The file manifest.xml does not exist in the solution package

When creating a deployment script I ran into the following error during the installation of the package:

“The file manifest.xml does not exist in the solution package”
This was after I added about 200 images to the solution.

After a while I found out that the problem occurred only after the solution package reached the size of 1440 KB. It turns out that this is a backwards compatibility ‘feature’ for the good old floppy’s.

After adding a couple of settings in my .ddf file everything works exactly the way it should be.

Apply the following settings to your .ddf file

.Set CabinetFileCountThreshold=0
.Set FolderFileCountThreshold=0
.Set FolderSizeThreshold=0
.Set MaxCabinetSize=0
.Set MaxDiskFileCount=0
.Set MaxDiskSize=0

Create the .wsp again using makecab and there you go!

Thanks to

Mark Beij http://blog.martmuller.nl/DisableSizeLimitsForWspCabFiles.aspx

Changing the Background Color for ActiveX Controls in SharePoint 2007

You may run into problems if you have a dark CSS background color for your site which is defined on the body element. The ActiveX control will show this dark color as its background color even if it is a child of another element with a light background color. This makes it difficult , if not impossible, to read and work with the content in the control.

On tinyfly.com I've found the solution for this:

body {
/* Background color for ActiveX items like "Edit in Datasheet */
background-color: white;
}

form#aspnetForm {
/* real background color for the site as a whole */
background-color: #002842;

/* to be sure it fills the whole page vertically */
height: 100%;
}