I just finished a project where an existing - and very expensive - CMS application (I won't name names but it's not MCMS) is being phased out in favor of using SharePoint lists as the primary method for managing content on a standard ASP/ASP.NET public web site. When you think about, this makes perfect sense - SharePoint provides a form-based web interface for handling content submissions, security is built into the platform, content approvals and basic workflow are easy to implement, and every list in a portal/site is accessible via web services (for more information on using SharePoint as part of a basic CMS application, email me directly).
While working on this project I discovered that working with the SharePoint web services is no picnic; not only do you have to know all their little quirks (like the viewName argument requiring a GUID instead of the display name of the view) but you also have to make allowances in your code for all the funky things SharePoint does behind the scenes with the list XML. For example, when you name a field 'Field1', the list details show the field as just that - Field1 - but when you try to retrieve the list data using the Lists web service, you must refer to the field as 'ows_Field1'. And then there's the ever-popular trick of replacing all spaces in field names with '_x0020_'. Naturally, there are no tools in SharePoint that allow you to retrieve this information, invaluable though it might be. It's enough to drive you mad.
To maintain my sanity and bring some order to web service programming, I created a small utility to retrieve the XML for any list via the SharePoint web services. The SharePoint List XML Viewer is a small Windows app that programmers can use to retrieve the XML output for any list or list items (including any default or custom views) to aid them in building web service applications. You can download it here. Just unzip the file and run the executable. Give it the site/area url, list name, and view name, supply the necessary login credentials, pick which type of XML you want (list data or list items) and - voila - instant XML that can be cut-and-pasted into your favorite text editor.
The SharePoint List XML Viewer Utility isn't anything fancy - it's just a basic utility for developers - but it saved me countless hours programming against SharePoint's web services and I hope it helps you, too. Enjoy!
(Post comments to this post if you have any issues installing and using the tool)
BTW, I recommend using the application along with the CAML Query Builder and Execution Tool from the good folks at U2U. Sooner or later you'll need to execute a query in a web service call and the CAML Builder is the best thing going.
