Sharepoint 2010 - Strange blog URL issue with site using Variations(Multilingual site). - REALLY WEIRD ISSUE!

Scenario/Symptoms

• We have a site with variations. English/Spanish
• Structure
  
  • Main Site > en > English Blog(Add 1 or 2 sample blogs)
  • Main Site > es > Spanish Blog(Add 1 or 2 sample blogs)
• On the "Main Site" we added a "Content Query Web Part". Apply the below given setting.
  
• Click on the link of any English blog. IT WORKS FINE!!!
• Now click on the Spanish blog link. IT SAYS "PAGE NOT FOUND"!!!
• Another way to get this is.
  
  • Go to the URL of Spanish blog site.
  • You can find the blogs on the page.
  • Click on the blog link IT SAYS "PAGE NOT FOUND"!!!.
  • Or navigate to "Administrar entradas de blog"(AllPosts.aspx). This page will show all the blogs in the list. Click on the blog link IT SAYS "PAGE NOT FOUND"!!!

Cause

We added a column to the list "Post". Now this small thing was causing the whole havoc.

Solution

There are 3 ways to

1. Either don't add any column to list "Post". => BAD ONE
2. Copy SharePoint Designer > Lists > Estrada De Blog and paste it there with name "Post". Don't delete the folder. Just need to duplicate and rename the folder.
3. Read the blog => Sharepoint 2010 - Solution to blog URL issue with site using Variations(Multilingual site) to see the feature stapler solution for this issue.

Hope this helps. If you have any questions or a better solution, I am all open for it. Thanks for reading the blog.

Override Content Query Webpart to do on the run filteration.

Problem

In one of my recent project I had a challenge of filtering the data with localization.
The project contained 2 languages, English and Spanish. I was trying to find out the out of the box way to get this done, but no help was available.


Solution

1. Create a new empty project in Visual Studio 2010.
2. Add a webpart to the project. "Webpart" not "Visual Web Part".
3. Replace the Webpart class inherited and make it "Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.WebControls.ContentByQueryWebPart".
4. Please have a look at the code below. It will have on the fly list settings and field settings applied to the webpart.
5. Build your code and deploy it. It should work.

Source Code

#region System
using System;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;
using Microsoft.SharePoint;
using Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls;
#endregion

// Create the Toolbar
namespace ToolBar.ToolBar
{
    [ToolboxItemAttribute(false)]
    public class ToolBar : Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.WebControls.ContentByQueryWebPart
    {
        #region Properties

        /// <summary>
        /// Root Site Name
        /// </summary>
        private string SiteUrl { get { return SPContext.Current.Site.RootWeb.Url; } }

        /// <summary>
        /// List Name
        /// </summary>
        private string ListName { get { return "ToolBar"; } }

        /// <summary>
        /// List of Url
        /// </summary>
        private string ListUrl
        {
            get
            {
                return string.Format("{0}/Lists/{1}/AllItems.aspx", SiteUrl, ListName);
            }
        }

        #endregion

        #region Methods

        /// <summary>
        /// On Page Load
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="e"></param>
        protected override void OnInit(EventArgs e)
        {
            //On Load
            base.OnLoad(e);

            //General Settings
            this.AllowConnect = true;
            this.ShowUntargetedItems = false;
            this.AllowEdit = true;
            
            //this.FrameType = "NONE"; // TODO
            this.ChromeType = PartChromeType.None;
            this.ExportMode = WebPartExportMode.All;
            this.GroupByDirection = SortDirection.Desc;
            this.SortByDirection = SortDirection.Desc;
            
            this.ConnectionID = System.Guid.Empty;
            this.ListId = System.Guid.Empty;

            this.ViewFlag = "0";
            this.GroupingText = "GP Web Parts";
            this.Title = " Tool Bar";
            this.ContentTypeName = "Item";
            this.ItemStyle = "ToolBar";
            this.ServerTemplate = "100";
            this.GroupStyle = "DefaultHeader";
            this.WebUrl = "~sitecollection";
            this.Description = "Displays a dynamic view of content from your site.";
            this.Xsl = "<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:x=\"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema\" version=\"1.0\" xmlns:xsl=\"http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform\" xmlns:cmswrt=\"http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebPart/v3/Publishing/runtime\" exclude-result-prefixes=\"xsl cmswrt x\" > <xsl:import href=\"/Style Library/XSL Style Sheets/Header.xsl\" /> <xsl:import href=\"/Style Library/XSL Style Sheets/ItemStyle.xsl\" /> <xsl:import href=\"/Style Library/XSL Style Sheets/ContentQueryMain.xsl\" /> </xsl:stylesheet>";
            this.SampleData = "<dsQueryResponse><Rows><Row Title=\"Item 1\" LinkUrl=\"http://Item1\" Group=\"Group Header\" __begincolumn=\"True\" __begingroup=\"True\" /><Row Title=\"Item 2\" LinkUrl=\"http://Item2\" __begincolumn=\"False\" __begingroup=\"False\" /><Row Title=\"Item 3\" LinkUrl=\"http://Item3\" __begincolumn=\"False\" __begingroup=\"False\" /></Rows></dsQueryResponse>";
            this.ParameterBindings = string.Empty;

            //Root Web
            using (SPWeb _web = SPContext.Current.Site.RootWeb)
            {
                //Assign the list to the CQWP
                SPList _listYCLToolBar = _web.GetListFromUrl(ListUrl);

                //Data mapping
                this.DataMappings = string.Format("Description:|LinkUrl:{2},TargetUrl,URL;|Title:{4},Title,Text;|NumComments:|PublishedDate:|PostCategory:|ImageUrlAltText:{0},Title,Text;|Author:|Language:{3},Language,Lookup;|ImageUrl:{1},Icon,URL;|Body:|"
                    , _listYCLToolBar.Fields["Title"].Id.ToString()
                    , "{" + _listYCLToolBar.Fields["Icon"].Id.ToString() + "}"
                    , "{" + _listYCLToolBar.Fields["TargetUrl"].Id.ToString() + "}"
                    , "{" + _listYCLToolBar.Fields["Language"].Id.ToString() + "}"
                    , "{" + _listYCLToolBar.Fields["Title"].Id.ToString() + "}"
                    );

                this.ListGuid = _listYCLToolBar.ID.ToString();

                this.DataMappingViewFields = string.Format("{0},URL;{1},URL;{2},Text;{3},Lookup;"
                    , "{" + _listYCLToolBar.Fields["TargetUrl"].Id.ToString() + "}"
                    , "{" + _listYCLToolBar.Fields["Icon"].Id.ToString() + "}"
                    , "{" + _listYCLToolBar.Fields["Title"].Id.ToString() + "}"
                    , "{" + _listYCLToolBar.Fields["Language"].Id.ToString() + "}"
                    );
                
                //Filter One
                this.FilterField1 = "Language";//Custom Field to get the variation work.
                this.FilterOperator1 = FilterFieldQueryOperator.Eq;
                this.FilterValue1 = System.Globalization.CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.IetfLanguageTag;
                this.FilterType1 = "Lookup";
                this.Filter1ChainingOperator = FilterChainingOperator.Or;

                this.Filter2ChainingOperator = FilterChainingOperator.Or;

                //Sorting
                this.SortByFieldType = "DateTime";
                this.SortBy = "Created";
            }            
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Create Child Controls
        /// </summary>
        protected override void CreateChildControls()
        {
            base.CreateChildControls();
        }

        #endregion
    }
}

Please let me know if there is any issue with this code or you can also correct me if I am wrong.

SharePoint 2010 : Use Resouce(resx) file in a Multilingual site.

Goal

Our site is created using variations in both English and Spanish. Create a Visual Web Part which can use the resource file(.resx) to show different texts for different language.

Steps to achieve goal

• Create a SharePoint project with name "Sample".
• Add a web part with name "SampleWebPart".
• Add a "Mapped Folder" to "Resources". 2 files needs to be added.
  1. SampleWebPart.en-US.resx - English version resource file. Add some text to the resource.
     
  2. SampleWebPart.es-ES.resx - Spanish version resource file. Add some text to the resource.
     
• At this point the project "Solution Explorer" will look like
  
• For applying the resource, Open the Feature1 properties. And make the 2 changes shown in the below given image.
  
• Use the HTML and C# Code below.
• Once the above given steps are done, deploy the web part and They will display as below given image.
  
  

HTML - SampleWebPartUserControl.ascx

<h1><asp:Literal ID="ltrlTitle" runat="server" /></h1>
<hr />
<h3>
    <asp:Literal ID="ltrlDescription" runat="server" />
</h3>

C# - SampleWebPartUserControl.ascx.cs

#region System
using System;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;
#endregion

namespace Sample.SampleWebPart
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Simple example to use Resouce file with English/Spanish language.
    /// </summary>
    public partial class SampleWebPartUserControl : UserControl
    {
        #region Events

        /// <summary>
        /// Page Load
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="sender"></param>
        /// <param name="e"></param>
        protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            ltrlTitle.Text = LoadResource( ResourceName.Title );
            ltrlDescription.Text = LoadResource(ResourceName.Description);
        }

        #endregion

        #region Resource Reader

        /// <summary>
        /// Name for the Version to be considered.
        /// NOTE :- Use exactly same "Name" as used in Resource(resx) file.
        /// </summary>
        public enum ResourceName
        { 
            Title,
            Description
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Gets the text on the basis of "Name" in Resource(resx).
        /// </summary>
        private string LoadResource(ResourceName _resName)
        {
            return Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.SPUtility.GetLocalizedString("$Resources:" + _resName.ToString(),
                "SampleWebPart"
            , (uint)System.Globalization.CultureInfo.CurrentUICulture.LCID); 
        }

        #endregion
    }
}

Happy Coding