Hey guys,
It’s been a looong while since I’ve written about the tool I developed with Karine Bosch (@kboske) — with Peter doing great work on the Office 365 part — called CAML Designer.
Since the vNext version we launched at SharePoint Saturday 2012, the responses have been awesome 😊 — but some bugs came up too. Thanks to everyone who sent feedback to camlfeedback@biwug.be, we were able to track and fix them.
The summer update is mostly about error handling. Here’s everything we fixed, added, updated, and re-engineered.
Connection Screen
The messagebox was redesigned so we can send warnings and information to the user more clearly. The old alerts in the bottom-right weren’t sufficient.
URL validation: If you enter an invalid URL, a pre-check now catches it immediately.
Credential check: If the URL is correct but credentials are wrong, a messagebox pops up and the connection screen re-opens.
Duplicate tiles fix: We logged URLs and credentials in a history file to avoid re-entering data, but it was possible to add the same entry twice and end up with duplicate tiles. Now a check is done before adding — if the node already exists, it won’t be added again.
No restart needed: The tile system is revised so you no longer need to restart the application to refresh data.
Main Screen
There’s a new icon in the middle-right area of the screen — a manual update checker. Normally ClickOnce deployments notify you of updates automatically, but we also noticed people downloading the offline package. The icon lets you manually check whether an update is available.
The offline package has also changed: it now includes the .application file and the “Application Files” directory, so you can properly install CAML Designer instead of just running the exe.
Field Sequence Fix
You could select fields but couldn’t change their sequence after selection. Or you could change the sequence but the change wasn’t reflected in the generated CAML.
This is now fixed. If you select ID, Created By, and Modified By, and then reorder them — the generated CAML reflects the new order. This works for View and Order By fields. For Where fields it’s trickier, but it’s in the backlog.
PowerShell Generator
Upon popular request — yes, Max 😊 — we’ve added a PowerShell generator. CAML Designer can now generate the PowerShell equivalent of your query alongside the CAML output.
Bug Reporting
Extra logging has been added in the backend. If the application crashes, send the logfile.txt (located in the same directory as the .exe) to camlfeedback@biwug.be along with your report. It helps a lot.
Roadmap
Still on the to-do list:
- Joins
- Related lists
DateRangesOverlap- CAML queries for Document Sets
We’ll continue expanding the tool. It’s being downloaded a lot, so keep the feedback coming — together we can make it great! 😊