EPiServer/SharePoint Videos Part #1

I guess you need some special codec to watch the videos, it won't play on my Vista machine in either Media Player or VLC - I only hear the sound but no video.

Intel Indeo 4.5 codec... I thought this was fairly common but you may need to get it off the Web :)

Vista doesn't have Indeo codec per default, I believe. Running the videos on XP works like a charm however. Seems interesting, thanks Dan.

Fredrik - I think you're absolutely right. However, I've re-encoded them all as WMV files which don't need Indeo, so they will all play on XP or Vista now :)

Ye, I saw your note at the bottom just after sending the message. It's a good thing that I never feel stupid, or not... :)

Hi Dan,
Just playing with Connector for Sharepoint, and I'm just wondering how you configure the systems to enable a two way exchange? I have the documents pulling in from MOSS, but if I add a folder/file (like in your video), they don't appear in the MOSS location

Thanks

P.S. I'm loving you're videos, they are really informative!
/ Richard Hayes

Richard - the 2-way communication should work automatically. I certainly didn't have to configure anything additional for it. Maybe it's a permission issue? Maybe double-check that you've run through all the installation steps correctly and are using a user with appropriate permissions on your MOSS/WSS installation?

Thanks Dan. Can I just clarify something. In order to see Sharepoint content in the File Manager, do you have to (once all is installed):

A. Create a content channel and map its virtual root to something like "~/Global", rather than the "SharePoint" VirtualPathWSSProvider

or

B. Just map it to the WSS VirtualPathWSSProvider and all should be well?

Thanks
/ Richard Hayes

Richard - the answer is B, but let me explain a little more. Seeing content in the SharePoint starting point in File Manager is nothing to do with Content Channels - don't mix up the two ideas :)

If you want a 2-way sharing of files (documents, pictures etc.) between SharePoint and EPiServer, set up the connector to point at the SharePoint site you want to share. This will use the WSS virtual path provider to enable you to work with the SharePoint libraries in that site as if they were in EPiServer - just look in the SharePoint starting point in File Manager.

The one drawback to this method is that everything in your SharePoint libraries has to be treated like a file. If you want to pull some of those items back as EPiServer PAGES, that's when you use a Content Channel.

So, for example, if you want to pull some tasks out of a SharePoint task list and display them as EPiServer pages, you would use a content channel to push the tasks through to EPiServer as pages. The 'receive' end of the channel would define what page on the site is the container for the new pages. Note that you do also set a path for FILES, but that is more to do with files/attachments which get pulled through the channel as well, and determines where they go.

The big consideration with content channels is that they are only 1-way. They are effectively like a very powerful and flexible import. They are ideal for pages but not really designed for files.

I hope that makes sense :)

Clear as crystal Dan! Have solved my problem!

I was under the impression you had to use content channels for all SP data, hence why I wasn't able to perform a two-way communication!

The whole reason I was using content channels to serve files in the first place was when I attempted "B", it wasn't working dispite trying everything.

I have literally just uncovered that this problem was due to IT not putting the user in the correct group :-).

Thanks again for your help its been most valuable!


/ Richard Hayes

Great! What kind of Sharepoint licenses do you need from Microsoft for publishing information from Sharepoint to your public web site through the 2-way connector?

@Sami - that's a question for Microsoft, but there is a certainly scope for being creative in license situations like this! :)