Creating a SandBox solution in SharePoint 2010

The Sandbox solution is newly added in SharePoint 2010, and it is very useful particularly for the Administrators to track each of the custom development object. 


Now, the administrator can monitor the performance of the custom application and that can be removed if more server resources are consumed. Another important thing is, the Sandbox solution run on a separate process thread SPUserCodes. This will stop taking SharePoint resources already using W3WP process.


For every site, there is a solution gallery, where already installed sandbox solutions are present.

Steps for creating the solution:


1) Create a blank solution in VS 2010, and specify the site URL and select "Sandbox solution"


2) Add a webpart, by click on project -> New Items
Please Note, the Visual Webpart is not supported in a Sandbox solution.


3) Write you custom codes for your webpart in the "CreateChildControl" method.


4) Build the solution and locate the WSP file in the Bin folder.


5) Now, open Power Shell and execute these commands for adding and installing the solution.


Add-SPUserSolution -LiteralPath "Physical path to WSP" -Site "Your site Url"


Install-SPUserSolution -Identity "WSP name" -Site "Your site url"

Remember: Run the Power Shell as an administrator.

Static Navigation Menu on a Site Collection

Here, I am trying to change the built-in top navigation menu with a custom made menu. These menu items are static in nature and controlled from a XML file. 


These are the steps need to be followed:


1) Create a XML file and save the file as .sitemap


< ?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ? >
< siteMap >
  < siteMapNode title="Company" url="" >
    < siteMapNode title="Profile" >
      < siteMapNode title="About Us" url="/Default.aspx" >
        < siteMapNode title="History" url="/division1/division1a/Default.aspx" >
          < siteMapNode title="Management" url="/division1/division2a/Default.aspx"/ >
        < /siteMapNode >
        < siteMapNode title="News" url="/divi/division3a/Default.aspx" >
          < siteMapNode title="Media" url="/dion1/division3a/Default.aspx"/ >
        < /siteMapNode >
      < /siteMapNode >
    < /siteMapNode >
    < siteMapNode title="Interests" >
      < siteMapNode title="Careers" url="/division1/Home.aspx" >
        < siteMapNode title="Media" url="/divisi/division1a/Default.aspx"/ >
        < siteMapNode title="News" url="/divis/division2a/Default.aspx"/ >
      < /siteMapNode >
    < /siteMapNode >
  < /siteMapNode >
< /siteMap >



2) Place the file in _app_bin directory
(eg: C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\555\_app_bin\mainmenu.sitemap)


3) Open the web.config file of the corresponding site
(eg c:\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\555)


4)  Look for the "< siteMap" tag, and under "< providers >" add the following entry: and save the file.


< add name="CustomXmlContentMapProvider" siteMapFile="_app_bin/CustomSiteMap.sitemap" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Navigation.SPXmlContentMapProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" / >


5) Open the site on SharePoint Designer, and add the following inside a SharePoint:DelegateControl



     < asp:SiteMapDataSource
ShowStartingNode="true"
SiteMapProvider="CustomXmlContentMapProvider"
id="xmlSiteMap"
runat="server"/ >

6) Then look for "< SharePoint:AspMenu ID='TopNavigationMenu'
and change these:


DataSourceID="xmlSiteMap"

MaximumDynamicDisplayLevels="4" 

The MaximumDynamicDisplayLevel indicates up to how many level the menu will expand.

7) The final output will be look like this: