SharePoint : Limitations

Scenario:
After working on SharePoint for some time now. I thought of documenting few of the limitations I came to know.

Design:
1. Error : Most of the error messages are mis-leading. I agree this has improved in SP2010 as we have correlation token's to trace the error much faster.

2. Packaging : WSP are great but when it comes to deploying something in Inetpub folder, its limited.

File System:
1. Project Structure : SharePoint 12/14 hive feature folder doesn't support sub-folders. So developers need to add some prefix to identify all the features from one project in 2007. Same is done automatically by VS2010 in case of SP2010 projects.

2.Field Control and User Control based templates : Even though it is possible to have a sub-folder in CONTROLTEMPLATE to logically group multiple user controls which are custom developed under a sub-folder. This is not possible for the User Controls which are used by Field Controls. SharePoint will not be able to read these Field Control / Editor templates. Applicable to both in SP2007/2010.

3. XML files merging : While SharePoint does a great job of merging various site definition XML file ( any file with prefix onet** ) , this is not possible with other XML files like AlertTemplates.xml / DocIcon.xml.

UI Related limitation:
1. Views : View are great but again with a limitations. You can create many many views but the View Drop will be able to list out only 50 :)

2. Pages Library : Doesn't support sub-folders in SP2007. In SP2010 it does, surely a relief.

3. List in general : Doesn't support sub-folders in SP2007 and SP2010. Document libraries does.

4. Incoming Email : Great feature, you send an email with an attachment and if you have setting to retain the original email also for the document library. You will see 2 new documents created. Once some few emails with attachment arrives in the document library there is not way to identify which attachment belongs to which email. LOL :)

5. Calendar List : Recurring events are great but try editing one single instance of it and that it. Weird things will start happening. Manage permission menu is gone from UI altogether for this item. Actually its a bug.

Coding :
1. SPQuery class : There is no easy way to figure out the exact number of records returned by a particular query. In case you need to display that 1-10 of x results type display, no luck.


There is not the exhaustive list , but I will keep updating as I see more.