Introduction

If you look around at what’s been happening on the Windows platform lately, it would be hard to miss that this “SharePoint” thing has been growing in popularity. SharePoint technologies provide an effective solution for creating team sites to facilitate collaboration in a LAN-based environment. At the opposite end of the spectrum, SharePoint technologies also make it easier to manage content in an Internet-facing site that can scale to accommodate thousands of users in a Web farm environment. And while SharePoint technologies provide significant value with out-of-the-box functionality, there’s far more you can accomplish if you are prepared to embrace Windows SharePoint Services as a development platform.

The purpose of this book is to help you design and develop custom business solutions for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS). Our goal is to teach you how to create, debug, and deploy the fundamental building blocks such as Features, Site Definitions, Page Templates, Web Parts, List Schemas, Content Types, Event Handlers, and Workflow Templates. Once you apply yourself and become comfortable developing with these building blocks, there’s no limit to the types of applications and solutions you can create on the Windows SharePoint Services platform. In addition, you will gain the skills you need to extend the out-of-the-box functionality that is included with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS).

Who This Book Is For

This book is written for software developers who are proficient with Visual Studio 2005, the Microsoft .NET 2.0 Framework, and ASP.NET. The code samples in this book are written in C#. This book will provide a comprehensive overview of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 for software developers and architects and provide expert guidance on developing applications on this platform. Developers who are new to Windows SharePoint Services as well as experienced WSS developers will benefit from this book.