Codeplex SharePoint Highlights
Codeplex is Microsoft's open source project hosting website. There are currently over 100 projects for SharePoint this site. I am going to highlight some of the projects that I have found particularly useful as well as some that have been useful for our customers and other developers here at speakTECH.
WSPBuilder - http://www.codeplex.com/wspbuilder
This tool builds SharePoint soution packages (WSPs) for you based on a folder structure. Basically the tool will create a folder structure similar to the sharepoint 12 hive and will create a WSP based on the files you drop in there.
SharePoint Governance and Manageability Tools - http://www.codeplex.com/governance
This is a collection of tools from MS IT that provides some of the tools that Microsoft uses to manage their internal SharePoint deployment. It includes tools for 2003 and 2007 including:
WSS 3.0/MOSS 2007--
Microsoft IT Site Delete Capture 1.0 - Simply captures sites that are deleted by end users and backs them up to disk using the event model. You have a recycle bin, but this is basically a site recycle bin (available only to administrators). (Works with WSS 3.0 and Office SharePoint Server 2007)
MS IT Site Life Cycle Management 1.0 - Notify, Backup then Delete Unused Unneeded sites (Works with WSS 3.0 and Office SharePoint Server 2007)
MS IT Usage Reporting Framework 2.0 - Simple reporting framework to gather usage and storage metrics on WSS 3.0, MOSS 2007 and works with multiple farms. Note the caveats with SQL read queries listed on the framework homepage (direct select statements against the database).
MS IT Toolbox - The SharePoint Toolbox is a set of MS IT tools starting with the copy timer for analyzing latency and it's impact on SharePoint uploads and downloads. Be sure to check this workspace for other tools.
SPS 2003/WSS 2.0--
MS IT Recycle bin 1.2 for WSS 2.0 and SPS 2003 - Capture files deleted in WSS 2.0 and SPS 2003 in an administrative recycle bin. This tool was first released on GotDotNet and published here for convience. There won't be any new updates to this tool.
MS IT Spreport for WSS 2.0 and SPS 2003 - This SharePoint Reporting tool does a read only object model scan for usage information, measures and metrics. This tool was first released on GotDotNet and re-published here for your convenience. Would love to see someone build this tool for WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007.
MS IT People Picker (requires SPS 2003)This people picker is designed to provide an easy to use picker based on entries in the profile database. It requires that SPS 2003 be installed, but it provides people picking capabilities to WSS 2.0 sites underneath the portal. Originally posted on GotDotNet.
MS IT Database Split tool (WSSSplit.exe) This tool automates splitting large Windows Sharepoint Services Databases into several smaller Databases. Based on an input, the process locks, backups, deletes and restores a SiteCollection. Originally published on GotDotNet.
Search Web Parts -
There are a couple of nice Web Part projects to enhance the search results pages in MOSS. The first is for a faceted search, http://www.codeplex.com/FacetedSearch/ , that provides a dynamic grouping of facets from search result metadata. The second is the frequently searched keywords webpart, http://www.codeplex.com/smartsearch/ that basically displays commonly searched keywords from all users.
Forms-based Authentication Tools - http://www.codeplex.com/fba
This project from Stacy Draper includes basic features for managing user accounts in a SharePoint deployment utilizing forms-ased authentication. It basically allows you to manage users and roles.
STSDEV - http://www.codeplex.com/stsdev
This tool from Ted Pattison creates the boiler-plate code and file/folder structure for several types of SharePoint projects as visual studio solutions. Including the Empty Solution, Simple Feature Solution, Feature with Application Page, Web Part Solution, Web Part Solution with CAS Permissions, and Web Service Solutions.