echo4sharepoint

Getting the Most out of the Sub Sites Web Part

One of the free tools available on the echoTechnology website is the Sub Sites Web Part. But what does it do, exactly? Well, simply put, it’s a web part that shows you all sub sites under the current level in a tree view control, similar to a site map. The results are security trimmed, of course, so that you only see those sites for which you have permissions.

Here you can see a preview of the web part. By default, it shows the tree view control collapsed, and you can select the nodes to navigate to the appropriate site.

Download a copy today. Enjoy!

Getting the Most out of SharePoint Spy

A couple years back at the Microsoft Office DevCon conference in Australia in a session on "SharePoint Developers Tips and Tricks," the presenter highlighted our very own SharePoint Spy as a great – and free – tool for analyzing your SharePoint environment. While this was some much appreciated free press, he didn't mention all of the other application features. SharePoint Spy continues to be our number one download, and a “Hot Pick” on SharePointreviews.com, and so I thought I’d provide some additional information on the tool to help you get the most out of your download.

The first great thing is that SharePoint Spy not only shows you the object’s public properties, but it also shows you the private properties. By selecting the "Raw View" button at the top, SharePoint Spy highlights those properties that are not exposed through public members. 

To reset the view, simply reselect the object.

Another thing which you may not have discovered is that you can use the SharePoint Spy to retrieve the content of text files, including .ASPX pages. You simply need to navigate to the file you are interested in, expand the node, and then select "File Content."

Now you can copy and review the raw content of the .ASPX pages shown in SharePoint Designer.

Finally, one of the best features of SharePoint Spy is to compare the properties of two objects. This is the primary reason why people download the tool – and it’s a pretty cool feature, if we don’t say so ourselves. Select any object, right click, and then click "Compare this item with ..." You will need to select the other object by left clicking on it, followed by a right click, and once again selecting "Compare with this item." Once you follow these directions, SharePoint Spy will show the properties of the two objects side-by-side so that you can easily compare their properties.

We hope you find this information helpful, and it allows you to get more out of your SharePoint Spy download.

If you haven’t done so already, you can download a free copy from our website here.

Product Update: Outlook PowerTool Plus for x64

The team at echoTechnology is happy to announce that the 64-bit version of Outlook PowerTool Plus for SharePoint 2007 is now available! This FREE download can be found here. For those who have not yet had the opportunity to try out this powerful tool, follow the links below for a quick video demonstration of each feature:

• Move multiple files or line items
• Copy multiple files or line items
• Delete multiple files or line items
• Send links for multiple files or line items by email
• Send attachments for multiple files or line items by email
• Copy links for multiple files or line items, paste into documents or forms
• Check in and Check out multiple files or line items

There are certain capabilities we all take for granted within the Windows environment, such as keyboard shortcuts, context menus accessed by right clicking on objects, and the fact that just about every desktop application integrates with every other desktop application. Within the SharePoint environment, unfortunately, we lose much of this ease of use capability. The key to Outlook PowerTool Plus is the Select Item Checkbox, a hidden feature that is activated automatically, allowing you to quickly and easily grab multiple files and move them across your site collection, or send them as an email attachment to someone who does not have access to your site.

SharePoint natively allows you to do these operations one at a time, but the ability to select a dozen documents or list items at once to move them or to check them out is pretty powerful, and brings the SharePoint user experience closer to the Windows experience. The tool is easy to use -- just select the targeted files, click on a file name to access the context menu, and select your action.

The Outlook PowerTool Plus is available for free download, and is compatible with MOSS and WSS 3.0 deployments. The User Guide can be found here, and a full product video is available here.

Updates to Outlook PowerTool Plus

We’ve updated the Outlook PowerTool Plus build (v2.0.0.0) with the following changes:

• The installation process now gives the user the option to automatically activate OPT+ features in their site collection, or to continue activating manually. OPT+ includes three features: the Outlook PowerTool, the List Item PowerTool, and the Select Item Checklist (a hidden feature). Depending on the size of your site collection, activating during installation could take a while. If you’re looking for a more targeted deployment – say, across only a handful of sites – you may opt to activate the features manually to save yourself some time.
  
• For users experiencing errors with WSS, the latest build resolves the error that was received when the user tried to open a document library or list, returning “Cannot make a cache safe URL for "PickerTreeDialog.js", file not found. Please verify that the file exists under the layouts directory”. Because of this error, the user was unable to use any OPT+ features. With OPT+ v2.0.0.0, the error message is gone, however WSS users will not be able to add or remove destinations, making it impossible to use the Move or Copy features. The add/remove destinations features were created using MOSS functionality not resident within WSS. echo is working on a solution for this.
  
• By request, a remnant checkbox item cleanup utility has been added for users who were finding Select Item Checkboxes in SharePoint after uninstalling OPT+. This small executable remains on the server after uninstalling OPT+ so that you can remove any remnant checkboxes.
  
• No update yet on users with 64 bit operating systems. We continue to test, and will provide an update when ready.

For users who have earlier versions installed, the new setup kit should automatically uninstall the old version before installing the new. Please download the latest version here. The OPT+ Installation Guide and FAQs have been updated, accordingly.

What is the Outlook PowerTool Plus?

There are certain capabilities we all take for granted within the Windows environment, such as keyboard shortcuts, context menus accessed by right clicking on objects, and the fact that just about every desktop application integrates with every other desktop application. Within the SharePoint environment, unfortunately, we lose much of this ease of use capability. SharePoint 2010 will restore some features, but there will still remain opportunities for products like echoTechnology’s Outlook PowerTool Plus.

What does Outlook PowerTool Plus do for SharePoint? This free tool activates two powerful features inside your SharePoint site collection: the Outlook PowerTool features, which allow you to send multiple links and attachments via Outlook, and the previously unreleased List Item PowerTool features, which allows you to Move, Copy, Delete, Check In and Check Out multiple documents and list items. When the Outlook PowerTool Plus is installed on your server, both of these features are automatically activated across your target site collection. The image on the right provides a view of the Outlook PowerTool Plus context window with all of its features.

The key to Outlook PowerTool Plus is the Select Item Checkbox, a hidden feature that is also activated automatically, and illustrated in the screenshot to the left. The Select Item Checkbox allows you to quickly and easily grab multiple files and move them across your site collection, or send them as an email attachment to someone who does not have access to your site. SharePoint natively allows you to do these operations one at a time, but the ability to select a dozen documents or list items at once to move them or to check them out is pretty powerful, and brings the SharePoint user experience closer to the Windows experience. The tool is easy enough to use -- just select the targeted files, click on one of the file names to access the context menu, and select your action.

For example, grab a couple documents and send as a link or attachment, and an outgoing email is opened, and your selected files are either listed as links or attached, as shown to the right.

The Outlook PowerTool Plus is available for free download, and is compatible with MOSS deployments, but not yet WSS. Because some of the features were developed with MOSS components, not all functionality is available for WSS, but we’re working on an update.

The User Guide can be found here, or you can view a video demonstration of the product here.

A Common Scenario With SharePoint

As I was working an almost-all-nighter a week or so ago, I was going through a number of SharePoint administrator and developer scenarios in an effort to come up with ideas for our next video to support the launch of echoTechnology’s latest free tool, the Outlook PowerTool Plus (which you can download here). I believe that some of my best ideas come to me when I am caffeine-enhanced and sleep-deprived…

echoTechnology Launches Free Tool for SharePoint: Outlook Power Tool Plus

Technorati Tags: SharePoint,echo,Microsoft,Outlook PowerTool Plus

News being posted to www.echoTechnology.com:

Free Tool Improves SharePoint Experience for Administrators and Developers

SEATTLE, Wash. - December 14, 2009: echoTechnology has announced the release of a new free tool for SharePoint -- Outlook PowerTool Plus. Outlook PowerTool Plus (OPT+) improves the SharePoint experience for administrators and developers by providing multi-document and multi-line item capability across a site collection. The product is available for free download here.

Features included in this release include:

• Moving multiple files or line items
• Copying multiple files or line items
• Deleting multiple files or line items
• Sending links for multiple files or line items by email
• Sending attachments for multiple files or line items by email
• Copying links for multiple files or line items to be pasted into documents or forms
• Check in and Check out multiple files or line items

Videos and documentation are available to walk users through each of these scenarios:

• Getting the Most Out of Outlook PowerTool Plus
• Outlook PowerTool Plus User Guide
• Outlook PowerTool Plus Installation Guide

In addition, echo has created a viral video for OPT+ on the echo4sharepoint YouTube Channel that’s definitely worth watching.

echoTechnology Launches Social Media Strategy

News being posted to www.echoTechnology.com:

echoTechnology Launches Social Media Strategy

Plans to Improve Customer and Partner Outreach and Communication

SEATTLE, Wash. - December 14, 2009: As part of the strategy around our Davinci release this spring and the launch of our free Outlook Power Tool Plus (OPT+) tool for SharePoint, echoTechnology is implementing a social media strategy to allow our customers and partners to better connect and communicate with echo.

This strategy includes the following components:

• New company blog at www.echo4sharepoint.com
  This site will feed into our corporate website via RSS, and will become the primary media relations center for the company.
  
• Profile on Twitter @echo4sharepoint
  A real-time conversation with our customers and partners, allowing echo to quickly disseminate news, updates, and SharePoint expertise.
  
• Fan page on Facebook
  A great way to continue the dialog with our customers and partners.
  
• Video channel on YouTube
  Another distribution outlet for videos of our free tools and echo for SharePoint platform.

For questions about these platforms or any other echoTechnology marketing programs, please contact Christian Buckley at cbuck@echotechnology.com

Late Night Installation Guides

Maybe it’s the long hours this week, maybe it’s because I’ve been working all day today (Saturday), or maybe it’s the massive amounts of caffeine, but my installation guide is getting irreverent. Here’s a sample:

Unlike the installation process, at the end of which is happiness and productivity with the help of the Outlook PowerTool Plus, uninstalling only leads to regret and despair. For your own well-being – and for the sake of the children – we recommend that you leave the software installed.

However, there may come a time when you need to remove our software from your system, such as when a renegade foreign government is threatening bodily harm to innocent civilians. Or perhaps you’re trying to install the latest version of Outlook PowerTool Plus, and the installation requires you to remove the old version before proceeding. Both scenarios are understandable.

Here is the uninstall process:

We’ll see how much gets through peer review…

Hello World!

Kicking off an initial post to get the site built out and formatted to where I like it. Adding a picture from the SharePoint conference last month.