Graphicalwonder - Shane Perran's SharePoint Customization Blog
April 09, 2006
SharePoint: Dev Connections Presentations
If you were like me and were unable to get down to Orlando for the recent Dev Connections conference, you are not completely left out. People are starting to put together their demo's and slide-decks for us to go through. It's not quite as good as seeing it in person but it's a great consolation prize.
Patrick Tisseghem posts his InfoPath + SharePoint Demos and Slide Decks
Mauro Cardarelli has also posted his Disaster Recovery best practices presentation.
April 07, 2006
The Beauty of Office + SharePoint 2007
Amanda Murphy has officially consolidated and launched her "The Beauty of Office + SharePoint 2007" series. This will be an ever-evolving 1 pager which consolidates her tips, tricks, screenshots and blog posts on Office 2007 with special focus on SharePoint 2007.
It's already been updated with a several posts + screenshots:
Check out "The Beauty of Office + SharePoint 2007"
Have an idea for her series? Drop her a line by clicking the email icon you will notice on the right of her page.
April 05, 2006
EPM+Collaboration Photo Tour
As mentioned before I really feel that "photo blogging" offers a tonne to the readers experience, especially when you are describing things like being on the road for presentations.
A couple of weeks back we were on the road with Microsoft delivering EPM + SharePoint Deep Dives during an Information Worker Tour. It was a lot of fun and I snapped a bunch of photos at the events as well as around town which I will post a few of now.
The tour spread across 4 days, 2 in Halifax and 2 in Ottawa. Being from NL we unfortunately used to "very" early morning flights. We woke up at 4:30am to prepare and get to the airport so forgive me for not having the pre-boarding photos for this one.
We started to gather and prepare mateirals for our presentation a couple of weeks before the tour. As the date approached there was a lot of tweaking presentations, removing un-wanted slides and excess content and of course rehearsing the presentations as a team and locked away along with our note sheets.
Once we landed in Halifax we were whisked off to the Westin Hotel where we were presenting (and staying). There was a double booked conference the same day so we had some extra time to prepare. Here you can see Lloyd, a coleague preparing.
Not to be outdone, Steve digs in and begins preparing as well. On the table you will see a true Canadian tradition, Tim Hortons coffee. There is a funny story behind this actual coffee. I woke up at 5am and rather than wake anyone decided to stroll around downtown in search of coffee. Fast forward 1/2 an hour I am on my way back to the hotel with now cold coffee for everyone. By the time I got back I realised it was still only 6am and people were probably not yet awake. Fast forward another 2+ hours it's 8:30am and we are in the hotel lobby - I pass Steve this now 'very old' coffee which he happily drinks. What a trooper.
Hmm, and you thought Amanda Murphy was so professional? Little did you know she hides behind the curtains prior to her presentations.
Amanda and Lloyd going over some last minute details. Sorry for the dark photo.
Steve is ready to roll but I think Lloyd is trying to smuggle snacks under the table! Ok he was really hiding some of our luggage away.
The presentations in Halifax were a lot of fun we met some great new people but just a few short hours later we were in the sky again on-route to Ottawa.
We landed in Ottawa and were greeted by our sales guy Victor who took us on a quick tour of the city at night which was great. A few short hours later and we were again in the Westin Hotel, this time in downtown Ottawa.
This photo is very fitting, it's the only one I took during the Ottawa presentations and sums it up perfectly in a "blur". This is actually Amanda making her way to her EPM presentation which was a huge hit.
Day 1 in Ottawa was great - after our presentations we went to supper at the Baton Rouge restaraunt. What a great place - I highly recommend it - AWESOME service.
Day 2 in Ottawa was also a lot of fun - after our presentations we had a major BBQ (it was 15 celcius in Ottawa). It was great but we were all pretty beat and went to sleep early.
Steve and Lloyd returned to St. John's the next day but it was Friday and Amanda and I decided to stay for the weekend and take in the city for a few days.
So off we went to discover Canada's Capital. First up was the Museum of Civilization where we seen lots of cool things like:
Canadians and their crazy politicians eh?
A view of Parliment Hill from a window in the Museum of Civilization
Then we were off to 24 Sussex to say hello to the Prime Minister (Steven Harper)
Turns out though he wasn't home - Funny story: During this same time Amandas little brother Aaron was due to return home from military training in Virginia but his flight was changed because Steven Harper needed his plane. No wonder the guards wouldn't let us in to complain!
Another view of the Parliment Building as we drove by
They were filming some movie downtown when we walked by, hey do we get "extras" pay?
Then the strangest thing I seen in Ottawa. You thought what we do to seals is bad? (ok bad joke)
While roaming around downtown by the "Market" we found this great old church "The Notre Dame Basilica" - we decided to go inside to take a look and all I can say is WOW. I have never seen so much attention to detail in anything, ever.
No really, WOW
Ok so I had to save this one for last. This story "actually is funny". For those that have been to Ottawa you are probably aware of the massive bilingual (French+English) population. That's because it's bordering Quebec - not to mention a couple of hours outside Montreal.
The funny thing is you can be in Ottawa one minute and basically without knowing in Quebec the next.
As we were driving down the road Amanda asked "Why are the signs here in French "First"?. I laughed and of course sarcastically said, "Probably because we're in Quebec?.
We drove by this big sign a few seconds later and I had to take a snap to remind her.
Site Templates Localization
I found this tool via Luis
Overview:
KWizCom , Knowledge Worker Components, has released a great tool for convert Microsoft Collaboration Tool Site or Site Templates to other Languages (LCID).
You can download the tool (STP Language Convertor) from the Kwiz Website.
SharePoint 2003 Advanced Concepts
Steve just dropped the SharePoint 2003 Advanced Concepts - Site Definitions, Custom Templates and Global Customizations book by Jason Nadrowski and Stacy Draper on my desk. I will read it in the coming days and post a review for those waiting to purchase it.
April 04, 2006
Advanced SharePoint Customization: Adding your company logo with a twist
A few months ago while creating the Free Theme Pack I made numerous posts on theme and css customization which spawned several other discussions and comments. One noteable was how to add your company logo to the page using CSS, quite a few of us tried different things and in the end we were left with manipulating .ms-banner and .ms-bannerframe in order to get the job done.
Today while working on a new project I found myself again implementing the company logo with the theme, however this time I needed more. I needed the menu bar separate.
With the current version there is no way to separate the "logo background from the top navigation background"
However with a little thought and some slightly more advanced CSS I was able to accomplish exactly what I needed. The screenshot below shows the separation between the logo and nav bar."
To accomplish this I used the same method of manipulating the .ms-banner and .ms-bannerframe but with a few extras.
This time I added a border to .ms-banner which would ultimately act as the navigation bar. Then I added position:relative to the .ms-banner a:link states so that I could then move them down onto the border using the "top" property.
This lets me have a background color for the menu (technically it's the border) and still keep a clear separation of the background behind the logo which is actually .ms-bannerframe.
Download the company logo via themes walkthrough in PDF
Hope it helps - happy customizing!
A view from the road (Information Worker Deep Dives)
I usually have the best of intentions when it comes to blogging while on the road but unfortunately it usually seems to take the back seat.
When I attended TechED last year in Orlando I wanted to post the day-by-day events complete with photos but I just didn't get around to it. The same can be said for our recent Information Worker Deep Dive tour in Halifax and Ottawa. I did however take a lot of photos, I'm a photo-junkie!
While reading my dailys lately I noticed Bil Simser has been posting some photos from sunny Orlando and Dev Connections.
I really think that these little 'photo experiences' people offer add a lot to a blog. I know I personally love taking a look through a few photos that people snap while travelling the world to deliver or take in presentations so I have decided better late then never.
I am going to follow this up with a quick summary of events complete with photos of both the TechED Orlando event last year as well as the Deep Dive tour.
Hopefully future events will be posted a little faster but in the meantime I am dedicated to making sure I share the experience with as many as possible, even if it is only through a few emails, blog posts and photos.
SharePoint Customization: Fixing the Fundamentals
With the hundreds of classes used in SharePoint Portal Server and Windows SharePoint Services, there is no wonder there are some oddities when customizing.
One such glitch you may have run into when customizing the style-sheet is the side navigation bar links, more specifically the fact that they don't always change even though you modified the link states for .ms-navheader.
The reason this is an issue is because the side navigation is contained within another wrapper which has the class .ms-nav applied to it (.ms-nav I believe is used for the links created when you create lists, libraries etc and they show up in the side nav). This .ms-nav class also happens to come "after" .ms-navheader in the style-sheet which means it over-rides it and is applied last. As you may have guessed the .ms-nav class also happens to have link states applied to it.
Luckily it really isn't hard to fix, it's a simple matter of moving the .ms-nav class "above" the .ms-navheader class in your style-sheet.
A more visual representation of the problem and how you can fix it.http://www.graphicalwonder.com/themeproblem.gif
SharePoint Tips and Tricks
Another to add to your blogroll.
I just noticed this SharePoint tips and tricks blog, always room for more tips and tricks!
April 03, 2006
Ghosting and reGhosting
Most of us by now are aware of the basics of Ghosting and Site Definitions
- We know ghosting refers to the process whereby a database reference to a single set of files (the site definition) is made when creating a site in SharePoint as opposed to a physical duplicate.
- We have learned that ghosting helps boost performance and reduce file storage needs.
- We have learned that the true benefit of site definitions and ghosting is seen when updating a large number of sites via a single set of files.
- We have learned that a page becomes "Unghosted" when we open and save it in FrontPage 2003.
- We have learned from Fitz that SharePoint 2007 has big plans to help relieve the pain of unghosted pages.
The reality is that many of us have unghosted pages now and unfortunately not everyone will be able to have SharePoint 2007 right away. In the absence of that there are some really great solutions out there which deal with unghosted pages.
I made a post a couple of months back about the new version of reGhost.NET by Matthew Cosier
I finally had a chance today to install and try out the latest reGhost.NET application. I have to say from a user-experience perspective I was very happy with everything from start to finish.
The application is just as fast an easy to install as it is to use. On top of that (to the best of my limited testing/knowledge) it really seems to work. If you have not yet had the pleasure of trying this application I would highly recommend it.
In just a couple of minutes and 3 or 4 steps you are on your way to re-ghosting those unghosted pages!
Screenshot 1
Screenshot 2
Screenshot 3
Overview from the got dot net workspace:
This has been tested with WSS SP2 + SPS SP2, please let me know if you have any other problems using other configurations.
This version will also tell you exactly which site the particular page came from before reghosting it, making a great choice for those large commercial sharepoint databases with hundreds, thousands, millions of ghosted pages (we hope not that many).
Download the instructions and reGhost.NETapplication
April 01, 2006
SharePoint Designer 2007 Features
It should come as no suprise to anyone that I was never against using FrontPage 2003 as long as it was used properly, for example - data views were/are one of the best custmoization options available for content.
The problem with FrontPage was it had been misused alot and it really made itself a nasty little reputation, a reputation so bad that Microsoft decided to rework the application and then rebrand it to breathe new life into it.
The result is "SharePoint Designer 2007". Mike Fitz said awhile back "It's time to show some FrontPage love" and now I know why, they have really put a lot of great effort into this application to make it a viable SharePoint customization tool.
Now that it seems people are allowed to post screenshots I wanted to post a few screenshots of the great new features that I think the designer types will really love. To view the screenshot just click a link below. Big thanks to Amanda for helping me get these screenshots together!
10 Screenshots of the great new features in SharePoint Designer 2007
(X)HTML and CSS Color Coding & Intellisense - The code is now much easier to look at.
The Common Tasks Menu - Now when you add a data-view web part for example you have an untuative and useful common tasks panel presented to you. The same as in Visual Studio 2005
A great new Toolbox filled with things like ASP.NET controls
Much nicer CSS control and editing. It is a lot of the dreamweaver way of dealing with CSS.
The slow movement toward a mindset for more semantic markup and CSS versus tables for layout is becoming evident with the inclusion of CSS Layout Templates.
For those that followed my site template tutorials or those that have done much importing of FWP files there are now more features in the Import Menu.
To elaborate a little more on how much better they've made this tool for CSS customization, this new "Jump to Code" feature is great. Select a class name and go straight to the page and part of the code for editing.
Of course what would a "new wave" editor be without Master Pages support.
New - "New" Menu where you can now select to create SharePoint Content
In case my other examples didn't convince you, check out this super cool and useful CSS editing feature which allows you to display only styles used in the current page.
http://www.graphicalwonder.com/images/stylemanagement.jpg
March 31, 2006
Scoble showing some SharePoint love?
Thanks to Jan Tielens for pointing me to this:
This screenshot was grabbed from Scoble's screen and smuggled out to us last night. It's worth a look to see the kinds of metrics that he is tracking. Lots of gauges, scales, graphs and such. Perhaps too much? It also seems like he can use the dashboard to actually post to his blog and then monitor the buzz it creates. I'm told by a dashboard coding expert that the technology behind this enterprise dashboard is Microsoft Sharepoint Portal. There is heavy customization of the webparts. As you know, there has been some controversy about Robert Scoble and his posts lately. I think that he's done some great work and wish him the best.
I have no idea if this is real - looks neat :)
CSS + Master Pages + Printing
The project I am currently working on has tossed me into the deep-end of Visual Studio 2005 and Master Pages.
Part of this journey is comprehending the "Theme" approach to CSS in the App_Themes Directory versus my much accustomed to way of embedding my stylesheets.
For example when I want to include a print stylesheet I normall embed this in the page:
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="print" href="print.css" />
While creating my print stylesheet I realised there is no way for me to add the media=print to the web.config theme reference which looks like this:
<pages styleSheetTheme="Default" />
After a little quick digging with a team-member we quickly discovered (new to both of us) a standard for print which we had no idea existed. The ability to embed your print stylesheet at the END of your main stylesheet using @ media print { }
So bascially you simply copy/paste everything from your print CSS file and place it at the end of your main CSS file inside of:
@ media print { /* Insert your print stylsheet here */ }
It's true what they say, you learn something new every day. This seemed worth sharing as I had no idea you could do it until now and I consider myself fairly well versed when it comes to CSS.
XHTML Validating Module for ASP.NET 2.0
Thanks to Scott Hanselman for pointing to this beauty:
Go directly to the download website and get the XHTML validator module for ASP.NET 2.0
Overview:
Josh Twist over at JoyOfCode has a "Validator Module" that sits at the very end of the HttpRequest and validates the page you just rendered as XHTML or not, then displays the detailed results. If you've ever found it a hassle to run XHTML validation on your site at runtime you should take a look at this clever idea. With tools like this ValidatorModule plus validation within Visual Studio.NET always improving as well as tools inside of FireFox to validate, there's fewer and fewer excuses to not render XHTML.
Try the asp.net2.0 XHTML validator out on Josh's site, pound on his demo, and leave him some feedback. You can add it to your .NET 2.0 applications without recompiling. He's also expressed that he could backport it to .NET 1.1 if there's demand.
More great java'scripting.
Every day now there are great new scripts popping up that really really add to the visual presentation of websites. keep in mind a lot of these scripts can be used in SharePoint just as easily in many ways such as the Content Editor Web Part, Site Definitions as well as Page Templates.
One such script I stumbled across today is just too good not to share! Lightbox JS
Lightbox JS is a simple, unobtrusive script used to overlay images on the current page. It's a snap to setup and works on all modern browsers.
How to Use:
Part 1 - Setup
1. Lightbox v2.0 uses the Prototype Framework and Scriptaculous Effects Library. You will need to include these three Javascript files in your header.
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/prototype.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/scriptaculous.js?load=effects"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/lightbox.js"></script>
2. Include the Lightbox CSS file (or append your active stylesheet with the Lightbox styles).
<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/lightbox.css" type="text/css" media="screen" />
3. Check the CSS and make sure the referenced prev.gif and next.gif files are in the right location. Also, make sure the loading.gif and close.gif files as referenced near the top of the lightbox.js file are in the right location.
Part 2 - Activate
1. Add a rel="lightbox" attribute to any link tag to activate the lightbox. For example:
<a href="images/image-1.jpg" rel="lightbox" title="my caption">image #1</a>
Optional: Use the title attribute if you want to show a caption.
2. If you have a set of related images that you would like to group, follow step one but additionally include a group name between square brackets in the rel attribute. For example:
<a href="images/image-1.jpg" rel="lightbox[roadtrip]">image #1</a>
<a href="images/image-2.jpg" rel="lightbox[roadtrip]">image #2</a>
<a href="images/image-3.jpg" rel="lightbox[roadtrip]">image #3</a>
Visit the Lightbox JS site to download
March 29, 2006
SharePoint Tools
Joris has posted an enourmous list of SharePoint Tools, Get yourself over to the JOPX blog and take a look. I skimmed it quickly and did not see our Team Tools products.
Great job on the list!
March 28, 2006
Keeping your CSS slim and trim
CSS Tweak - Keep that CSS file size down:
Try CSS Tweak to keep your stylesheets lean and mean!
A simple test on SharePoint stylesheets:
A Theme (theme.css)
Before: 53k
After 28k
The WSS Default (ows.css)
Before 39k
After 24k
The SPS Default (sps.css)
Before 26k
After 18k
March 24, 2006
SharePoint 2007 and Internet Explorer 7
Obviously anticipating the PNG Alpha Transparency support in Internet Explorer 7 it seems the SharePoint team has already been busy implementing some PNG's.
A sign of good things to come!
Eric Meyer and others on Internet Explorer 7
With Internet Explorer 7 now "Rendering Behaviour" complete the information is coming in fast and furious. Eric Meyer has a great IE7 post with his thoughts.
The IE Blog of course has plenty of information as well as a CSS Zen Garden inspired layout showing off things like fixed positioning, PNG Alpha Channels and Arbitrary Element:hover as well as others. See more about Internet Explorer and it's CSS rendering on the IE Blog.
Dave Shea over at Mezzoblue has some details about IE 7 as well.
A couple of great quotes from the posts that should bring a smile to your face:
In the Explorer Exposed section on Position is Everything, there’s a big list of bugs exclusive to IE running down the left hand side of the page. With one exception, consider that entire list fixed. The exception is the escaping floats bug, which apparently will take a major code re-architecturing that they simply couldn’t do in IE7; it’ll come in a later release. - Dave Shea
No, I don’t think IE will wipe everyone else off the map, but I do think the browser space is getting a lot more interesting. What makes it particularly interesting is that the competition is not going to be over who can add the coolest non-standard geegaws, but who can deliver the best product based on the same standards as everyone else. - Eric Meyer
Talking at Microsoft’s current Mix 06 conference conversation Bill Gates mentioned that IE could see a refresh every 9 to 12 months. Don't forget that the reason MSN Messenger is so widely adopted is due to the update-attention it gets every few months. This is great news!
I'm looking forward to hearing comments from people like Jeffrey Zeldman, Molly Holzshlag and Jakob Nielson.
March 22, 2006
SharePoint Customization: SIte Definitions and more ...
It seems the last day or two have been huge for SharePoint Customization;
Things I noticed today:
I noticed that Patrick Tisseghem has a site definitions article released on MSDN - good job Patrick.
There is also a new book covering site definitions and other template and customization topics.
Internet Explorer 7 (Beta 2 Preview) has been released and is now "render behaviour" complete. The IE Team has even announced the Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar has a refresh to fix some issues with IE 7.
On top of all this the Office 2007 NDA has been lifted and we can now talk about SharePoint Designer 2007 a little more.
SharePoint Designer 2007
Most of us by now realize that the FrontPage reputation was quite tarnished. Sometimes for good reason while others it was just a "follow suit" type situation.
FrontPage 2003 allowed you to do some fantastic things with SharePoint. I guess that's part of the reason that Microsoft went as far as to completely rebrand it to the now "SharePoint Designer 2007". Expression will pick up the slack for (X)HTML/CSS design. In my opinion this move is simply brilliant.
On that note: Goodbye FrontPage, Hello SharePoint Designer 2007
I have been using SharePoint Designer 2007 for a few months now and I have noticed some really great improvements for SharePoint design/development.
I am not certain on what I am allowed to post screenshot wise so I will refrain until I am certain that I am allowed to post screens of the UI and instead touch on a couple of great improvements I have noticed:
1) My personal favorites from the CSS department: Much better CSS management. Better CSS Editing. CSS Templates available from the "new" menu. Much nicer CSS management, classes are exposed in a list - you can break apart (grouped) selectors, jump-to the stylesheet and line to edit the code by right clicking on a selector as well as many other great additions.
2) Color Coding, Intellisense and Margin Managment!
3) Great ASP.NET Controls built in for menus, web parts etc.
4) Common Tasks - If you add a data-view for example you are presented with a panel of common tasks which are likely to be used, great addition.
There are a tonne of great new featuers these are just a few. I have screenshots of about 10 great things I have uncovered but unless I hear that I can definately post UI shots I will hold off for now.
March 21, 2006
Open XML
The OpenXmlDeveloper.org web site was announced this morning by Bill Gates during his keynote presentation at the Microsoft Office Developer's Conference. The site is the home for a new community, the Open XML Developer Group. This group is dedicated to helping its members developer software that supports the Open XML Formats on a wide variety of platforms.
Thanks to Mark Harrison for pointing me to this
Internet Explorer 7 - Beta 2 Preview
At MIX 06 the IE Team mentioned there is now available for download a preview of Beta 2. This version of IE7 is "Rendering Behaviour" complete. This basically means that the additions will be more on fixes/security but in regard to how your pages will render in Internet Explorer 7 you are now free to test your CSS sites and find out. Eric Meyer had some words on IE 7 and Expression on his website.
Get Internet Explorer 7 (Beta 2 Preview)
March 16, 2006
Microsoft Executive Webcasts
For those of you that like to catch up on events in bulk be sure to check out the current and upcoming webcasts from Microsoft executives.
http://www.microsoft.com/events/executives/webcasts.mspx
March 14, 2006
Built on complex theory like sharing and playing well with others
The title of this blog post was actually a title I seen from Microsoft about SharePoint about 2 years ago.
During our Deep Dives last week I noticed how much the 'entire community' can be leveraged. Every single one of us made references to blogs and encouraged people to take advantage of the thriving community available to them.
During the Administration and Disaster Recovery portion I noticed that Steve had referenced a blog post from Mindsharp, a post that Penny Coventry made on "How to find out what level of SharePoint you are using".
That's when I realised just how accepted and thriving the community really is and how much better it works together rather than constantly competing against one another.
If you look at what was actually taking place - There we were on the road to promote "Our (Infotech Canada's) Products/Services". Microsoft was there with us supporting our company, their partner. We were in turn introducing people to other great companies such as Mindsharp. Three companies in the same space promoting one another.
What would have seemed like corporate suicide in years gone past is now openly accepted and encouraged. It's another sign of the ever changing industry we are a part of. A change for the better in my opinion.
March 13, 2006
Home Again ...
I wouldn't have guessed the Halifax Airport would be a highlight of the trip but as it turns out I got to meet and say hello to JD Fortune. For those that followed Rock Star INXS you know he is the new lead singer from INXS, he is also an Atlantic Canadian so that was great. I was a huge fan of JD the whole way through the show so it was neat to get to say hello.
We arrived home last night around 9:35pm. Now it's back to the grind, more on the presentations later.
March 12, 2006
Almost Home!
Amanda and I just landed in Halifax, we have a few hour layover here before catching our flight home so I figured I'd write a quick post.
With the IW Tour over we had a chance yesterday to take in some of the great sights. Just across the bridge from Ottawa is HULL Quebec so that was our first stop. We visited the National Museum of Civilization which happens to have Gretzkys first pair of skates and the puck that went to the moon!
After taking in the museum it was off to the "Market" - anyone that has spent any time in Ottawa knows that this is the "place to be" in downtown ottawa. Tonnes of stores and places to eat - lots of fun. We took in a great Scottish Pub where I had a Tartan special (some thick Scottish beer) before heading over for a famous "Beaver Tail". (A Fried Maple/Chocolate Pastry).
It was a beautiful sunny day in Ottawa so we roamed around downtown for awhile and found this great old church - VERY ellaborate, quite a sight, the Notre Dame I think it was called (quite likely the site of Trudeaus funeral).
After finishing up our walk we stopped by Steven Harpers (The Canadian Prime Minister) house (24 Sussex Drive) just to take a look and then headed home to wrap up with a great BBQ, mmm steak!
We had a very busy and hectic but a very fun week.
More on the Deep Dives when I get back home in a few hours.
March 10, 2006
SharePoint and EPM Tour 1 Down!
We finished up our SharePoint and EPM Deep Dives today in Ottawa. It's been a lot of fun and a great learning experience.
Big thanks to Glen Murray and Gilles Garceau from Microsoft Canada for coming out to kick off the events, lend support and speak to some of the people in attendance. Thanks also to Starshot Promotions for helping organize the event. Last but not least thanks to everyone that came out to the events in both Halifax and Ottawa, and to the Westin Hotel for the great service.
Amanda and I are staying in Ottawa to take in the city for a few more days and flying back home on Sunday, I will have a few photos to share of the event and trip when I return home.
As mentioned we plan to video/web cast the event as well so keep a watch out for that.
March 09, 2006
Halifax down, we are now in Ottawa
Halifax was a lot of fun, there was some great interaction with the people that attended the event. I have a whole new appreciation for people that travel and present a lot now.
We landed in Ottawa last night, we were given the quick tour of the Rideau Canal and Parliment Buildings which are quite a spectacle at night.
We are set to kick off the second event at around 10am at the Westin Hotel in downtown Ottawa. I bought a new 7.2 megapixel sony digital camera before I left so I've been taking a few snaps which I'll share when I get a chance.
March 07, 2006
Infotech IW Team Technical Tour
I just landed in Halifax ...
I am currently on tour with our IW team to deliver a few days of technical deep dives for SharePoint and Project Server. So far it's ramping up to be a lot of fun.
Microsoft is kicking off the events which span across 4 days, 2 days in Halifax and 2 days in Ottawa. The events are being held at the Westin Hotel in both Halifax and Ottawa so if you or someone from your organization is in the area don't be afraid to drop me a line.
The members of our IW team delivering technical presentations are:
Amanda Murphy - Delivering both SharePoint and Project Server Presentations.
Lloyd Cotton - Delivering an in-depth look customizing data and web part development.
Steve Clarke - Delivering a technical best practices presentation on SharePoint Administration and Disaster Recovery
Oh yeah, and me - My presentation is dubbed "Creating a better SharePoint user-experience via UI customization". I will be touching on the different forms of customization and what you can accomplish with them but mostly on how you can really use them to enhance the overall user-experience and drive user-adoption.
We fly out to Ottawa again tommorow evening. If you want more information on the event please see the Infotech Canada Website - It's in the news section.
For those that cannot make it I am pushing to release the presentations as some type of (screen/pod) cast. Maybe I will speak with Gene over at the SharePoint Show. I will be making the slide-decks available as well so noone should be left out.
So, I have not been ignoring the blog, I've just been busy preparing.
February 27, 2006
ASP.NET 2.0 Tutorial Videos Online
Big thanks to Scott Guthrie for pointing to this videos.
Included in the ASP.NET 2.0 Tutorial Videos is a session on Master Pages.
This goes great with with another set of tutorials on ASP.NET 2.0 and AD Roles/Groups
as well as the MSDN ASP.NET 2.0 how to articles
February 22, 2006
SharePoint Customization: Show document icons in a data-view web part
Great tip from Mauro Cardarelli on showing document icons in a data-view. I use data-views a lot as well and can definately say they are one of the number one reasons *NOT* to be afraid of FrontPage.
I'm a big fan of the Data View web part. I like how I can create one document library then generates “dynamic” pages based on document attriubutes. I do this using the Data View web part (per page) and Filter conditions. It's very easy to create simple HTML tables with document information and the great thing is they require no mantenance. When a document is added to the repository that matches the filter conditions, it automatically shows up on the right page.
One of the challenges with using the Data View web part with documents is the quirkiness of some of the display options. I wanted to show the document icon (pdf, doc, etc.) next to the document title and have it associated with a hyperlink to the actual content. Unfortunately, while the Data View web part has a property called 'File Type', it is text only. So, you are left with a text-based value for the file type and a separate field for the actual document link. Well, I got the functionality I wanted with a little XSL manipulation! Details are below...
Note, the Data View web part requires FrontPage 2003 usage. There has been a lot of talk about FP2003 and unghosting. It is possible to follow the steps below then export and publish the customized web part (through a temporary page) so it can be used on standard pages.
1. Collect your document icons. I created an image library with pdf, doc, xls and ppt icons. You could refer to the actual images on the file system but I wanted a little more control over what I am showing.
2. Drop a Data View web part on a page and connect it to a SharePoint document library
3. Select the DVWP and choose 'Data View properties...' from the right-click menu
4. Drag 'File Type' and other attributes you wish to show onto the table
5. Select the 'File Type' attribute in the table and click 'Create' - 'Apply Formatting...' on the right task pane
6. Create some conditional formatting rules like 'File Type equals doc' then select Format and choose Font; make it red
7. Go to the Code tab and look for your conditional code. It should look like this (minus the comments indicator)...
<!-- <xsl:if xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" test="normalize-space(@File_x0020_Type) = 'doc'">color: #FF0000;</xsl:if> -->
8. Replace it with this (minus the comments indicator)...
<!-- <xsl:if xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" test="normalize-space(@File_x0020_Type) = 'pdf'"><a target="_blank"><xsl:attribute name="href"><xsl:value-of xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" select="@FileRef"/></xsl:attribute><img border="0" src="/Repository/My Images/icon_pdf.gif" width="16" height="16"/></a></xsl:if>
<xsl:if xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" test="normalize-space(@File_x0020_Type) = 'doc'"><a target="_blank"><xsl:attribute name="href"><xsl:value-of xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" select="@FileRef"/></xsl:attribute><img border="0" src="/Repository/My Images/icon_word.gif" width="16" height="16"/></a></xsl:if>
<xsl:if xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" test="normalize-space(@File_x0020_Type) = 'xls'"><a target="_blank"><xsl:attribute name="href"><xsl:value-of xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" select="@FileRef"/></xsl:attribute><img border="0" src="/Repository/My Images/icon_excel.gif" width="16" height="16"/></a></xsl:if>
<xsl:if xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" test="normalize-space(@File_x0020_Type) = 'ppt'"><a target="_blank"><xsl:attribute name="href"><xsl:value-of xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" select="@FileRef"/></xsl:attribute><img border="0" src="/Repository/My Images/icon_ppt.gif" width="16" height="16"/></a></xsl:if> -->
9. That's it! The icon should now shows up in your table and should open a new browser session to your document.
February 17, 2006
SharePoint Customization: Portable SharePoint Customization Tutorials
The topic says it all. I have decided that I am going to create any worthy tips, tricks and tutorials on SharePoint customization in portable format (PDF).
This way if you have to be offline, or if you are in a rush and just want to download/print the tips and tricks it's easy.
You will notice a downloads link in the menu. The downloads page will store any portable versions of the tutorials that I write in a single as intuative as possible list. I just added the first one - a super simple guide to using the Internet Explorer Dev Toolbar to find what CSS class is applied to what element on a SharePoint site.
SharePoint Customization: How to find the CSS Class Applied to any SharePoint Element
I get this question at least a couple of times a week via email. "How do I figure out what classes are applied to what elements in SharePoint"? The answer? ...
Internet Explorer Dev Toolbar.
The Internet Explorer Dev Toolbar integrates with the Document Object Model (DOM) allowing you to phsyically select (by simply clicking on) any element on the page and have a list of attributes (including CSS classes/ID's) displayed.
Download the Internet Explorer Dev Toolbar
SharePoint Show: Podcast #2 with Dustin Miller (2007 Information!)
I can't wait - take me to the SharePoint Podcast
Overview
The show takes you on a 30-minute audio tour of more than 100 features in the new version of SharePoint, along with indepth perspectives on this topic by SharePoint MVP Dustin Miller of SharePoint Experts and SharePoint University. You won't find this much detail about SharePoint 2007 anywhere else! Don't miss it! You'll find The SharePoint Show in iTunes or by visiting the website http://www.sharepointshow.com.
Don't miss out on this podcast, Dustin is a fountain of useful information. I am very impressed with the SharePoint Show so far!
Good job guys
February 16, 2006
SharePoint Customization: The SharePoint Team Goes Under the Covers in Page Anatomy
This article is courtesy of the SharePoint Team
We'll cover the integrated framework we are using in the next release of SPS + CMS (breaking news - now officially Office SharePoint Server 2007 - I will cover that in a second post later today) to enable people to create, manage and publish the spectrum of very simple to very sophisticated internet sites. We've learned a lot from a variety of customer feedback on ASP.NET, WSS, SPS, CMS, FrontPage and more and hopefully brought this all together in a powerful way. Let's go through them piece by piece.
1) Master Page
Master Pages are an ASP.NET 2.0 feature that lets child pages inherit and re-use a common design. This only makes development and maintenance of the site much easier. New pages don't have to re-do the work of the master. When you want to apply a new design, just change the master. Typically they will contain the branding, navigation, header and footer for the site. We used this to implement the overall "visual blueprint" of SharePoint including access to the end user features. In a more static internet site, little of this will be exposed which is why we'll provide different example master pages to support different scenarios. At rendering time, the page brings in the code from the master so it is always up to date. Master Pages have first class support in the next release of Windows SharePoint Services and Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (also new - wait until next post). In the picture above, the branding section and navigation are part of the master page. I should note that we'll have a lot richer navigation options out-of-box than SPS 2003 or CMS 2002 and if you don't like ours you can buy or build a 3rd-party controls written to the new ASP.NET 2.0 navigation provider interface and still use all our underlying site management capabilities.
2) Page Layouts
Page Layouts are a feature we evolved from CMS 2002 into the new integrated SPS \ CMS (oops Office SharePoint Server - still getting used to that) building on the Master Page support in the next release of WSS. In a large site, there a number of different page types (e.g. Product Description, Press Release, Executive Biography) that should have a standard look and feel. Web site owners not only want to save the work of redoing these, they also want to enforce consistency in the site across the authors and have the flexibility to change them later. The layout is separate from the underlying content in the site. The "page layout" is an ASP.NET page with special "field controls" (aka placeholders in CMS 2002) that know how to bind to WSS data. These layouts may or may not also have web part zones which tells the framework if users can add parts in the browser. More on this below. In the example above, we have a standard Adventure Works "News" Page Template with the authoring console visibile (it isn't by default and people who don't have the rights to see this won't). The stuff on the left is based on field controls and the stuff on the right is in a web part zone we have allowed the page editors to customize.
3) Page
Just like CMS 2002, we use the powerful concept of separating presentation from data in web publishing. In the Office SharePoint Server, the actual "page" is a item a WSS list and the framework knows how to assemble these. This list has columns that are bound to three field controls (title, picture, article). Re-using SharePoint lists for data storage lets us build on existing and new WSS list features like content types, check-in/out, versioning, per item security, workflow and more more. In edit mode, the field controls place constraints on the author for what content they can put in the "page".The screenshot above shows the page with the console visible where authors, approvers, etc. have the appropriate actions based on their role.
4) Web Parts Zones
One of the trickiest aspects of the design was getting the relationship between field controls and web parts right. Field controls are bound to a WSS item so workflow, etc. just works. By design, Web Parts are less tightly coupled. In fact one of their advantage is just using the browser, users can add them to the page. As with WSS and SPS V2, there's a lot of flexibility in this model for customization, personalization and targeting that site owners can choose to use.
a) Customization allows parts to be added for all users - we see a lot of site owners restricting it to a few people for more productive site design in just the browser. It will be fun to see what stuff people do upfront using Page Layouts vs. just-in-time via Web Parts. Feel free to choose any point on the spectrum on using field controls exclusively to using web parts or a combination.
b) Personalization allows each user to set their own parts in the zone - ASP.NET and WSS do the bookkeeping in SQL tables for this. There's a lot of pages where enabling personalization makes sense but many where it does not and you can turn it off.
c) Targeting is an SPS V2 feature (one many CMS 2002 customers asked for as well - it comes return in the trade for page layouts) that lets publishers show different content to developers vs. marketing based on their "audience". In the example above, the top right web part could be targeted just to sales people but everyone else accessing the page wouldn't see the part. We have made targeting even easier in the next release by letting you directly target to an existing group vs. requiring the work (and the privleges) to set up an audience that maps to the group.
5) General Purpose Web Parts
Almost home! One thing we noticed across CMS and SharePoint was many people were writing the same code over and over for many pages and sites particularly for summary "landing pages" and views on business data. While I love our flexibility with ASP.NET, I really want to reduce the code required to build and maintain cool sites. We have also learned the robustness of the ASP.NET and WSS security model can be a double-edged sword. To install a new web part in SharePoint, you need pretty advanced priveleges which many IT admins have restricted in consolidated intranet SharePoint farms and internet prescences for obvious reasons. Often they don't have the time or resources to test new potential web parts. So what we've tried to do is create some extremely flexible, data-driven parts that empower the site publishers.
a) Summary Links and Content-By-Query - These parts address the incredibly common practice of tweaking HTML tables with a list of links and formatting of associated pictures and text. We will be provided a lot of different styles out of the box and support adding your own CSSs. The middle web part in the right column is an example of this. We'll have two versions - one that does versioning and workflow of the links as part of the page and a second (Content-By-Query) that lets you query content elsewhere in the site. We'll probably tweak these names before we ship. But hopefully, a lot less table tweaking to build cooler lists of links, images and people.
b) Business Data Web Parts - We are greatly enhancing the WYSWIG XSLT web part that came with V2 called Data View and let you do rich formatting of remote XML or database calls. You can use this directly against your remote source but it will also be the rendering foundaiton for re-usable business data conncetions we are calling the Business Data Catalog. You can use the BDC to register entities and actions from remote LOB systems like SAP, Siebel and Dynamics as well as databases vs. hard coding them into every web part. Just like with content - we are trying to provide separation of presentation from data and easier re-use and customization. In addition to the BDC parts, we'll have parts designed for simple business intelligence scenarios. In the example above, I've shown a KPI (Key Performance Indicator) Web Part that can bring in data from SQL Analysis Services, Excel Services, SharePoint lists or even just static data.
We're eager to see all the cool intranet, extranet and internet presences you build with the next release!
-- Jeff
Office 2007: Frequently asked Questions
Information on Office 2007 (formerly known as Office 12) is quickly spreading and people are thirsty for more.
Paul Thurrott set up an Office 2007 FAQ on the wnSupersite.
SharePoint: Too many authentication prompts?
Great post from Daniel M'Cpherson:
Unwanted Authentication Prompts
I’m often bumping into customers who complain they are getting “Too many authentication prompts” when using SharePoint. So, I thought it would be useful to throw together a quick post outlining some of the common causes I have found, along with an explanation and possible solutions:
Read the entire article on SharePoint Authentication Prompts over on Point2Share
Amanda Murphy appointed Vice President of INETA Community Activities
Congrats to Amanda
I have known about this for quite awhile but was unsure on if I was allowed to post it yet but obviously I can now.
Amanda Murphy was appointed Vice President of INETA Community Activities. Amanda puts an enourmous effort into the community and user-groups, alot of which is behind the scenes and you do not even see right away.
Press release below:
INETA Announces New Board Members
INETA ANNOUNCES APPOINTMENT OF AMANDA MURPHY AS VICE PRESIDENT OF COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES AND SCOTT SPRADLIN AS VICE PRESIDENT OF MARKETING
Redmond, WA – February 1, 2006 – INETA, an organization that provides resources, services, and support for .NET user groups around the globe, today announced the appointment of Amanda Murphy as Vice President of Commuinity Activities and Scott Spradlin as Vice Presidnet of Marketing for INETA North America. “Amanda has been a valuable member of our Community Activities team and is well positioned to lead the team. Scott has been a member of the Marketing team and we are pleased to have him in a leadership role.” says Chris Pels, President of the North American Board of Directors.” Both individuals will be leading several new community efforts with their teams.
About INETA
INETA's mission is to provide the developer user group community with information, resources, and services to facilitate the growth and development of user groups and their membership. Supported by Microsoft Corporation and other sponsors, INETA is an independent volunteer organization run by user group leaders and developers. Currently, INETA supports 773 user groups that represent more than 365,000 developers worldwide. http://www.ineta.org.
Read this article on INETA: Amanda appointed VP of Community Activities at INETA
Microsoft Press Release: SharePoint Designer 2007
Thanks to Jan for pointing me to this:
REDMOND, Wash., Feb. 15, 2006 – As the Internet becomes an increasingly valuable environment for individuals and organizations to share information, collaborate and carry out tasks, the people tasked with building Web sites to support these activities need increasingly powerful and versatile tools to accomplish their goals.
Having adopted technologies such as Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services and Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 to help create, manage and build collaborative Web sites, many organizations are discovering that their current Web-authoring tools lack support for the latest standards and capabilities that SharePoint products and technologies makes possible – such as ready access to data coming from multiple outside sources and the capacity to build no-code, powerful applications and automated workflows. Professional Web site designers also are feeling the pressure to deliver more dynamic and interactive user experiences, and to create sites more rapidly and cost-efficiently.
In response to these diverse demands, Microsoft is introducing a new tool, Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007, for building SharePoint applications and designing SharePoint sites. This new product – part of the full 2007 Microsoft Office lineup announced today – will join Microsoft Expression Web Designer, the next-generation tool for designing dynamic, standard-based Web sites, to deliver a complete set of tools for Web design and development. Both products are currently in initial beta testing. Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer is scheduled for release in the second half of this year at a suggested retail price of US$299 through retail and Microsoft Volume Licensing channels. Pricing and availability details for Microsoft Expression Web Designer will be announced in the near future.
PressPass recently asked John Richards, director of Windows SharePoint Services at Microsoft, to describe how these new products fit into the company’s overall approach to Web authoring technologies.
So what is happening with FrontPage?? ... Here's the answer:
PressPass: What is happening to the current FrontPage product, and how is Microsoft communicating with FrontPage users to alleviate concerns about migration, ongoing technical support and the like?
Richards: After we fully release SharePoint Designer 2007 and Expression Web Designer, FrontPage will be discontinued gradually. This process will bring our customers and partners a broader choice of tools that go far beyond the capabilities within the current FrontPage product to meet the needs of today’s and tomorrow’s Web authors, designers and developers.
In the meantime, Microsoft will continue to provide current FrontPage customers with full product support through June 2008, as well as clear guidance on how they can smoothly migrate to SharePoint Designer 2007 or Expression Web Designer, depending on their roles and needs. In the near future, all registered Microsoft Office FrontPage customers will receive e-mail from Microsoft outlining our overall strategy and roadmap for these next-generation Web authoring tools. We also will provide continual updates on the Microsoft Office product Web site. In addition, current FrontPage customers in both the retail and enterprise channels will be able to take advantage of special upgrade offers starting in the second half of 2006.
Read the whole Microsoft Press Release on SharePoint Designer 2007
February 15, 2006
Bill Gates on SharePoint, Office 2007
I just watched the new Bill Gates video on Channel 9 and one quote about SharePoint stood out:
Bill Gate: "SharePoint will become on the Server what Office has become on the Client". That is promising news in my opinion.
Watch the video:
Bill Gates talks about Office 2007, SharePoint and his Internet habits
Office 2007: Branding and Pricing Details to be announced Thursday
Big thanks to JOPX for pointing me to this:
The Office team is expected to unveil on Thursday branding around Office 12, according to sources. NeoWin.Net reported on Monday that Microsoft is planning to unveil Office details, including product names, licensing information and some "directional pricing information" around its next-gen Office suite. We're hearing the same. We're betting Office 2007 will be Office 12's official name. And we hear SharePoint Portal Server simultaneously is being rechristened "Office Server."
Read the Office 12 Branding and Pricing article
CSS: The Basics
A lot of people have heard about the benefits of using CSS, they have heard lots about separating presentation from markup/content but they have never really had the basics of CSS based design laid out for them.
Many people have never really tried out pure CSS designs because they are intimidated by not knowing, or because it's time consuming to learn and execute. This article is a great starting point for those that just want to understand how CSS works.
The following chapters cover all the basics of CSS design.
Read The Basics of CSS Design
February 14, 2006
SharePoint Customization: Wider (Forms/Text Boxes)
I just noticed this neat little tip over on MSD2D.
By Default all text boxes have fixed width of 386px. It's common to wish to change this and here is how you can do it simply using CSS.
Note: This message is not part of the MSD2D article but ... Remember editing "Default" files is never a good idea. This situation is slightly different as it is a lightweight edit but make sure you comment very well anything you change. This is better done via a theme.css in my personal opinion but that wouldn't make it global.
Open OWS.CSS. It is located under C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\60\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\1033\STYLES. (for non-english WSS and non-english site definitions, too, you should find and open corresponding OWS.CSS files).
Change width in ms-long class from 386px to 100%.
This class is used by ListFormWebPart for text fields (like Title) and multiline text fields (like Comment).
Add width: 100% to ms-formbody class.
This class is used by ListFormWebPart for
Result will be that all text boxes in New Item / Edit Item forms for all lists now will use full width of browser window and will dynamically resize as you resize the browser.
Code Sample
.ms-long {
font-size: 8pt;
font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;
width: 100%;
}
.ms-formbody {
font-family: verdana;
font-size: .7em;
vertical-align: top;
width: 100%;
}
February 13, 2006
SharePoint Customization: Dynamic Style Sheets
Eric Shupps (The Sharing Point) has an interesting approach to creating dynamic stylesheets.
I have created site definitions using the same styleswitcher that this site uses (when you change the navigation from left/right) but never this method. It's an interesting read.
Head on over to Eric's blog and read Dynamic Style Sheets.