Pearls of MOSSy Wisdom

The Variations Editor - (still) a Free Application to Scan, Diagnose, and Edit troubled SharePoint Variations sites.

Today, I have made the latest and greatest version of the SharePoint Variations Editor available for download from my downloads page.  Look for the SharePointVariationsEditor_2.zip file

UPDATE: (8-7-9) POTENTIAL BUG!!! I have seen a comment on the CodePlex site for the Variations Editor noting that there may be trouble in using the app in SP2.  I have not yet tested this, but be warned that if you have SP2'd your MOSS install, that (according to the comment in CodePlex) the app may cause problems when applying the suggested fix for the Page Layout.  Be warned that this may be a problem.  I'll post another update as soon as I can get my sandbox up to SP2 in order to test the app.

UPDATE: (12-17-8) I've added the Variations Editor to CodePlex.  The project site is here.

So you may ask yourself why I would write a second version of a program that a) isn't but a few months old and b) only has about a dozen people using it.  This is a good question.  To be honest, I almost didn't write this version.  The first version works and was modified to fit the requests of the users who needed additional functionality showing its flexibility.  Usually (for software that makes me no money) this would mark the end of the line for the code.  But two things pushed me to release this version:

First, it needed some tweaking in the code.  The original version grew very organically as I was learning about Variations and what I needed to do to fix them.  Thus, many of the features were added on the fly.  This doesn't always make for the cleanest of code.  This needed to be fixed.  But this is not a good reason to re-write the application and release a v2.0.  so...

Second, new functionality was added that made this a much more robust application.  It are these new features that justified creating a new version. 

So what can you do now that you couldn't do in the first version?  In a word: migrate content (well, that's two words.  My bad.)

Migrating Content Between Sites

One of the major limitations in SharePoint's Variations system is that content only moves from the root label to the other labels.  This is fine if all your content naturally flows this way.  But what happens if your root label is in US English and every other English label in your site uses UK English?  Or what happens if you have a Spanish site for Mexico and now need one for Spain?  In Variations, to create these sites you need to spin off a new label based on the source label (in my case US English) and then translate the content to the new language.  There was no way to reuse the existing translation.  And for those of you who've had to "re-translate" US English to UK English, this isn't fun (neither is translating any language from English, but I digress).  It's espicially painful when you have the content in another site and can't just make a site based of that orignal site. 

Well now you can - kinda. 

Added to the Variations Editor is the ability to Import and Export site and page content.  Using Jamie McAllister's method (link) of using the Translatable Columns, you now have the ability to select the Publishing Page fields you want exported.  With this you can either export your data to an XML file and later push that content to another site (or the original site if you want to make a backup).  Or, if you don't want to use the XML file, you can push content directly to another site or page.  Now, to make another UK English site, you just spin up a site as normal (based on the source node) and then push the content from one UK English site to the new site.  Done.  Your new site now has the proper content without having to translate the site. 

But you're not limited to full sites.  You can import or export from any point in the site tree (even down to a single page).  Now you can control your content more than ever.

This is why version 2.0 was created.  Not only is it cleaner code, but it also gives you much more power over your content.

I would like to thank Jamie McAllister.  Without his blog posts on mirgating content, this version wouldn't exist.  Thanks again, Jamie.  For those of you who haven't yet visited his blog, do it now. 

As always, the standard warrantly applies.  Use this at your own risk.  And espicially with this version, BE CAREFUL!!! Variations are fragile.  Using this product without at least some idea of what it is you want to do can be dangerous.  So there.  You've been warned.  Don't sue me.

But I hope that this version of the Editor is met with as good a reception as the last version.  As before, if you have comments or suggestions or bugs, please contact me and I'll do my best to get the app patched ASAP.

thanks

Tim