MOSS Administrator

I was bored of using tools for MOSS administration cause, on all of them, something was missing, so I decided to make mine...and so far I'm quite happy with the result.I have created a codeplex project for this one : http://mossadministration.codeplex.com/

I splitted the tool in three part : "Solutions" , "Features" and "Site hierarchy"

The first one, "Solutions", allows (so far) the user to :

• Install solution
• Uninstall solution
• Deploy solutions
• Retract solution
  
• GetInformations on his farm and to get some information that the administration site doesn't give (information that you can also have using stsadm command lines..

The second one "Features"list everything about features :

• You can check basic information about your features. (order by scope)
  
• You can see on which element each of the feature is deployed (For instance, you can see all the sites on which you rfeature is deployed)
  
• A usefull functionnality is to be able to deploy a feature in a wider scope than the original scope (for example, deploying w site feature on all site of a webapplication (or even a farm!))
• You can activate Feature on One or some elements.
  

The third one is the big one :) It gives you, many information about your farm structure (from object ids, to content DBs for web apps, passing by activated feature listing...) and much much more. You can interact with object. For instance, you can set read or write lock mode.

Of course cause, it's a big thing, so far, not everything have been developped, but i work on it. I'll keep you informed.

The codeplex project for this : http://mossadministration.codeplex.com/

Some screen shot (official version so far : 0.2). I hope to

• Features tab :
  
• WSP Solutions tab :
  
  

Replace a webpart by another

In My "problem of the day" list, I have been asked whether it was possible or not to replace a webpart by another programatically. And obviously I have been asked to set the property values for the news Webpart.... So, I made a small tool for that.

I have created a Codeplex for this : http://webpartreplacer.codeplex.com The next versions will be uploaded there soon !!!

Basically, How does it work? On a specific application, I try to load the assembly that contains the webparts (source and destination) using reflection :

System.Reflection.Assembly asm = System.Reflection.Assembly.Load(AssemblySrc);
System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebPart wpS = (System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebPart) asm.CreateInstance(ClassSrc); 

Then I look inside the Default page of each web and subweb trying to find the webpart (by checking the type of each webparts on the page) and if I find it, I replace the webpart using the SPLimitedWebPartManager.

I know that I should also parse all the document libraries to find other webpart pages in order to parse them as well... But in my current project, it wasn't a need, and I was kind of lazy!

Below is the iteration how I check whether the webparts on the page are to be replaced.

public void ReplaceWebpart(SPWeb web)
{ 
 try
 {

     SPLimitedWebPartManager theMan =
             web.Files["Default.aspx"].GetLimitedWebPartManager(System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.PersonalizationScope.Shared);
     System.Reflection.Assembly asm = System.Reflection.Assembly.Load(AssemblySrc);
     System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebPart wpS = (System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebPart) asm.CreateInstance(ClassSrc);     
     System.Reflection.Assembly asmD = System.Reflection.Assembly.Load(AssemblyDest);
     for (int i = 0; i < theMan.WebParts.Count; i++)
     {

         System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebPart wp = theMan.WebParts[i];  
         if (wp.GetType().Equals(wpS.GetType()))
         {
             System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebPart wpD = (System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebPart)asmD.CreateInstance(ClassDest);
             wpD.Title = wp.Title;                                     
             theMan.AddWebPart(wpD, theMan.GetZoneID(wp), wp.ZoneIndex);             
             theMan.WebParts[wpD.ID].
             theMan.DeleteWebPart(wp);
             Result++;
             i--;
         }
     }
     foreach (SPWeb Sweb in web.Webs)
     {
         ReplaceWebpart(Sweb);
         Sweb.Dispose();
     }
 }
 catch (Exception ex)
 {
 }
 finally
 {
 }
}

This is the part 1 of the replacement. Now let's say that we want to go futher. Why not trying to specify some properties on this new webpart?

OK, I have created a ObjectCollection object containing a list of KeyValuePair (simply by taking the Items attribute of a listBox !

Then before the AddWebPart([...]) code line, I have added the following code :

foreach (Object LstItem in PropCollection)
{
   try
{
  System.Reflection.PropertyInfo prop = wpD.GetType().GetProperty(((KeyValuePair<String, String>)LstItem).Key);
  if (prop != null)
  {                                      
     String[] propValues = new String[1] { ((KeyValuePair<String, String>)LstItem).Value };                              
     if (prop.PropertyType.Equals(String.Empty.GetType()))
     {
        prop.SetValue(wpD,((KeyValuePair<String, String>)LstItem).Value,null);
     }
     else
     {
        Type[] types = new Type[1] { String.Empty.GetType() };
        prop.SetValue(wpD, prop.PropertyType.GetMethod("Parse", types, null).Invoke(prop, propValues), null);
     }
  }
}
  catch (Exception exceptionProp)
{}
}

What happens here? We just try to get The property we try to set contained in our newly instanced WebPart. If found, we try to Use the Parse method of this property (Yes this only work with simple types (as Int32, Bool, String), and then we invoke it! Simple!!

That's it. You just have to make an iteration on each SPSite of you application and here we are!
Once again, be aware that this code only checks the default.aspx page !!
Sorry for that!!

Go to check in the codeplex project.