Working Title: Black Magic Solutions for White Hat SharePoint

Here’s something really exciting. I’m one of nine authors for an upcoming SharePoint book we’re putting together with Mark Miller (@EUSP), good old Mr. EndUserSharePoint himself. It’s going to be all about using script with SharePoint in interesting and (we hope!) useful ways.

As with our SharePoint 2010 at Work: Tricks, Traps, and Bold Opinions book, we’re each going to write a chapter about something we think is a really cool thing to do in SharePoint using JavaScript and/or jQuery to make it sing.

We’re going a non-traditional route with this book. It’s going to come together very fast and we’re going to publish it ourselves. Thanks go to Mark for both the original idea and the willingness to do a lot of the legwork to get things rolling.

The nine authors who are contributing to the book are: Chris Beckett, Dave Coleman, Josh McCarty, Wendy Neal, Eric Overfield, Peter Serzo, Paul Tavares, Ben Tedder, et moi. I’m pleased as punch to be a member of this group; every single one of the others has impressed me over the years with their talents and passion for that thing we call SharePoint.

Here’s my chapter’s working abstract. Maybe all the lessons I’ve learned about writing script in SPServices can help people out.

To many traditional SharePoint developers, working with JavaScript feels like taking giant steps backward into the Wild West of coding. While it can take some getting used to, nothing could be farther from the truth. By applying good coding practices to your JavaScript and jQuery work, you can devise solid, reusable script libraries to run huge pieces of the SharePoint functionality across your enterprise.

Drawing on the lessons learned from building and maintaining SPServices over four years and across three SharePoint versions, I’ll give you some tips and tricks about how to build better code and to make your life easier in the meantime. Whether you are in an enterprise of one or 100,000, the same good practices can get you where you need to be.

We’re really excited about it and we have some ideas that we think you’ll truly be interested in. But guess what? You can get in on the fun! We’re looking for some reviewers from the community to help us validate the solutions we’re writing about and make the final product as good as it can possibly be. If you’re interested, head on over to the Eventbrite page and sign up.

If you don’t think you can help out by playing a reviewer role, then you can watch our progress on Twitter with #SPWhiteHats.

Here are some more details from the Eventbrite page to tickle your fancy:

How would you like to participate in the creation of a new book?

Nine experienced authors from NothingButSharePoint got together and decided we want to self-publish a unique SharePoint book without having to go through the formal process of a traditional publisher. We want to do a solutions based book where people can select projects of interest to them. We don’t want a bunch of geek speak; just real world solutions that people can use to enhance their SharePoint sites.

That’s where you come in.

Each author will be writing one chapter for the book. We want the book to be as compelling as possible, so we need reviewers from the community to act as proof-readers and copy editors for each of the chapters. You will work with a selected author to review their work, test their solutions, and give feedback for possible enhancements. Each of the solutions are described below.

Your obligation? Look at the chapter from a users perspective and let the author know:

  • Does the solution work?
  • Is it something you would consider using?
  • Are there extensions to the solution that you would find interesting?
  • Does the language flow, does it have correct syntax?
We are interested in people who want to participate in an author’s project, You may select multiple chapters to review, but priority is given to those who select one single chapter. If the chapter you would like to review is full, you will see a “Sold Out” or “N/A” sign next to the chapter.
The first draft of the chapters will be finished on April 30th. You will work with the author during the draft period and then help with testing the final code and demos during the first week of May.

What’s in it for you?

What you’ll get for your efforts is twofold. First, you will be listed in the credits of the book as a technical reviewer for the project. Second, you’ll have pre-release access to a chapter of the book.

The solutions will be built and demoed in a SharePoint 2010 environment, but most chapters will also talk about how to implement them in 2013, when appropriate.

How does that sound? If you’ve got the time and the inclination, check out the abstracts, select one chapter you’d like to review and let’s get started. If the chapter you’d like to select is marked with “Sold Out” or “N/A”, that means we have enough reviewers for that chapter.

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