Firefox 3 And Colour Management
I recently come across an article by Datacolor (the company who make the Spyder range of monitor / printer calibrators) which explains how to enable ICC profiles in Firefox 3. It is a very simple boolean (true/false) property which you need to change in the ‘hidden’ Firefox configuration.
In Firefox enter about:config in to the address bad and press enter. A warning message will show up saying “This might void your warranty!” ignore this and click “I’ll be careful, I promise” (don’t worry you don’t have warranty anyway ;-). Next, in the filter bar type in gfx.color_management.enabled. There should now only be one option in the list of configuration options, and it should be set to false by default. Simply double click this option to change it to true (it should now be bold, indicating it is no longer the default value). Restart Firefox and you should be up and running with ICC profiles.
Check out the original post by Datacolor for more information and for two images which will indicate if your browse supports ICC profiles.
InfoPath Roles And Views
One useful feature of InfoPath is its built in support for user Roles. While it is not overally powerful (and it should not be used for security purposes as all data can be viewed and edited in xml format via notepad or a similar) it can be handy for autmoatically switching views based on AD users or groups.
To add a role simply go to Tools -> User Roles (alt + t + e) and click Add (alt + a). You can then specify which users, groups or user names from the form should belong to the new role.
One thing to note is that when you are designing an InfoPath form and click “Preview Form” it shows the form based on the default role. If you wish to preview the form under a different role you need to go to File -> Preview Form -> With User Role… (alt + f + r + r). The form will then be launched in preview mode under the select role.
There is also the option to set a role as either the default role or the initiator role (only one role can occupy either or both of these options). The default setting specifies that this role is the default role for all users, should they not meet the requirements of another role. The initiator setting is the role assigned to a user when they open the infopath form for the first time.
Another point of interest is that roles are assessed on a top-down approach, however you can not change the ordering of roles from within the InfoPath IDE. In order to change the ordering of roles, should you be required to, you must open the manifest.xsf and manually re-order the <xsf:role /> elements.
Creating A Simple SharePoint Workflow In SharePoint Designer
This one is a quick and easy one, but is the basis for creating some very useful workflows in for use in SharePoint lists. Firstly you will need a SharePoint website and a copy of SharePoint Designer (a 60 day trial version is avaliable from microsoft) and a list in SharePoint which you can apply the workflow to — for this example I am using a fairly simple Travel Requsition list which is a document library which contains InfoPath documents.
To create the workflow open SharePoint designer and connect to your SharePoint website. Once connected, go to File -> New and select the SharePoint Content tab and select Workflow (blank workflow). You should now be presented with the a form similar to the following. Here you can specify a name for your workflow (each workflow in a site must have a unique name) which list the workflow is attached (associated) to and when the workflow should be triggered. In this case we want to trigger the workflow whenever a list item is added or updated.
The next step is to define the actual steps of the workflow. Although it’s not necessary, the first step that I like to perform is to log a message indicated that the workflow has been initialised and is being performed. Additionally I like to also log a message when each step is starting and when each step has been completed. This logging can be achieve simply by using the action “Log message to the workflow history list”.
For this workflow what we want to do now is send an email to the travel requisition assignee, notifying them of a new request which requires their approval. As the workflow is being triggered when a new item is added, or when an item is modified (to capture updates later) we will need to safe gaurd against the fact that the assingee might have already been sent a notification email (this could also be done using a specific column with a boolean value and updating this column in the workflow). To do this we need to create a workflow status column in our sharepoint list and put a condition around our next workflow step.
To create the required column; In SharePoint create a new column of type “Choice”, on the associated list, and add several workflow statuses. For example, Pending Approval, Approved, Declined, Completed. Now back in SharePoint Designer, in our workflow wizard, click Add workflow step and in the conditions select Compare [list name] field then set the first field to the Workflow Status column we just created and the equals field to the first value (in this case Pending Approval). This will restrict this step from only being processed if the document is pending approval, i.e. when the form is first submitted.
A step would be pretty useless if it did not contain any actions, so go a head and create an action to log the task we are about to perform (or don’t :-). The next action we want to perform is to send an email to the approver, to notify them of the new requisition. The action we want is called send an email — select this and then click this message, to specify the message contents.
In the Define E-mail Message screen click the address book button next to the To field. You can now specify who should receive the email address — this can be anyone from Active Directory, a custom email address, a SharePoint user, or in our case a workflow lookup value. To specify a workflow lookup value double click on Workflow Lookup… in the list on the left. The source should be left as Current Item and the field value should be set to the field containing the email address of the person who is going to approve the form.
After clicking OK twice you should be back at the Define E-mail Message screen, where you can now specify the subject and body. If you wish to make the email a little more personalized you add lookup’s to the body by clicking the Add Lookup to Body button and selecting a field using the same method as when we select the email address. One useful field to add to the body is the Encoded Absolute URL field. This field outputs the complete URL of the form to allow the approver to click this link and directly open the form for completion — instead of having to browse to the site and then search through the list for the new form.
Now we are done! This is a very simple workflow, however it can easily be extended to allow additional tasks to be automated. For example, the next step may be to email the appropriate person based on the actions of the approver — if they approve the requsition it might then notify a line manager of this approval; if they decline the requisition it might notify the person it has been declines; or the approver may not be responsible for this approval and as such delgate the task to some who is responsible. The following image show such example.
Where to next? Complex workflows in Visual Studio, with code behind functionality…
Fort Lytton
Fort Lytton is a pentagonal fortress, built near the mouth of the Brisbane River (map after break), erected in 1881 to aid the controlled river mines in defending the Port of Brisbane until the end of the Second World War. It was Brisbane’s front front line of defence and is regarded as the birthplace of Queensland military history. The fort is surrounded by a water-filled moat and connected by underground passages (although these underground passages do not appear to be visible anymore). After the Second World War the fort was no longer demed ‘useful’ and as such fell in to a state of disrepair, until Ampol took over the site in 1963 and later became a national park in 1988.
By the turn of the century the Fort consisted of six gun pits and two machine gun posts. The arsenal included (Most of which can be seen at the Fort either in their original placing or in the historical museum — some of the larger fixed emplacements are replicas now):
- 2x 6inch BL 5ton Armstrong guns
- 2x 6pounder QF Hotchkiss guns
- 1x 4barrel 1inch Nordenfeldt machine gun
- 1x 10barrel 0.45inch Nordenfeldt machine gun
- 2x 64pounder RML guns
The Fort is open every Sunday and on public holidays from 10am until 4pm. Entry fee is $4.50 for adults (includes a tour or self exploration if you wish), but is a small price to pay for a good afternoon of historical exploration. Additionally (unconfirmed if this is every Sunday or only during certain times throughout the year) they fire one of the cannons three times during the day. When I visit the site the times posted were 11am, 1pm and 3pm. If you’re a budding photographer I would suggest arriving just prior to 11am to catch the first cannon firing and then after spending the next two hours wondering around and having a bite to eat (great spot for a picnic lunch — portable bbq’s are welcome) it will be time for the second firing. You might be surprised how quick the firing happens, I certainly was!
See additional photos from Fort Lytton.
Update: I’ve been told that they fire the cannons the first Sunday of every month.
