Spent a day with one of my partner to help them look into some SharePoint issues they face. They want to do quite a lot of customization on the CAML part do I manage to dig out some resources for them.

1. Dynamic Query on CAML

CAML inside SharePoint ASPX view pages are static, meaning they are based on fixed numbers of parameters. You can have it dynamic with some coding on the ASPX page. Robert Wheeler got a good post here.
http://www.sharepointblogs.com/wheeler/pages/dynamic-caml-query.aspx

2. Don’t like CAML? What about SharePoint dataview?

As a SharePoint developer, a lot of the time when users asked for a feature, the first thing we might do is fire off Visual Studio (after the requirement la). But little known to developers, SharePoint Designer offers a powerful tool not just for workflow authoring but also creating custom SharePoint view called data view. Ian from Intergen has a nice demo on this.
http://www.wssdemo.com/Pages/flash/SimpleDVWP.htm

3. Complex filter on SharePoint view

Back in the SharePoint 2003 days, there is a tutorial on DevX showing developers how to create a custom webpart which acts as dynamic parameter input and with the click on submit the view will be refreshed based on parameter entered in the webpart. It is not working for WSS 3.0 or MOSS 2007 but the idea is worth exploring, I will post again if there is any update on this.
http://www.devx.com/dotnet/Article/31762/1954?pf=true

4. SharePont goodies

Mention about Intergen and I remember the website they maintained which has all the goodies from tools and tutorial on SharePoint development.
http://www.wssdemo.com/Pages/technologyresources.aspx?View={4F7FE54C-0C1D-458C-84FD-6150B68AFCEB}&SelectedID=32

5. Bloat up your SharePoint site and stress test your SharePoint site

Found from the Intergen side is a useful little utility that automatically populates data in your SharePoint site. you can skip hours or writing scripts and mannually adding data to your site.

http://www.codeplex.com/sptdatapop

6. Managing your list

Another tool I found which do quite a few cool things

Column

• create LookUp-columns who looks in lists of other web on same server
• make a column readonly, hidden or undeleteable
• manage where the column are displayed (e.g.: new or edit mode)

List

• attach or remove EventHandler to Lists
• prevent a list for deletion
• make a list invisible

All

• edit all possible settings (Advanced – Mode)

http://www.codeplex.com/WSSListConfigurator

7. SharePoint integration tips from MS CRM folks

MS CRM is one of the most well integrated product with sharepoint and experted provides tips like creating custom fields which look up other data source or creating folders programmatically based on MS CRM (or any LOB) data.

8. Back to earth… err… back to CAML

People don’t call Karine Bosch the CAML girl for fun, she created tonnes of tools for CAML editing and 2 of the best are here:

CAML Query Builder v2.0 (Winform)
http://www.u2u.net/Res/Article.aspx?ART=camlquerybuilderv2

CAML Query Builder Feature (As a SharePoint feature and web based)
http://www.u2u.info/Blogs/karine/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=14

9 Like CAML yet? But lazy to learn?

There is a upcoming project which enables LINQ to work on SharePoint. Although the actual usage of LINQ for SharePoint is different CAML, it is worthy to try it out.

http://www.codeplex.com/LINQtoSharePoint