The solution attached with the post is a very easiest way to host a Silverlight Application in any Sharepoint site. Ready-to-use component is just 9 KB. You can opt to download it and check the usage.

Download link: http://software.ganshani.com/silverlighthost.htm [size: 10KB]

How-to use:

Usage is pretty simple and can be broken down in 2 steps:-

Download the latest patch

• Download a sample copy of web.config from here
• Now copy the SilverlightHostWebPart.dll to GAC (C:\windows\assembly)

Open IIS to register the MIME for .xap extension

• Go to Properties of your computer
• Click on MIME Types
• Add New:
• Extension: .xap
• MIME type: application/x-silverlight-app
• Click OK thrice
• Reset the IIS

Open the MOSS application – for settings

• Click on Site Actions > Site Settings
• Click on Webparts under the heading Galleries
• Click New
• Select SilverlightHostWebPart.SilverlightHost. Verify the signature: SilverlightHostWebPart, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=9f4da00116c38ec5
• Click on PopulateGallery button

Hosting Silverlight in Webpart

• Open the ASPX page where Silverlight component needs to be hosted.
• Add a new web part : SilverlightHost
• Select Modify Shared Web Part
• Set the properties:
  • Width: appropriate size of Silverlight control.
  • Height: appropriate size of Silverlight control.
  • XAP Source Location: this location should be in the virtual directory of MOSS application.Say for example, C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\8000 is the virtual directory. Then create a folder ClientBin\SilverlightAppName and copy the XAP and other relevant files.So the source location is: /ClientBin/StockTicker/StockTicker.xap
  • Silverlight Control ID: a unique identifier.
  • Click on OK, to view the Silverlight content.

Configuring for Cross-Domain calls

If the Silverlight Application accesses some WebServices (ASMX, WCF) which are hosted on some other domain, make sure you have the crossdomain.xml and clientaccesspolicy.xml in the root folder of your virtual directory (C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\8000)

check for crossdomain.xml and clientaccesspolicy.xml in the download link.

I am sure this will ease out your work and will provide you a faster way to have RIA on Sharepoint 2007.

Download link: http://software.ganshani.com/silverlighthost.htm [size: 10KB]

Related posts:

• Hosting Silverlight as Desktop Applications – I
• Silverlight Interview Questions – I
• Silverlight 4 Security Overview White Paper

Queries asked by almost every MOSS resource:

Integrating Ajax with MOSS:
http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blogs/mike/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=3

Using AjaxControlToolkit in MOSS:
http://weblogs.asp.net/jan/archive/2007/02/26/using-the-ajax-control-toolkit-in-sharepoint.aspx

Smartpart for MOSS:
http://weblogs.asp.net/jan/archive/2007/02/22/smartpart-for-sharepoint-asp-net-ajax-support.aspx

Example: Ajax-enabled Grid in MOSS:
http://sharethispoint.com/archive/2007/02/28/Using-a-SPGridView-inside-an-ASP.net-Ajax-UpdatePanel.aspx

Related posts:

• User Context in MOSS
• WSS vs MOSS
• Silverlight Host for Sharepoint

This article provides a comprehensive comparison of features present in WSS vs those in MOSS 2007. How we nail these features down? This is going to be an interesting question.

Let us install first WSS on our PC and visit this directory:

C rogram FilesCommon FilesMicrosoft Sharedweb server extensions12TEMPLATESFEATURES

What you see is the list of features that are supported by WSS. We wrote a batch file that lists all the directories to a text file. Thereafter, we installed MOSS and did the same activity and this comparison is the result of this exercise.

Thanks to Tejas Warudkar and Hemant Kumar for helping me with this.

Related posts:

• Ajax with MOSS
• User Context in MOSS
• Silverlight Host for Sharepoint

Recently, I have been dealing alot in iFrames – the new version of FRAMESET in HTML and while designing web pages, all I look for is – maintainability, platform compatibility, design aspects, extensibility, search engine optimization and user friendliness.

So, a question just pop-up in my mind while using iFrames in one of my projects for my organization. Whether to use iFrames or not? I found – its always better to stay away from it. Why? Come along with me…

First, iFrames cause problems with accessibility or cross-browser compatibility.
Let’s evaluate on some other points: search engine optimization, usability, consistency, and flexibility.

SEO – Search Engine Optimization

Using an iFrame makes impossible for Google or any other search engine to index your site efficiently. Search Engines send out robots(also called as Spiders) to crawl websites, and when they find a page with an iFrame.The spider has no way to recognize the content inside – black hole for the spider! So, if your page(one in the iFrame) has some links within it, they too are not indexed.

User Friendliness – limited viewing options

Maximizing browser, saving pages, closing a window are not possible with pages inside iFrames.
There is no way to bokmark the pages in iFrames. User also can not get rid of the scroll bars on the page.

User usability – Problems with printing

Only the visible content will be printed When printing a page that contains an iFrame, only the visible content will be printed. If an iFrame has a scrollbar, and requires scrolling, a printout will not be able to show all of the data in the iFrame.

No Browser history

Since browser views an iFramed site as a part of the main application, browser may not log all the clicks of sub-site in the iFrame.

No Context Maintainence

The context of the sub-site (one in the iFrame) can not be changed. So, the sub-site can not be controlled by the master application. Sessions of the sub-site can not be destroyed, the page of iFrame can not be captured.

Related posts:

• Dynamically add tags to ASP.NET page
• Ajax – what not to do!
• Microsoft .NET Interview Questions

When we open a MOSS site in IE with ‘Run As’ option and log in with an ID/Password other than ‘Windows Logon’, the identity of new ID/Password is persistent.

Punit and I were working on a MOSS portal where we found an interesting thing:

SiteCollection.RootWeb.DoesUserHavePermission(SPRights) and
SiteCollection.RootWeb.Permissions.DoesUserHavePermission(SPRights)

The first one provides rights of new ID/Password and the second one provides rights of ‘Windows User’

- Hemant Kumar

Related posts:

• WSS vs MOSS
• Ajax with MOSS
• Debate over iFrames in HTML