[UPDATE] – Michael Gannotti has a nice video on other tips here.  He talks about many challenges.

First let me say, I myself am a big Mac OS X user.  I have developed iPhone Apps and use the platform on a regular basis, have my iPhone working with my Exchange 2007 account etc.  So I definitely know of some of the challenges using SharePoint on the platform as I have experienced them first-hand.  One of the most important facts is that ActiveX Controls only exist in IE.  That said, we must understand how a Mac User can still work with SharePoint/Exchange, let me point you to things that have been enhanced.

On this post, I wanted to simply highlight some of the recent improvements that Microsoft and Apple have both come up with.

Recent Improvements for the SharePoint User Experience

There are a few recent updates that one can immediately benefit from if he/she is a Mac User:

1. Microsoft Office 2008
2. Document Connection Add-On
3. Snow Leopard – Tight integration with Exchange 2007 

The nice thing about the Document Connection add-on is that one can browse documents very much like the Web Folders on Vista.  In addition, some of the things one can do using this add-on are:

• Check-in/out
• Work on documents offline
• Add documents to Favorites
• Track SharePoint multiple Sites you work with including Workspaces
• Track your Drafts, much like the SharePoint Drafts folder on your Vista machine

FIGURE 1 – Shows the Document Connection Add-On browsing a SharePoint Site

 

FIGURE 2 – Add a document to Favorites context menu

FIGURE 3 – Shows documents that you have added to your Favorites

If you are trying to access a site which is using Forms Based Authentication (FBA) or non NTLM, you will get a credentials box as shown below.

FIGURE 4 – Authentication box when you try and access a SharePoint site not using NTLM

 

Snow Leopard – Exchange 2007 tight integration

Leave it to Apple to take the lead in making sure they continue enticing users who obviously use their Macs for more than just home.  Apple now has captured the attention of the Enterprise User by not only having Exchange 2007 account setup on the iPhone, but now full integration on their latest OS X, Snow Leopard.

With said integration you now have the following:

1. Exchange Contacts synched in the Address Book
2. Mail Program (mostly better than Entourage and an awesome alternative now in my mind)
   NOTE: It seems that Microsoft is looking to replace Entourage with the release of an Outlook for the Mac version, checkout this post
3. iCal – your Exchange calendar is synched with iCal
4. Notes are also synched!
5. Tasks – These are shown as “To-Do’s” on the Mac!

I patched my Exchange 2007 server, then configured the Address Book and Mail Program, they worked flawlessly!

Exchange Tasks on iCal

On Mail, the Exchange Tasks are called To Do.  You can see them FIGURE 5 how this looks on Mail vs Exchange (FIGURE 6)

FIGURE 5 – An Exchange Task is shown on the Mail program on the Mac

FIGURE 6 – An Exchange Task (Mac To Do) on Outlook Web Access

 

Exchange Notes on the iCal

When you browse the iCal, you will see on the left navigation a list of both, Exchange and local (Mac) Notes.  iCal groups them, in my case they are under SharePointAce Consulting Group, LLC To Do.

FIGURE 7 – Exchange Notes using iCal Notes

FIGURE 8 – Outlook Web Access shows same Note as iCal

RSS Feeds

Since RSS is a big part of SharePoint (see chapter 6 on the book I contributed to Social Computing with SharePoint 2007), it makes sense to also include such capability on the Document Connection add-on.  Figure 7 shows the RSS subscription I am using.  Great for keeping track of all SharePoint data!

Well, I hope this makes sense to you and helps you understand a little detail on how the Exchange and SharePoint User experience looks.

-Oscar

If you have a .NET background, you are bound to have many questions as to how things can be done on SharePoint.  Given the fact that SharePoint 2007 is written on top of .NET 2.0, anything and almost everything you can think of, can be accomplished using the .NET web app typical techniques.

Recently, I ran into a scenario where my client had completely scratched the “look n feel” of SharePoint.  One of the requirements was to have a custom navigation WebPart available on all pages.  What to do?

Well, I added the custom WebPart to the Master Page!  Easy!


FIGURE 1 – declare the custom WebPart DLL on Master Page

 

FIGURE 2 – Code on the Master Page that places the custom WebPart

 

So, you have a WebPart you have developed and you are deploying it as part of a Solution (at least you should be).  Your WSP includes CSS, Images and other artifacts that are dropped into the _layouts folder when your featureis activated.

Now you need a way to ensure that the CSS Classes you are referencing on your WebPart code are available to the WebPart, BUT you do not want the person deploying the WebPart to modify the Master Page.  In other words, your WebPart should not have any dependencies outside of your Solution.

There is a way to simply add a CSS link within code.  You can use the Class available on the Object Model

protected override void CreateChildControls()
{
    Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.CssLink cssLink = new Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.CssLink();
    cssLink.DefaultUrl = "/_layouts/MyAppFolder/CSS/tabBasic.css";

    this.Page.Header.Controls.Add(cssLink);

more code………

Simple yet effective!

-Oscar