QueryOverrides and the GroupsToSearch attribute

jleask — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:50:09 GMT

QueryOverrides allow great customizations to lists (WeblogPostList / IndexPostList / etc) including page sizes, sections to search on, sort instructions and much more.

In this particular case I need to search by multiple sections. While the SectionApplicationKeysToSearch or SectionIDsToSearch options would work, Community Server has blog groups, making it easy to group blogs together. Conveniently the QueryOverrides have the option GroupsToSearch ... should be easy, and in fact it is; once you know what to put there.

The amazing wealth of information over at GetBen.com has about 99.9% of everything you could need to know about CS controls ... including the instructions that CS expects a string value for this option. What took me hours to figure out (because, apparently, my head wasn't in quite the right frame of mind) was that the GroupsToSearch is actually looking for a comma (see? string!) separated list of integers, the IDs of the groups you wish to search on.

So, while I was putting in: GroupsToSearch="MyGroup,MyOtherGroup"; what was expected, and the reason I was getting the Input string was not in a correct format error, was GroupsToSearch="3,5"

I hope this helps someone save a few minutes compared to what I lost this evening ...

CS2008: Shared Feeds

jleask — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 05:27:17 GMT

Community Server saw a major overhaul to the user profile public display page. One of these newer features is the Shared Feeds. Shared Feeds allow a user to put any feeds they find worthy of sharing into their profile and have them displayed, per the sites layout, on the profile page.

The screenshot above is from my personal profile on dev.communityserver.com - as you can see there are two feeds shown here, each with the latest posts from that feed displayed. The default CS theme displays 5 posts there, though that can be changed using the QueryOverrides "PageSize" property of your TemporaryRssFeedList control.

But really this isn't what made me think this was a good blog post. Allow me to put the Search Engine Optimized phrase here: Why does my Community Server 2008 Shared Feeds only show 5 feeds?

The answer, my friends, is blowin' in th...nevermind that.

It's simple, CS08 has a limit to the number of feeds you can share, not just that are displayed, but in fact share; the magic number being 5. If you try to save 6 items CS actually removes the 6th item from the list before saving, but never tells you this:

I learned this the hard way, of course; I spent an hour trying to troubleshoot why only 5 of my feeds were displaying even though I saw my profile save after entering 6 items - Moral of the story, always make sure what you thought saved actually saved (yes, only 5 items saved).

Digital Serenity : Community Server 2008, CSTheme

QueryOverrides and the GroupsToSearch attribute

CS2008: Shared Feeds