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I want to Search my way! (and what do Camels have do with search anyways?!)

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I'm in a customer meeting doing a demo on search and I get the following response: "That's all good Kailash, but I'd like to change the way our people see the results. And I want to add some custom filters. Is that possible with [MOSS]?"

The answer to that of course is YES! [referring to a poem by e. e. cummings ;)]

So, the question requires two bits (incidentally my blog title!) to make it work:

That should settle it. (Questions welcome!)

And as always "you got options" – which is where the camel (actually CAML) comes in!

So what is CAML? And how does it help?

Collaborative Application Markup Language (CAML) is the XML-based language that is used to build and customize Web sites based on [WSS] from Microsoft®.

CAML can be used to do the following:

  • Provide schema definition to the Web site provisioning system about how the site looks and acts.
  • Define views and forms for data and page rendering or execution.
  • Act as a rendering language that performs functions in the DLL like pulling a value from a particular field.
  • Provide batch functionality for posting multiple commands to the server using protocol.

Why would you use CAML as opposed to just using Microsoft FrontPage® or other editing tools?

  • To make universal changes, such as adding a new logo to the main pages of every site you create.
  • To define a content type, such as for adding Flash movies to the SharePoint team Web site.
  • It provides the ultimate in customization and flexibility; manipulating CAML allows you total control over the site provisioning system, for instance, when creating a list or adding a view.

Ref: https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/spsdk11/CAML_Schema/spxmlconCAML.asp

That was CAML in STS (WSS v1) and this has of course been updated. CAML is here to stay: https://blogs.msdn.com/mikefitz/archive/2005/03/13/394974.aspx

Here's a good tool to get you riding the CAML on MOSS: https://www.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?ProjectName=SPCamlViewer

CAML's so important that I think I'll write up a blog entry on it soon! Although acknowledged as being key, very few developers – to my knowledge - in Egypt use it. So, what're you waiting for?!