Getting Telerik RADEditor for MOSS installed - Part 1

Getting Telerik's RADEditor installed in our SharePoint was somewhat challenging. I found the installation instructions from Telerik, while attractive, a bit hard to follow. Anyway, here's what I did...

Install from EXE

I purchased and installed RadControls for ASPNET AJAX Q1 2008 from the exe file. Apparently there are other options as well.

On our development server there was not problem with this step. On our production server I got an error that read:

H2Reg.exe
** Error **
MS Help 2.x runtime files are not installed on this PC.
Installation/registration of help files cannot proceed.

I couldn't find any help on Telerik's support site. When I clicked through the error, the installer said "Successfully Installed." Who wants to argue with that?

Manually install DLLs

I assumed (more on that later) that AJAX for .NET was installed, so next is Deploying the RadTools where we're told to install Telerik.Web.UI.dll and Telerik.Charting.dll in the GAC.

All well and good, but a careful look at the Telerik folder reveals two sets of these dlls, one in /bin and one in /bin35. Which ones to install, then?

An email to Telerik Support eventually generated an answer which included two links to their installation instructions (gee, thanks.) and this intriguing tidbit: "use /Bin DLLs for VS 2005/.NET 2.0 and /Bin35 DLLs for VS 2008/.NET 3.5."

OK. Cool. We're using VS 2005 on the development machine. Has anyone install .NET 3.5, yet? Being new to .NET I wasn't sure how to tell but I only saw Control Panels for .NET 1.1 and .NET 2.0 so I'm in business. Or am I?

Apparently there are three different ways to deploy the dlls to the GAC

1. Use the .NET Framework 2.0 Configuration Control Panel per http://www.telerik.com/help/aspnet-ajax/installaddtoglobalassemblycache.html
2. Drag and drop the .dlls into C:\Windows\Assembly per http://www.telerik.com/help/aspnet-ajax/moss-deploying-radcontrols.html
3. Run gacutil from a VS cmd also per http://www.telerik.com/help/aspnet-ajax/moss-deploying-radcontrols.html

I chose option 1.

Tell SharePoint to relax

Per http://www.telerik.com/help/aspnet-ajax/moss-deploying-radcontrols.html, you have to open web.config (for every website !?) via IIS Manager and add <SafeControl> tags for the dlls. No problem.

Test

I found the instructions for testing the RadControls straightforward, but I did run into a couple errors.

My first load of the page after adding the RadControls was rewarded with...

An error occurred during the processing of /_catalogs/masterpage/LICORdefault.master. Could not load file or assembly 'Telerik.Web.UI, Version=2008.1.512.20, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=121fae78165ba3d4' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.

Well, the Telerik docs do say to pay attention to the version you are installing so after flailing a bit I found that viewing the folder at C:\Windows\Assembly told me that the dlls weren't version 2008.1.512.20 but were version 2008.1.515.20. So I had to go back and reedit the web.config and the master.page.

Then I got...

An error occurred during the processing of /_catalogs/masterpage/LICORdefault.master. Unknown server tag 'asp:ScriptManager'.

Remember I said I assumed ASP.AJAX was installed. Uh, wrong. How does one really tell if the ASP.AJAX extensions are really installed? Long story short, I found that it was but it wasn't configured for this SharePoint site. So this entailed massive edits to the web.config file as per http://asp.net/AJAX/Documentation/Live/ConfiguringASPNETAJAX.aspx (Again I ask, so one really has to do all this to every web.config for EVERY site!? There has to be a better way.)

So then I got...

The control type 'System.Web.UI.ScriptManager' is not allowed on this page. The type is not registered as safe.

Oops. I didn't tell SharePoint to relax. Back to web.config and add <SafeControl Assembly="System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" Namespace="System.Web.UI" TypeName="*" Safe="True" /> (Per the SharePoint Team Blog.)

¡Voilá!

Install RADEditor

No problem. The install instructions for the RADEditor solution worked like a charm.