Programatically Manage Remote Documents with the FrontPage RPC Library

We've rolled up some of the ideas in previous posts about FrontPage Server Extensions RPC methods into a free CC licensed c# code library.

You can download the source code along with a demo copy of HubKey's SharePoint Client API from HubKey's website - click here for details.

Documentation about the members exposed through the HubKey.Net.FrontPageRPC.WebClient class can be found online here.

Features of the class include:

• Upload or download many documents in one web request using the 'get documents' and 'put documents' methods.


• True file streaming (without pre-loading to memory) for faster uploads.


• Asynchronous methods including an asynchronous MoveDocuments method.


• Auto detection of FrontPage dll paths and versions.

The following FrontPage Server Extensions RPC Methods are included in the library:

• checkin document method - remotely check-in a document to source control.


• checkout document method - remotely check-out a document from source control.


• getDocsMetaInfo method - download document metadata to a client machine.


• get document method - remotely download a document with metadata from a web folder or SharePoint document library. Includes an asynchronous method.


• get documents method - programatically download documents with metadata from a web folder or SharePoint document library in one web request. Includes an asynchronous method.


• list documents method - obtains a list of files and folders on the web or SharePoint server. Sorts the results into a tree structure to allow for use in a TreeView control.


• list versions method - retrieves metadata for all the versions of the specified document.


• move document method - programatically move (rename) or copy a file or folder. Allows for moves between webs or even servers by downloading and then uploading the file.


• open service method - list service meta information.


• put document method - programatically upload a file to a SharePoint document library or web server with meta info. Includes an asynchronous method.


• put documents method - remotely upload files to a SharePoint document library or web server with meta info. Includes a method to asynchronously upload large files. Allows true streaming (without loading into memory first) for large file uploads.


• remove documents method - delete files or folders from a SharePoint document library or web server.


• setDocsMetaInfo method - update document meta data from a client computer.


• uncheckout document method - revert a document to the version before it was checked out.


• url to web url method - break a url into its web and web relative components.

A very brief code example follows - we'll cover an in depth sample application in a future post:

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Text;

namespace HubKey.Net.FrontPageRPC

{

    class Program

    {

        static void Main(string[] args)

        {

            WebClient webClient = new WebClient();

            //upload a document and check it in

            MetaInfoCollection meta = new MetaInfoCollection();

            meta.Add("vti_title", "My Title");

            UploadDocumentResponse uploadDocumentResponse = webClient.UploadDocument("https://localhost/Docs1/test.txt", @"C:\test.txt", meta);

            if (uploadDocumentResponse.Document.IsCheckedOut)

                webClient.CheckInDocument(uploadDocumentResponse.Document, "uploaded via RPC");

            //move a document between servers

            MoveDocumentResponse moveDocumentResponse = webClient.MoveDocument("http://localhost/Docs2/test.txt", "https://remoteserver/Docs2/test.txt");

        }

    }

}