Inspiration

I’ve been fooling around with the Twitter API and how wanted to test how I could connect it to SharePoint. After som inspiration from Andrew Connell blog post about Custom Timer Jobs for SharePoint i’ve decided to give it a try. This function will update a list with tweets every 5 minutes so it wont go over the Rate Limit set for the Twitter API.

I’m using VS 2008 with VSeWSS 1.3 / WSS3.0

First I created a List called Twitter in the rootweb of my Wss3.0 installation and created the following columns:

Title  Single line of text  
Link  Single line of text 
Published  Single line of text 
Uri  Single line of text 
TweetAuthor  Single line of text 
TweetId  Single line of text 
TweetImage  Single line of text

After this I started an VSeWSS SharePoint Empty Project named TaskLoggerJob and created a Class with the same name TaskLoggerJob: and a small class named Tweets to handle the Tweet properties:

Tweets.cs

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;

namespace TaskLoggerJob
{
    class Tweets
    {
        public string Id { get; set; }
        public DateTime Published { get; set; }
        public string Link { get; set; }
        public string Image { get; set; }
        public string Title { get; set; }
        public string Author { get; set; }
        public string Uri { get; set; }
    }
}

———————–

TaskLoggerJob.cs

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Linq;
using Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration;
using Microsoft.SharePoint;
using System.Xml.Linq;

namespace TaskLoggerJob
{
    class TaskLoggerJob : SPJobDefinition
    {
        List<Tweets> m_tweets;
        /// <summary>
        /// Initializes a new instance of the TaskLoggerJob class.
        /// </summary>
        public TaskLoggerJob()
            : base()
        {
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Initializes a new instance of the TaskLoggerJob class.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name=”jobName”>Name of the job.</param>
        /// <param name=”service”>The service.</param>
        /// <param name=”server”>The server.</param>
        /// <param name=”targetType”>Type of the target.</param>
        public TaskLoggerJob(string jobName, SPService service, SPServer server, SPJobLockType targetType)
            : base(jobName, service, server, targetType)
        {
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Initializes a new instance of the TaskLoggerJob class.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name=”jobName”>Name of the job.</param>
        /// <param name=”webApplication”>The web application.</param>
        public TaskLoggerJob(string jobName, SPWebApplication webApplication)
            : base(jobName, webApplication, null, SPJobLockType.ContentDatabase)
        {
            this.Title = “Task Logger”;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Executes the specified content db id.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name=”contentDbId”>The content db id.</param>
        public override void Execute(Guid contentDbId)
        {
            getTweets();
            // get a reference to the current site collection’s content database
            SPWebApplication webApplication = this.Parent as SPWebApplication;
            SPContentDatabase contentDb = webApplication.ContentDatabases[contentDbId];

            // get a reference to the “Tasks” list in the RootWeb of the first site collection in the content database
            SPList taskList = contentDb.Sites[0].RootWeb.Lists["Twitter"];
            SPListItemCollection items = taskList.Items;
            // Clear Twitter List from objects
            List<int> listaIds = new List<int>(items.Count);

            for (int i = 0; i < items.Count; i++)
            {

                listaIds.Add(items[i].ID);

            }

            for (int i = 0; i < listaIds.Count; i++)
            {

                taskList.GetItemById(listaIds[i]).Delete();

            }

            taskList.Update();

            foreach (Tweets item in m_tweets)
            {
                // create a new tweet, and update the item
                SPListItem newTask = taskList.Items.Add();
                newTask["Title"] = item.Title;
                newTask.Update();
                // Add data to new item..
                SPListItem existingTask = taskList.GetItemById(newTask.ID);
                existingTask["TweetAuthor"] = item.Author;
                existingTask["Link"] = item.Uri;
                existingTask["Published"] = item.Published.ToString();
                existingTask["TweetId"] = item.Id;
                existingTask["TweetImage"] = item.Image;
                existingTask.Update();
            }

            taskList.Update();
             
        }

        public void getTweets()
        {
            XDocument feed = XDocument.Load(“http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=from:chrperss“);

            XNamespace atomNS = “http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom“;

            m_tweets = (from tweet in feed.Descendants(atomNS + “entry”)
                        select new Tweets
                        {
                            Title = (string)tweet.Element(atomNS + “title”),
                            Published = DateTime.Parse((string)tweet.Element(atomNS + “published”)),
                            Id = (string)tweet.Element(atomNS + “id”),
                            Link = tweet.Elements(atomNS + “link”)
                            .Where(link => (string)link.Attribute(“rel”) == “alternate”)
                            .Select(link => (string)link.Attribute(“href”))
                            .First(),
                            Image = tweet.Elements(atomNS + “link”)
                            .Where(link => (string)link.Attribute(“rel”) == “image”)
                            .Select(link => (string)link.Attribute(“href”))
                            .First(),
                            Author = (string)tweet.Element(atomNS + “author”).Element(atomNS + “name”),
                            Uri = (string)tweet.Element(atomNS + “author”).Element(atomNS + “uri”),
                        }).ToList<Tweets>();
        }
    }
}

————————————-

After this I created a FeatureReceiverClass to get it all going: Named it TaskLoggerJobInstaller

TaskLoggerJobInstaller.cs

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using Microsoft.SharePoint;
using Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration;

namespace TaskLoggerJob
{
class TaskLoggerJobInstaller : SPFeatureReceiver
{
const string TASK_LOGGER_JOB_NAME = “TaskLogger”;

///
/// Occurs after a Feature is installed.
///
///
An object that represents the properties of the event. public override void FeatureInstalled(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties)
{
}

///
/// Occurs when a Feature is uninstalled.
///
///
An object that represents the properties of the event. public override void FeatureUninstalling(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties)
{
}

///
/// Occurs after a Feature is activated.
///
///
An object that represents the properties of the event. public override void FeatureActivated(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties)
{
// register the the current web
SPSite site = properties.Feature.Parent as SPSite;

// make sure the job isn’t already registered
foreach (SPJobDefinition job in site.WebApplication.JobDefinitions)
{
if (job.Name == TASK_LOGGER_JOB_NAME)
job.Delete();
}

// install the job
TaskLoggerJob taskLoggerJob = new TaskLoggerJob(TASK_LOGGER_JOB_NAME, site.WebApplication);

SPMinuteSchedule schedule = new SPMinuteSchedule();
schedule.BeginSecond = 0;
schedule.EndSecond = 59;
schedule.Interval = 5;
taskLoggerJob.Schedule = schedule;

taskLoggerJob.Update();
}

///
/// Occurs when a Feature is deactivated.
///
///
An object that represents the properties of the event. public override void FeatureDeactivating(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties)
{
SPSite site = properties.Feature.Parent as SPSite;

// delete the job
foreach (SPJobDefinition job in site.WebApplication.JobDefinitions)
{
if (job.Name == TASK_LOGGER_JOB_NAME)
job.Delete();
}
}
}
}

————————-

Then I’ve had to modify the Feature.xml file that is created when we add a new feature to the project through the “WSP View”, so it points to the ReceiverClass we just created and ReceiverAssembly

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?>
<Feature Id=”3901dc1f-5b79-4e70-96af-f4ed32d3da0e” Title=”TaskLoggerJob” Scope=”Site” Version=”1.0.0.0″ Hidden=”FALSE” DefaultResourceFile=”core” xmlns=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/” ReceiverAssembly=”TaskLoggerJob, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=53b5e25b60ede585″ ReceiverClass=”TaskLoggerJob.TaskLoggerJobInstaller”>
  <ElementManifests />
</Feature>

The Custom Timer Job is complete and should be able to deploy, now after 5 minutes the Twitter List should be filled with 15 blogposts.

note: Remember that you might have to restart the SharePoint Timer Service when you make changes since it keeps a chached version of you assemblis. Also remember to change the guids and Publickeytoken if you copy this.

And if it doesnt work? don’t blame me cause Im a noob