Developer dashboard custom scoped monitoring

Problem: You have poor performing code how do you identify the bottleneck.
Initial Hypothesis: Use the SPMonitoredScope to determine how long code takes to execute.
Resolution: Turn on the developer dashboard, deploy your custom code that includes monitored code.

Example:  using Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities 

using (new SPMonitoredScope(“My Scope Name”))

{

   doSomeWork();    //  Shows in the ULS and the Developer dashboard

}

Tip: You can't use SPMonitorScope in sandbox solution code.  If you try us 'SPMonitorScope' your VS project won't compile and you will get the error: 'Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.SPMonitoredScope' is inaccessible due to its protection level.

More Info:
Post explaining how to turn on the developer dashboard
MSDN about using SPMonitorScope (like stopwatch in .NET)

SharePoint 2010 Editions

Compare SharePoint 2010 Editions
SharePoint 2010 Development Stack Platform
Licencing SharePoint 2010

Themes and branding

Themes can be set programatically and allow for an easy method to change corporate colours.
Themes combined with master pages allow for a fast way to change pages and colours.  It is faster than the generally prefered method of altering the css
Theme's reference

Closing a popup dialog after running server side code

Problem: A base page allows a user to perform additional logic such as inserting a a new row into a list via the Dialog Framework.  The new row is a custom page that is shown thru the Dialog framework.  The custom page contains a web part that allows the user to fill in a form, perform custom logic and insert the record.  You now need the dialog page/popup to close automatically after the server side code is run.  The problem is you need to run the server side code before closing the window.

Initial Hypothesis:  I have been using jQuery with a hidden server control to set a value on the server side after my custom server side actions.  Then after the page reloads due to the postback, on the jQuery $document ready I check if the hidden value has been set and if it has I use the dialog framework to close the page.  A fair amount of work and round trips to solve my problem.

I saw a post on the msdn forums which is much simpler & better solution.  I implemented this and it is much easier and better than my hidden variable approach.

Resolution:

Place the code snippet in the server side code i.e. in the button click after you have performed your server side logic.

More Info:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepoint2010programming/thread/ba06d5e5-8c4c-4bca-95f8-65f40c1b11fa

LINQ to SharePoint by Example

Problem: Simple examples to perform CRUD operations using LINQ to SharePoint. 

Resolution:

Read Operation/Select (Get a single row) & Update Operation/Update (Update a row), this code uses the default context constructor to retrieve the customer, you can use less code to achieve the same result.

Create Operation/Insert (Add a new row to a list)

Delete a customer list item.

Connected Web Part Series - Part 1

Problem: There is a lot of information relating to web parts however this series is aimed at connected web parts in SharePoint 2010.  This 1st post deals with creating a custom connection between 2 visual web parts (a provider & a consumer).

Overview:  Create a Interface to enable communication between the provider and the consumer web part.  Create Visual User controls to connect to each other. 
Tip: Web Parts are easier to connect than Visual Web Parts, so only use Visual web parts if there is a heavy visual requirement.

Steps:
Create a new Web Part (it will be the provider web part)

 Create an Interface (contract between the provider and consumer web parts)

 Implement the Interface in the Provider web part

Create the Consumer web part as shown below

Deploy the solution and activate the feature that contains the 2 web parts

In a browser add the 2 web parts to a page (Provider & Consumer) 

 Connect the 2 web parts as shown below

Connected Web Part Series - Part 2

Title: Creating a web part that is both a consumer and a provider.

Problem: I needed a web part that receives data from a provider web part.  The same web part then passes data onto a consumer web part.  I.e.  WebPartGetUser (Provider), WebPartShowWeeks (Consumer & Provider) & WebPartShowProductsOrderedinWeek (consumer). 

Hypothesis:
WebPartGetUser - Retrieve the user and passes the user id to the web part WebPartShowWeeks.
WebPartShowWeeks  - Consumes the UserId and show weeks where the user placed an order.  A drop down list show all the weeks, when the week is selected, the week is passed to the WebPartShowProductsOrderedinWeek web part.  This show all the orders placed in a specific week.