Now you can access the custom property via:

ParentWebPart.CustomPropertyOne

Edit Windows Registry

To open up the registry editor, Type "regedit" in "run".

To create a folder,  right click on a node(folder) and select "New > Key"

To create a registry key, right click on the folder you need to create the registry key. Select  "New > String Value"

Allow CAML Query to get items inside Library Folders

Usually a CAML query would query a SharePoint library and get all available items matching the where clause, except the ones within folders of the Library. There is a property which needs to be explicitly set, in order for the query to return all items pertaining to the where clause, including the ones inside folders and nested folders. In the view attribute, the scope needs to be set to Recursive All. A sample CAML query would be:


SPListItemCollection itemCollection = null;
...
...
SPQuery myQuery = new SPQuery();

myQuery.ViewFields = @"<FieldRef Name='UniqueId'/>
                                            <FieldRef Name='ContentType'/>
                                            <FieldRef Name='ID'/><FieldRef Name='FileLeafRef'/>";

                string whereClause = @"<Where>
                                    <Eq>
                                        <FieldRef Name='" + myVariableOne + @"' />
                                            <Value Type='Text'>" + myVariableTwo + @"</Value>
                                    </Eq>
                                  </Where>";

myQuery.Query = whereClause;
myQuery.ViewAttributes += " Scope='RecursiveAll'";


Now use the SPLists GetItems() method to execute the query
Eg: testLibrary.GetItems(myQuery);

Services available in SharePoint Foundation 2013

SharePoint Foundation only has a few services available when compared to the Server version.
Namely they are:

• App Management Service
• Business Data Connectivity Service
• Lotus Notes Connector
• Search Service Application
• Secure Store Service
• State Service
• Usage and Health data collection

Add a new Row to DataTable in DataSet and Push the update to Database

Example is as below:

            string connectionString = "Data Source=****;Initial Catalog=master;Persist Security Info=True;User ID=**;Password=****";

            using (SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(connectionString))
            {
                using (SqlCommand command = new SqlCommand("select top 10 * from Test", conn))
                {

                    conn.Open();
                    SqlDataAdapter adapter = new SqlDataAdapter(command);
                    DataSet ds = new DataSet();
                    adapter.Fill(ds);

                    DataRow row = ds.Tables[0].NewRow();
                    row["EID"] = "006";
                    row["Name"] = "Saman";
                    row["Tel"] = "01115342";
                    row["Residence"] = "Galle, Sri Lanka";

                    ds.Tables[0].Rows.Add(row);

                    //Update Database
                    SqlCommandBuilder cb = new SqlCommandBuilder(adapter);
                    cb.DataAdapter.Update(ds.Tables[0]);
                }
            }