SharePoint CAML Designer Tools

CAML (Collaborative Application Markup Language) is an XML-based query language that helps you querying lists and libraries in SharePoint.

<Query>
   <Where>
      <Or>
         <Eq>
            <FieldRef Name="ContentType" />
            <Value Type="Text">My Content Type</Value>
         </Eq>
         <IsNotNull>
            <FieldRef Name="Description" />
         </IsNotNull>
      </Or>
   </Where>
   <GroupBy Collapse="TRUE">
      <FieldRef Ascending="FALSE" Name="Title" />
   </GroupBy>
   <OrderBy>
      <FieldRef Name="_Author" />
      <FieldRef Name="AuthoringDate" />
      <FieldRef Ascending="TRUE" Name="AssignedTo" />
   </OrderBy>
</Query>

In this hint, I introduce a list of CAML tools that will help you to build and test your CAML Queries easily.

• CAML Designer for SharePoint 2010
• CAML Designer for SharePoint 2013
• U2U CAML Builder Tool for SharePoint 2010 / 2013 
• SharePoint CAML Query Helper for 2007, 2010, 2013, Office 365 SharePoint Online

To connect to SharePoint Site by:

• Using the server-side object model when the CAML Designer is installed on the machine running SharePoint 2013.
• Using the .NET client-side object model when the CAML Designer is installed remotely, and that require to install a .Net 4.5 Framework.
• Using the plain old web services of SharePoint.

Enjoy 🙂

See also a CAML Designer 2013 user manual

[Update]: Because of CAML Designer 2010 is no longer available over the internet. therefore, you could use CAML Designer 2013 that is compatible with SharePoint 2010 based on Andy Van Steenbergen recommendation, who is one of the CAML Designer creators,

Thanks, Andy Van Steenbergen.