Yet another reason to use only IE when reading SharePoint (it gieves me to say it). When you’re uploading files to a document library, the ‘upload multiple documents’ option is only available when using IE. Apparently this command relies on an ActiveX control only available in IE.
I was commissioned by Ed Tech to come up with a small Flash Application that reads the RSS feeds being generated from the college web site.
The specifications for this application were the following:
Below is a picture of the resulting feed. An XML parser class was used, and the XML nodes referenced to produce html output in each of the three text areas on the application.
A timer event is encoded on the main timeline of the application to trigger a change event every 8 seconds, causing a wipe transition to occur on current feeds, followed by loading of the next 3 events listed in the RSS XML.
This resulting application will not go online until the college web site goes live. When it does, it will be placed in the SharePoint college webpage, and alert all faculty to recent and current events within the college.
First, a confession. I am a bit of a luddite as far as RSS feeds go. It’s not that they’re not useful, just that I really haven’t taken the time to get to grips with them yet. So, a major thank you is in order to Padraig for finding this site, which allows you to enter the url of the rss feed, and in return it will spit out a web part of the rss feed which you can then import onto your site. This is how I added the ‘EdTech Blog New Entries’ web part to the EdTech SharePoint site.
The most useful SharePoint site I’ve found.
One of the big challenges in encouraging SharePoint use at the College has been the question of moving documents from a shared drive (usually the ‘H:’ drive) to SharePoint document libraries. This is partly because document libraries are one of the most visible and powerful tools in SharePoint, and also one of the features which differentiates SP from a traditional website.
A particular problem has been the question of setting up folders in a SharePoint document library. Teams understandably want to know how to create a folder structure, and in what specific ways they can improve the (often chaotic) structure of their H: drive folders. Unfortunately, this isn’t something I’ve always been able to give much advice on other than limiting the folder levels. The answer depends on how you expect your users to navigate to a file. Unfortunately, any solution using folders assumes that the user will approach finding a file in the same way as the person who set up the folders (i.e. I’ll make ’skill’ the top level folder, so everyone goes there first, then ‘theme’ my second level folder and so on.) As we know, brains don’t work like that (but wouldn’t it be easier if they did?)
Unperturbed, I turned to Google for an answer. To my surprise, almost every guru I read came up with the same answer, which was to ditch folders in document libraries and use content types instead. A content type is a collection of ‘tags’ you can specify and add to an item. If that sounds like jargon, consider this. Think of your Windows Explorer interface. Have you ever though just how un-useful the default column titles are? File size, created on, etc. Yes, they might be useful in some circumstances, but think how cool it would be for a language teacher to replace them with things like ’skill’, ‘theme’, ‘grammatical function’, or ‘level of difficulty’. That’s exactly what a content type does for you.
With content types you’re liberated from having to drill down through folders in a pre-defined sequence. Want to find all the ‘reading’ exercises which practice the past simple tense? 2 clicks and you’re done. Finding the right materials for a specified lesson aim (which we all do don’t we?) becomes a doddle. It also solves the problem of where to put a file which fulfills more than one folder criteria. For example if my learning object allows my class to practice speaking and reading, do I put it in the speaking folder or the reading folder (or worse create two copies)?
So why doesn’t everyone use them? Well, firstly, they’re (gasp) new. Enough said. Secondly, you can’t use folders in a content type document library (well, you can, but in doing so you negate all its benefits). The result is that you end up with a long list of files which appear disorganised (until you filter your search) because they’re not in folders. Thirdly, people are just used to seeing and using folders, and tend to assume that not using folders is a sign of poor planning on the part of the designer.
What solutions are there? Like any change, it will take time. We need to promote use by showcasing exemplar sites, and create a critical mass of users who are comfortable with them and recognise the benefits. This will then carry over to other sites which those users have access to. Any other suggestions, on a postcard please….
We’ll be launching an ADWC SharePoint Advanced User Certification in week 10 of semester 2. Modules will include:
This will be a competency based qualification, candidates will demonstrate competency on a live SharePoint site.
More details from Jean (498) or Tom (489).
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