Suguk Southampton CodePlex - March 2014

Looking at CodePlexSharePoint User Group UK – 11th March 2014

Steven Andrews

Who am I?• Works as a Business Analyst for Live Nation /

Ticketmaster• Working with the product since SharePoint 2003• Spends a lot of time in the forums (both answering

and asking questions)• Likes running

Agenda

• CodePlex Introduction and mention of famous SP Projects• Reasons for looking at CodePlex projects• Commercial vs. Open Source & how they apply to SharePoint• Individual / Personal benefits to getting involved in CodePlex• Brief discussion of four SharePoint projects

Introducing CodePlex

• Launched June 2006• January 2010 it hosted 13,022 projects• January 2010 Mercurial support was added• March 2012 Git was added as a source control

option• March 2013 it hosted 32, 310 projects• Has 2409 SharePoint related projects

Famous CodePlex Projects

• CodePlex has some famous SharePoint projects that already have a fair amount of coverage: - • Jquery SPServices by Marc Anderson – 114,257 downloads• AutoSPInstaller by Brian Lalncette –62,191 downloads• SPManager (2007 – 2013) by Anders Dissing & Carsten Keutmann (63,035

downloads)

• These projects already have a fair amount of literature and attention, so whilst they’ll be acknowledged as part of the community, generally they won’t be discussed

Why look at CodePlex projects?

• Commercial companies / communities have their own evangelical types• AvePoint (Jeremy Thake)• Metalogix (Christian Buckley)• Etc.

• Exploring the stats in the community a little. 2409 approx. projects• Not all have source code• Some are pointers to blogs / paid products

• Education & Sharing of information regarding these tools• Microsoft have uploaded many of their code samples to CodePlex

Commercial vs. Open Source

• Open Source vs. Commercial lines of thinking have some very developed thought processes• Cost: Purchase cost vs. life cycle cost (snapshot product)• Security: Security still an issue but not as severe as• Flexibility: Paid extensibility vs. OS Community contributions• Support: Paid Support vs. adhoc developer support

• Soft Benefit: Community Member Contribution• Services & Products vs. snapshot product

CodePlex Licensing

• CodePlex makes available a number of licenses ranging from standard Open Source licenses to Mozilla and Microsoft-specific licenses. Some of the more frequently available licenses are: -• GPL: Obliges ANY changes made to the code to

be made public• LGPL: Allows dynamic linking of code without

the sharing restriction• MIT: Obliges credit to be given but little else

Other Benefits of CodePlex

• Individual / Professional of getting involved in CodePlex• Peer Networking: Some interesting & gifted people work on CodePlex projects• Collaboration: Potential to work on some of these projects

• Coder• Tester• Documentation

• Code Learning / Education: Increase exposure to parts of the product

Scope of CodePlex Projects

• 2409 SharePoint Products• 1727 Alpha• 1534 Beta• 1019 Stable

• Additions include items such as• Chart Parts• Service Application Extensions• Responsive Design Templates• Search Engine Customisations• Windows Forms Applications

Introducing CodePlex Corner

• Several people in the community have looked at CodePlex stuff• Bill Simser used to mention a few projects a month• Michael Greth & his SharePoint Daily

• My own contribution is a new project / series: CodePlex Corner• Deep dive on each project that looks interesting / useful• Where appropriate a brief tutorial will also be written• Aim is to create a education / information review that can be used• Currently posted to my blog & the TechNet Wiki for community editing

Project #1: Seadragon Viewer

• Built by Nikolas Charlebois – Laprade• Creates an Web Part Wrapper around a

Deep Zoom Image• Originally created by Microsoft Live

Labs• Example usage can be seen on the

SharePoint 2013 Server Architecture diagrams in TechNet• Sample Usage: High level / large images

Project #2: List Field Manager

• Built by Adam Cauley for Corasworks customers• Exposes column level properties via a Web Part• Does not work on External Content Types• Can provide more utility for form management for

Power Users and provide more extensibility

Project #3 JEFS

• Built by Tomek Stojecki• Stands for JavaScript Editor for SharePoint• Sandbox Editor that provides an in-browser alternative to CEWP• Provides an easy way to manage and separate CSS, HTML, Libraries &

Java Script• Can be surfaced on Form Pages, Views, Wiki Pages and invoked

manually

Project #4 Sushi

• Developed by Joseph Fluckiger & Ryan Hayes• SharePoint Utility with a Smart Helpful Interface (Sushi)• Designed to work around stsadm limitations• Some utilities overtaken by PowerShell but others still very useful• Copy View• Archive Documents• Apply theme to sites (bulk)

Upcoming Plans & Ideas

• Continue looking at projects such as• Feature Manager• Responsive SharePoint

• Would invite other community members to contribute• Potentially bundle these up in a PDF download for the community

Thanks & questions?

• Thanks for your time• Any questions, comments?• Contact Details• Email: Steven.Andrews@livenation.co.uk• Blog: http://baron72.wordpress.com/• Twitter: @backpackerd00d