I'm using powershell a lot for performing upgrade actions on an existing Sharepoint installation. I try to keep the manual tasks to a minimum, since the (exact) same actions must be executed on different environments (DTAP).
Powershell scripts won't execute like a command file (like double-clicking in the explorer). Instead you need to open a commandline, navigate to the correct folder, start the powershell environment and then you can execute the powershell script. This is not so much an issue when a whole set of scripts need to be executed, but when I just want to run a single script this feels like a lot of work just to start a single script. So to make executing a powershell script a little easier, I've created a simple command file that will execute a single script. It works simply by dropping the desired powershell script on it in the explorer.
Create a command file with a name like 'ExecutePowershell.cmd' and put in the following code:
@echo off.
echo Execute powershell:
echo.
echo %1%
echo.
pause
powershell.exe "& "%1%""
pause
@echo on
The trick here is of course in the way powershell is started. You can use this syntax to run scripts from a file, like so:
powershell "& .\scriptfile.ps1"
Don't forget the .\ if you're running a script from the current directory (or powershell won't find the script). And when the path to the script contains spaces, place it between double double quotes (because the quotes are used within an, already quoted, string), like so:
powershell "& ""Installation Scripts\scriptfile.ps1"""
Or run a single (or several) statements, like so:
powershell "& get-process"
Today I had some trouble with setting the focus on an input element within an overlay panel in IE6. To be more specific: I had to set the focus on the lastname textbox in the search-argument panel for the people-search page in Sharepoint. Calling the focus() method worked in every opther browser except, of course, IE6.
The code that was causing the problem is as simple as this:
document.all['lastname'].focus();
Apparently this is an ancient IE6 bug. Luckily the problem is easily fixed by using the setTimeout function. Just wrap the offending code like so:
setTimeout(function() { document.all['lastname'].focus() }, 0);
When you want to debug an assembly that has been deployed to the GAC (e.g. an assembly that is part of a Sharepoint solution), the easiest way is to change one of the settings in Visual Studio (2005, 2008 or 2010):
- Open the Visual Studio Options dialog (Tools -> Options)
- Select Debugging in the left pane
- In the right pane, locate the Enable Just My Code (Managed only) node
- Uncheck all the childnodes under the Enable Just My Code (Managed only) node
- Uncheck the Enable Just My Code (Managed only) node
- Select OK
