thinking-out-loud

Web Services with MOSS

My current project requires web services accessible from InfoPath forms that all together integrate with MOSS.  My former colleague, Steve Walker, has some advice on managing security issues with web services accessing data in MOSS. 

But my current problem is that my web service doesn't act the same when hosted under MOSS as it does in a stand-alone site on the same server.  In fact, it's broken.  Here's the situation:

• I created a web service with several web methods in .NET.  I test the execution of the methods from VS2005 using the browser.  All is well.
• I publish the web service to a site hosted in IIS.  I setup the site to use my MOSS application pool, to execute scripts, and to allow browsing.  Now I can browse the site and get the handy web service test page.  I click on an operation, enter the parms, and invoke it.  All is well.
• Now, if I connect an InfoPath form to that web service and publish it to a form library in MOSS, upon creation the form fails to connect to the web service because the web service is in a "different domain" (not really....but that's what it says).
• So, we avoid the "different domain" problem by publishing the web service under the MOSS application.  Do this by creating a Virtual Directory under the MOSS application's web site.  Like with a stand alone web service site, go to the properties on the vdir, create an application, and set the permissions to run scripts.  Publish the web service to this new location (only accessible to VS2005 by the file system, not via local IIS) and test it out.  Initially, all *seems* fine - but some of the operations don't work.  After entering parms and clicking "invoke", the operations result in a 500 server error. 
• Oddly, I have the service hosted in the stand-alone site and the vdir under MOSS at the same time and it behaves differently depending on the URL used to access it.  Stand alone it works, and managed by MOSS it fails....on some operations but not others.

I think the solution may have to do with the "Web Service Proxy" page found at the bottom of the Application Management page in Central Administration.  It would be nice if the help files mentioned it or if the search in the help files could find anything remotely similar to my search criteria.

Update: Here's a good page on the Web service proxy and managing data connection files.

Charles Petzold on WPF

Most people who were programming in Windows before the introduction of .NET know the name of Charles Petzold.  Back in the early 90's, we geeks would carry Programming Windows (Microsoft Press, 1998) around with us because it had everything you needed to know about the windows API.  Well, much thanks to Caleb Jenkins, this evening I was handed a copy of Charles Petzold's newest book Application = Code + Markup: A guide to the Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation.  Just thumbing through it, it looks like a tome of over 1000 pages with equally thorough coverage to the good ole' Petzold books we know and love.  I can't wait to get into it.  Thanks Caleb!