Working with custom permission levels in SharePoint

Creating custom permission levels in SharePoint is not hard. You can do it through the GUI, by navigating to the_layouts/addrole.aspx page on any site.
But you might want to do it through code instead, deploying the new permission level with a feature and assigning it to groups and users. This also includes more options for defining the permission level than the GUI does. Below I show how to define your own permission levels.

Should you want to see what permissions are used for the standard permission levels, then this link is a good place to look.

How to add images to picture library with thumbnails using CAML

Adding images to a SharePoint picture library is done basically like adding any other type of file to a library in SharePoint: You create a module, point it towards the library, and includes the files. Well, there is a catch...

How to create lookup fields in CAML that works

For my first post on this blog I will demonstrate how to avoid the most common problem with deploying SharePoint lookup fields.

Basically, a lookup field is defined using CAML just like any other SharePoint field. However, there is a problem: You need to add a reference to the lookup list. There are several ways to achieve this. Below, I have outlined three standard ways to do this, and a fourth way, my preferred, that handles the problems inherent in each of the other three solutions.