Introducing Squadron - SharePoint 2010 Utility Plugins

In this article I would like to introduce Squadron - a SharePoint 2010 Utility Plugins application. The following is the screen shot of Squadron:

Squadron-in-SharePoint.jpg          

You can select the item from the left pane and execute. For getting help, click the Help button blinking corresponding to each item selected.

The following is the download location of Squadron:

http://squadron2010.codeplex.com/

Utility Plugins

The following are the utility plugins available in Squadron:

  1. User Profile plugin to generate User Profile information
  2. My Site plugin to generate My Site information
  3. Site Size plugin to generate Site Size information
  4. WF Terminator to locate and terminate unwanted workflows
  5. Stsadm command line environment

Please note that in the future more utility plugins will be added.

Note-Image.jpg

I kept the name as Squadron because I liked the meaning in Word Web as in "Squadron: A cavalry unit consisting of two or more troops and headquarters and supporting arms".

Squadron Architecture

The project named Squadron serves as the core application which dynamically loads plugins.

Squadron-Architecture-in-SharePoint.jpg

MainForm

The MainForm serves as the user interface and serves as the container for the plugins; see:

MainForm-in-SharePoint.jpg

On form load the plugin DLL files are searched and the corresponding plugin classes are loaded.

AddinManager

The AddinManager class uses Reflection to load the plugins from the application folder.

AddinManager-in-SharePoint.jpg

SquadronAddin

AbstractAddin represents the abstract class for all plugins.

Squadronaddin-in-SharePoint.jpg

References

 http://squadron2010.codeplex.com

Summary

In this article we have explored the tool (utility) named Squadron for SharePoint 2010. As time goes by I believe more and more utilities should appear in the tool plus a new release for SharePoint 2013 binaries.  Please stay tuned.