SharePoint Branding & Design

Update: Really Small SharePoint Calendar

noreply@blogger.com (Erik Swenson) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 18:58:00 +0000

I really was not that happy with the look of the first calendar so after some modifications and a bit of CSS magic I have come up with a really good looking small calendar. At least I think so…

Basically I have replaced the text of an event item with a color coded box. The benefit that you get out of this is that you don’t have to try and read the even within the small calendar but if you hover over and click on the color block you get the list Item display.

Orange is for single event items (8am-10am, etc)
Green is for full day events or repeat events

Another nice feature to this is that I have also simplified the visual indicator when there are more then two event items in one day. Instead of seeing the arrow and text all you see is the arrow. Once you click on the arrow it will show the other blocks of events (Right image).

Here is the CSS Code: Download Here

Simply place a content editor web part on the same page as the calendar
Paste the code from the file above into the source of the content editor web part.
Hide the Content editor web part on the page.

If you plan on making this a more global style this is an example of how the large calendar would look like.

Leave a comment and let me know how it works for you!

How to create a really small SharePoint Calendar

noreply@blogger.com (Erik Swenson) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:32:00 +0000

Well I guess I did not do my research enough and found a site that had an even smaller SharePoint calendar by just modifying the CSS. http://pathtosharepoint.wordpress.com/2008/10/06/tiny-sharepoint-calendar-1/

With these styles below you can drastically transform your SharePoint Calendar view into a tiny box. Yes there is limited functionality but if you have been looking for something like this with no custom code you got it!

(Left) No events (Right) Events populated

Copy this CSS code below and past it into your custom CSS!

/* Remove week blocks */
.ms-cal-weekempty {display:none;}
.ms-cal-week {display:none;}
.ms-cal-weekB {display:none;}
.ms-cal-weekB {display:none;}

/* Shrink cells */
.ms-cal-workitem2B {display:none;}
.ms-cal-noworkitem2B {display:none;}
.ms-cal-nodataBtm2 {display:none;}
.ms-cal-todayitem2B {display:none;}
.ms-cal-workitem {font-size:0px;}
.ms-cal-muworkitem {font-size:0px;}
.ms-cal-noworkitem {font-size:0px;}
.ms-cal-nodataMid {font-size:0px;}
.ms-cal-todayitem {font-size:0px;}

/* thin out header */
.ms-cal-nav {display:none;}
.ms-cal-nav-buttonsltr {display:none;}
.ms-cal-navheader {padding:0px;spacing:0px;}
.ms-calheader IMG {width:15px;}

/* Abbreviate weekdays */
.ms-cal-weekday {letter-spacing:6px; width:22px; overflow: hidden;}

/* Adds border to bottom */
#CalViewTable1{
border-bottom: 1px #6f9dd9 solid;
}

Enjoy!

How to Shrink a SharePoint Calendar View

noreply@blogger.com (Erik Swenson) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 03:21:00 +0000

Have you ever needed to add a Event Calendar to your Team Site with the calendar view but you didn’t because it basically took up the whole site? Well just today I was messing around with this and came up with some interesting results.

If you look at the code for a calendar view everything looks fine except for a hidden shared class at the very top of the calendar right below the webpart title.

This image is 742 pixels wide and forces the calendar view to be minimally that width. With the CSS below you can now hide that image and allow the calendar to fit within your team site with no problems at all. By making these changes you will not change the look of the full view of the calendar when you click on the event list. The screenshot below was taken with 1024x768 resolution.

Here is the CSS:

.ms-calheader img{
display: none;
}

#CalViewTable12 img{
display: inline;
}

.ms-cal-nav-buttonsltr{
white-space: nowrap;
}

Full Calendar View with styles applied:

Enjoy!

SharePoint Reusable Content

noreply@blogger.com (Erik Swenson) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 21:35:00 +0000

I can pretty much say I know my way around SharePoint… But every once in a while you learn about a feature that you never knew was there… Most of the time its those annoying bugs that we call “features” but are true head against the wall things that make you go hmmmm… But this time its a good thing…

I was tasked with finding a way to create a header and footer for a publishing site. This header and footer would be consistent across all pages within the content area of the site. My First thought was ok I need a custom page layout, but this would not work since it needs to be easily updated via the SharePoint Interface.

So after some investigation I found out that SharePoint has a built in feature called “Reusable Content”

Basically all you need to do is simply edit the page of your publishing site and click on a content editor control. If you look at the image below there is a icon next to the image icon.

The icon is not very obvious hence the reason why I never noticed it before… But if you click on this button you get the following list.

This is basically a list of all the reusable content that resides within that site collection.

If you don’t see what you like you can simply open up the list via the “Open List” button on the toolbar.

From that list you can now create either Reusable HTML or Text.

New Reusable HTML form:

Once you have edited your content and choosen it from the list you will see the Reusable content within a grey boxed in area within the content.

So, how many other people out there never knew this feature was there? Am I the only one? Leave a comment with your experiences.

SharePoint Branding Build Test Checklist

noreply@blogger.com (Erik Swenson) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 03:03:00 +0000

During the creation of the CSS, Master Pages, and Page layouts its critical to stay on top of your Front End Development testing.

As you know many classes in SharePoint are shared classes so when you make a modification to one element you have to test, test, test.

Below are some helpful things to review before giving that oh so critical demo… Hopefully these will help you out during your development process and testing.

Create and test all OOTB SharePoint templates

Publishing Sites

Publishing Toolbar
Page Layouts (All that are available)

My Sites

My Profile

Organization Hierarchy web part
In Common with you web part

Team Sites
Meeting Workspaces

Tabs
Recurring Meeting Workspaces Quick Launch

Blog

Unique Quick Launch
Post date, title, content, and links

Wiki

Functional Links (Edit, History, Incoming Links)
Unique Quick Launch (Recent Changes)
Last Modified

People search drop down options
Search Results
Advanced Search Link
Advanced Search Page

Central Administration

Don’t spend to much time on these

Test as many SharePoint functions as you can

Fly Out Menu’s/Drop Downs

My Links
Top Navigation
Site Actions
Modify Web Part
Quick Launch if enabled
Multi Tier/level if enabled
Document Item Drop Down

Button Hovers

Search/Go
Global Links (Top Links like My Links)
SPLink (Welcome & Console Toolbar Buttons)
Toolbar View Button

Quick Launch

Headers
List Items
Selected headers/Items
Tree View

Breadcrumbs

Text
Hyperlinks
Carrots “>”

Toolbars
Calendar

Date Picker
Month View
Week View
Day View
Current Day Indicators

Lists/Libraries

Datasheet View
Alternating item shade (ms-alternating)

Webpart

Chrome/Title
Border color/width if selected (ms-WPBorder)
Separator Lines

Edit Page

Webpart Zone Colors
Drag and Drop Style
Webpart Chrome/Title’s
Advanced Webpart Gallery and Options

Admin Pages

Site Settings
List Forms

Form Background (ms-authoringcontrols)

Upload Document
Error Pages

OOTB Themes

If you are going to allow OOTB themes you will have to test, test, and triple test that all themes work and function as expected with your custom design…

Fonts/Colors

Stick to system Fonts so that everyone gets the same experience. (Verdana, Tahoma, Arial, Etc)
Page Titles
Body Content
Hyperlinks
Hover Text
Visited State

Images

Teamsite Default Image
Social Meeting Workspace Image

Customization/3rd Party

Its kinda a given but any custom web parts, 3rd Party or custom controls implemented will need to have branding applied or tested before deployment onto prod servers.

I’m sure there are some that I missed but drop me a comment if you have some that I missed and I will add to the list above.

Rounded Corners in SharePoint

noreply@blogger.com (Erik Swenson) — Fri, 15 May 2009 00:51:00 +0000

Rounded corners have become a staple in website design. But they come with a price. Don't get me wrong I really like the look of them and they really help soften the look of the site.

In most cases you can create this look by using the method below. Later on in this post I will highlight some of the things you can do and some of the things not technically possible without major custom development.

Design 1: Rounded corners to frame a site:

Open up your master page and add 1 <div> tag right before the ms-main table to represent the site container (This is used to position the site and give it its width)
Add 4 more <div> tags before the ms-main table to represent your 4 corners (top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right)
<div id="xyz-content-corner-tl">
<div id="xyz-content-corner-tr">
<div id="xyz-content-corner-bl">
<div id="xyz-content-corner-br">
Add in the following to CSS attributes to represent the 4 corners

#xyz-content-corner-tl{
background-image: url(/_layouts/images/xyz/xyz_content_corner_tl.gif);
background-position:left top;
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-color: #ffffff;
}
#xyz--content-corner-tr{
background-image: url(/_layouts/images/xyz/xyz_content_corner_tr.gif);
background-position:right top;
background-repeat: no-repeat;
}
#xyz--content-corner-bl{
background-image: url(/_layouts/images/xyz/xyz_content_corner_bl.gif);
background-position:left bottom;
background-repeat: no-repeat;
height: 100%;
}
#xyz--content-corner-br{
background-image: url(/_layouts/images/xyz/xyz_content_corner_br.gif);
background-position:right bottom;
background-repeat: no-repeat;
height: 100%;
}

Example: Please note that the shadow effect is a bit more complex and requires two more <div> tags to represent the right side repeat and the bottom repeat.

Design 2: Rounded corners to frame content

This approach can achieved the same way as per above with 4 <div> tags but just needs to included around the <asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderMain" runat="server"> control within the master page.

Example:

Design 3: Rounded corners around individual web parts

Now this one has some tricky elements that I am still trying to work out.
My Original thought was to use the approach above and simply add the 4 <div> tags around each individual webpart zone in a page layout. But there is a catch…
Normally webpart zones are wrapped in a <td> that has an id of "_invisibleIfEmpty" There is some java script that basically hides that zone from rendering on the page if there is no content in it.
However if you place those 4 div tags within that <td> you would assume that it would still hide that zone. But no basically its like a buffer and that JavaScript no longer thinks that zone is empty and it shows it on the page even if there is no webpart in that zone. So you end up with something like below: Notice that below the two web parts on the right there are two empty white containers with nothing in them.

Example:

So all in all its fairly easy to add in rounded corners to different areas within your design by using the approach above but there is still a need to have individual web parts with a container all for themselves.

If anyone out there has any ideas on either modifying the JavaScript to ignore the div tags and hide the empty zones or have any other approaches that have worked for them please don't hesitate to comment.

Thanks!

IA and Branding Process Presentation [Video]

noreply@blogger.com (Erik Swenson) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:22:00 +0000

Click to watch the video presentation (36MB WMV), thanks to my friend Paul Galvin for taking the video.

Update: For some reason the link was not good. I have updated it and it should work now.

IA and Design Process Presentation Download!

noreply@blogger.com (Erik Swenson) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 14:42:00 +0000

I want to thank everyone for attending my presentation. It was a great success! I had a co-worker video record the session but it will take a little while to get that uploaded/edited for the masses.

Here is the link to my presentation. I have included notes on each slide for the dialog.

Download: http://cid-ed1a37150dabcd2d.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/IA%20and%20Branding%20Process%7C_ErikSwenson.pptx?ccr=80

Thanks again, enjoy and please add your comments to this post!

User Experience Design Process: Teaser

noreply@blogger.com (Erik Swenson) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 01:10:00 +0000

As a teaser, I would like to provide a sample of my upcoming session at the SharePoint Summit 2009.

Roles:

	Information Architecture –Much of the interface navigation and page structure will be driven by the Information Architect.
	Designer – Skill depends on several factors, if leveraging native features, skill is very dependent on knowledge of SharePoint.
	SharePoint Front-End Development – MOSS-FED highly specialized skill set, especially if doing CSS-based changes.

UXD Process:

Agenda for SharePoint Summit 2009 Presentation

noreply@blogger.com (Erik Swenson) — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 00:55:00 +0000

Here is the final agenda for my presentation for the SharePoint Summit in Montreal on April 8th from 9:15 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. I only have 45mins to get it all in so wish me luck.

Anything is possible
Roles
Design process
- Gathering Branding Requirements
- Create Sitemap & Navigation
- Create Wireframes
- Create Visual Design
Tools for building the design
Implementation methods options
Additional guides/references
Q/A

Note: I will post my slide deck after the conference. Thanks for whoever posted that question in the comment area.

SharePoint Summit 2009 Presentation

noreply@blogger.com (Erik Swenson) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 23:34:00 +0000

As I prepare my slides and agenda for my presentation at the SharePoint Summit in Montreal Canada I would like your input. Please provide your feedback/comments and if you plan on attending my session!

"IA and Branding Process: Sketches to Wireframes to Hi-Fidelity Designs".

Methods to gathering requirements
Benefits of a creative brief and Style guide
Understand what functional concepts are and how they can be used
Explore options on creating wireframes
Creating the Design Composition (Differences between design adaptation and custom design)
Building the design (CSS, Images, Master Pages, Page layouts, testing for multiple browsers and Mobile devices)

Thanks!

Hide #1 tab in Top Navigation (Home)

noreply@blogger.com (Erik Swenson) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:06:00 +0000

OOTB SharePoint will not allow you to remove the 1st tab on the main navigation through the UI. To do this you can simply use the following CSS below and add it to your custom CSS or use the CEWP page style method to just make the change just for that page.

If you look at the code, you will notice that each top navigation item has an ID.

zz1_TopNavigationMenun0 (Home Tab)
zz1_TopNavigationMenun1 (Tab #2)
zz1_TopNavigationMenun2 (Tab #3)
zz1_TopNavigationMenun... (Tab Etc)

Since the home tab is always #1 it is always given the ID of "0"

CSS Code:

#zz1_TopNavigationMenun0 {
display: none !important;
}

Creating a Two Tier Global Navigation

noreply@blogger.com (Erik Swenson) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 16:42:00 +0000

Two tier navigation is not a new concept and has been out for quite a long time. However SharePoint OOTB does not allow you to have a global navigation that spans multiple site collections.

Here are a few examples of a multi tier horizontal navigation.

Example 1: MSDN: Microsoft Developer Network

Example 2: Fed Ex

Example 3: Wall Street Journal

During a recent project I was given the task to create a global navigation that had two tiers like the examples above.

After some investigation my friend Sahil Malik had put together a great blog about creating a consistent navigation across site collections. (Thanks Buddy)

Well this is great and all but his code replaced the OOTB navigation with a custom one. So after some hard thinking I figured out that you could create your own control that drove the tier 1 global navigation (Across site collections) and a tier 2 local navigation (OOTB) that was security trimmed.

To get this to work you should use Shail's post as a guide for code but here are the basic steps:

Go to: \inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\yourwebappname
Create a back up of the web.config on each of the web applications that you want the two tier navigation
Add the following to the custom web.config file

Go to: \inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\yourwebappname\_app_bin
Create a file called "mainMenu.sitemap" and add in your navigation simular to something like below

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<siteMap>
    <siteMapNode title="Tab 1 Home" url="/Pages/Default.aspx">
        <siteMapNode title="My Site" url="http://mysite.company.com/_layouts/mysite.aspx">
            <siteMapNode title="My Profile" url="http://mysite.company.com/person.aspx"/>
        </siteMapNode>
        <siteMapNode title="Collaboration" url="/Collaboration/Pages/Default.aspx"/>
        <siteMapNode title="News" url="/news/Pages/Default.aspx">
            <siteMapNode title="News 1" url="/news/news1/Pages/default.aspx"/>
            <siteMapNode title="News 2" url="/news/news2/Pages/default.aspx"/>
            <siteMapNode title="News 3" url="/news/news3/Pages/default.aspx"/>
        </siteMapNode>
    </siteMapNode>
</siteMap>

Finding out the hard way you cannot have any of the siteMap Node elements have the same url or title...

Please note that if you are placing this custom control on the mysite the relative links will have to be changed to absolute due to the fact that they reside in different web applications.

Next you will have to add in the custom control to your masterpage. This can be a bit tricky.
Copy the OOTB navigation control "<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderHorizontalNav" runat="server">"
Place this control in a <TR> tag right above the OOTB navigation control
Like in Sahil's blog post rename the DataSourceID= from in the custom control from "topSiteMap" to "xmlSiteMap"
You will also need to modify the content placeholder and menu ID's see highlighted items below:

Once you get it finally working your new navigation will have the following functions:

Tier 1: Global Navigation

Always Consistent
Not Security Trimmed
Manually configured on the server Via XML (I'm sure if you wanted to get tricky you could hook this up to custom list or something...)
Globally across site collections, web applications and even external applications if you wanted (Basically anything)

Tier 2: OOTB Local Navigation

Changes based on site collection
Security Trimmed
Configured through the UI
Only shows navigation within the site collection

So here is a screenshot of the custom two tier global navigation control:

Have fun customizing, and drop me a line if you have created something similar!

SharePoint Meeting Workspace: The red headed step child template...

noreply@blogger.com (Erik Swenson) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:02:00 +0000

I think we all know that building a custom design and master page requires lots of patience and open ended thinking.

The SharePoint Meeting Workspace template to say the least does not play nice with all of the other templates and master pages. These templates include the following:

Basic Meeting Workspace
Blank Meeting Workspace
Decision Meeting Workspace
Social Meeting Workspace
Multipage Meeting Workspace

Here is what the template normally looks like:

If you attempt to apply your custom master page to any one of these templates you will see something like this:

Note that the navigation tabs are gone and you get a message on the left saying: "There are no more meeting occurrences to select from." It also removes the function on the site actions to add or manage pages.

The issues above are caused because the controls below a not included into the regular "default.master" file. Microsoft decided that all meeting workspace site should use a different master page called "mwsdefault.master". This file is located on in the global folder on the 12 hive.

The following two controls make up the function for the custom site actions menu items

<Meetings:CustomToolPaneManager runat="server" __WebPartId="{E5EF4B97-0A6B-4E44-B210-813789452367}" __MarkupType="vsattributemarkup" WebPart="true" Height="" Width=""/>
<Meetings:PropertyBag runat="server"/>

This control is the driver for the tabs on the template.

<Meetings:PageTabsWebPart runat="server" __MarkupType="vsattributemarkup" WebPart="true" Height="" Width="" __WebPartId="{80A0AA76-9C8C-45B7-B01D-FF0F3E8CB8EC}" id="g_80a0aa76_9c8c_45b7_b01d_ff0f3e8cb8ec"/>

So what do you do now?

Well the best thing I would suggest is to take a copy of the mwsdefault.master and start adding in your customizations. You should not remove or hide any of the controls above as the functionality of the meeting workspaces will be gone.

Once you have all of your changes you will need to work with your developers on feature stapling your master page to a copy of the meeting workspace site definitions.

Comments, working now...

noreply@blogger.com (Erik Swenson) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:33:00 +0000

All, I want to apologize to all who wrote comments on my blog and never saw them published to the site. I did not know that I had a rule that stated any comment left 7 days after the published date would need approval. I have published all appropriate comments to my blog.

Again, Sorry for the delay. I will review and respond to all questions as soon as I can.

Thanks!

Stylize Individual Web Parts with a CEWP

noreply@blogger.com (Erik Swenson) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:32:00 +0000

The following instructions describe how to change the title bar, background color, and webpart title for one or more web parts on a specific page or site.

1) Navigate to the page or site that requires the styling

2) View the browser’s source code for the page: Page > View Source (IE7) or Use IE developer Toolbar DOM Explorer

Search the source using the title of the web part that requires separate styling (i.e. “News”, "Links" etc.)
From the “td” tag that contains the web part “title”, select the “id” from the grandparent “td” tag. For example, see the web part “title” and corresponding web part “id” highlighted below:

In this case, the “id” for the “News” web part is “MSOZoneCell_WebPartWPQ2”
Copy the “id” value

3) In the browser, edit the page: Site Actions > Edit Page

4) In one of the web part zones, add a new content editor web part. (It does not matter what zone this is added to since the web part will be hidden once editing is complete.)

In the “Edit” menu of the new content editor web part, select “Modify shared web part”, and then select “Source Editor”
In the pop-up window that appears, paste the following code, which includes the “id” value from the source code (here we use the example value in italics):

<Style>

/* Webpart Header Color */
# MSOZoneCell_WebPartWPQ2 .ms-wpheader td{
background-color: #006699;
}

/* Webpart Border Color */
# MSOZoneCell_WebPartWPQ2 .ms-wpborder{
border: 1px #FFCC00 solid;
background-color: #006699;
}

/* Webpart Title Text Color */
#MSOZoneCell_WebPartWPQ2 .ms-WPTitle A:link{
color:#FFFFFF;
}

/* Webpart Title Text Visited Color */
#MSOZoneCell_WebPartWPQ2 .ms-WPTitle A:visited{
color:#FFFFFF;
}

</Style>

Click “Save” in the pop-up window to save the changes
Expand the “Layout” section in the editing pane that appears on the right-side of the browser window
Select the check box labeled “Hidden” to ensure that the content editor web part will not be visible to users
Click “OK” in the editing pane to complete editing the web part

5) Determine the web part that is to be differentiated using this new styling

Under the “Edit” menu of this web part, select “Modify Shared Web part”
Expand the “Appearance” section of the web part editing pane
Scroll-down to the “Chrome Type” drop-down list and select “Title and Border”
Click “OK” in the editing pane to save the new settings for the web part

6) Repeat step 2 and add to step 4 for any additional web parts that require this styling

7) Click “Exit edit mode” in the top right of the browser to return

8) Refresh the browser to see the styling changes made to the selected web part(s)

Note: This solution only effects the current page, and if the web part changes position in its current zone, or is moved to another zone, the custom branding will follow the web part to its new position on the page. SharePoint assigns these webpart ID's as you add each webpart to the page, so if the webpart is removed and then added back to the page the styling you might get some unexpected results.

This can be considered a quick and dirty method. There are other options that will span all pages using a particular page layout by adding a div tag with a particular class around a webpart zone for which you can set a style per webpart zone area and not the webpart itself.

Thanks and happy styling!

Presenting at SharePoint Summit 2009!

noreply@blogger.com (Erik Swenson) — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 19:41:00 +0000

I have been selected to present at the 2009 SharePoint Summit in Montreal Canada on April 8th.

My Session: IA and Branding Process: Sketches to Wireframes to Hi-Fidelity Designs

Learn about proven methods to guide you from paper napkin sketches to hi-fidelity prototypes. Explore how to transition from each process and who is involved.

This session will entail the following:

Methods to gathering requirements
Benefits of a creative brief and Style guide
Understand what functional concepts are and how they can be used
Explore options on creating wireframes
Creating the Design Composition (Differences between design adaptation and custom design)
Building the design (CSS, Images, Master Pages, Page layouts, testing for multiple browsers and Mobile devices)

This track is designed for IA’s and Developers looking for proven methods for designing and branding their sites.

http://www.interdoc.com/site/SharePointSummit2009/conference_day2.htm#session_7_2

My Session Bio: http://www.interdoc.com/site/SharePointSummit2009/biography.htm#eswenson

My Co-worker Paul Galvin will also be presenting as well.

Paul's Session: http://www.interdoc.com/site/SharePointSummit2009/tutorials.htm#tutorial_e

Paul's Session Bio: http://www.interdoc.com/site/SharePointSummit2009/biography.htm#pjgalvin

I hope to see you all there!

Alternative way to Change Site Logo

noreply@blogger.com (Erik Swenson) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:59:00 +0000

OOTB SharePoint allows you to change the logo of the page from the default: titlegraphic.gif to another image by going into site settings > Title, Description, and Icon.

The following method is a way to add a new logo to your page with just CSS. If you wanted to make this more global you will need to use an alternate method to override the default CSS classes.

Upload your new logo to either the server or to a list on your site.
Add a Content Editor webpart to the page.
Add in the following to the source viewer.

<STYLE>
.ms-titleimagearea{
background-image:url("/_layouts/images/xyzcorp.gif");
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-position: top left;
}
#ctl00_onetidHeadbnnr0{
visibility: hidden;
height:130px;
width: 126px;
}
</STYLE>

In the example above I have uploaded the xyzcorp.gif logo to the images folder on the server.
Make sure you modify the elements above in bold green: logo name, height, and width (of logo).
Save the page and you should now have the new logo on the page.

Default:

Modified:

My Hats: The roles that I play

noreply@blogger.com (Erik Swenson) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:31:00 +0000

Like many of you out there, you have more then 1 hat. I have set a goal for myself to have a good understanding of all aspects of consulting and SharePoint with an addition to a few Specialties.

So here are my hats, drop me a comment with yours.

Senior Consultant: Attend sales calls, proposal creation, requirements gathering, knowledge transfers, etc..
SharePoint Administrator: Creating, Configuring, and Troubleshooting SharePoint systems.
SharePoint IA (Information Architecture): Taxonomy, Wireframe's, Layouts, Navigation.
SharePoint Branding: Visual Design, CSS, Photoshop, Master Pages, Page Layouts
SharePoint Governance: Gathering, Defining, and Delivering tailored plans. Also includes Communications, Vision, and Road Maps.
Mentor/trainer/Contributor: Help contribute to the community and increase productivity and delivery standards.
SharePoint Application Migration: Help analyze applications and function for migrations.

SharePoint Governance Meeting Breakdown

noreply@blogger.com (Erik Swenson) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 01:32:00 +0000

One of the things I have noticed is that if you throw out the word "Governance" you have some people say they don't have it but think it might be useful, and others who just run for d-hills. Its a normal reaction for people to not want restrictions or other people telling them how to use a system. But all in all it's best to have one.

Within this post I would like to break down some of the common elements that you might see in a SharePoint Governance Plan. Hopefully this will make it easier for scheduling meetings and for getting everyone on the same page.

I have broken out the following meetings into 4 sections: In my previous post about governance I stated that these plans are basically 1/2 Roles and Responsibilities and 1/2 Policies and Procedures. Please note that the time dedicated for each one of these meetings are estimations and should not be taken as written in stone.

Meeting #1: Overview
Meeting #2: People
Meeting #3: Support
Meeting #4: Policies/Procedures

Meeting #1: Overview

Date/Time	Meeting Topic(s)	Proposed Resources
~2 Hours	Overview of Governance Checklist/Base Document The primary objective of this plan is to establish the creation of a governing body for the usage and management of the SharePoint environments.	Core SharePoint Team Business Units App. Administrators

Meeting #2: People

Date/Time	Meeting Topic(s)	Proposed Resources
~2 Hours	Roles & Responsibilities / Locations The SharePoint environments will be managed by two types of groups made up of smaller teams: a strategic group and a tactical group. Regardless of the title, each team has a distinct role with distinct responsibilities. Core Team (PM's, Business Owners, Administrators) Infrastructure Service/Help Desk Application Administrators Application Developers Business Units (Owners, Contributors, Members) Trainers Business Analysis	Core SharePoint Team
~1 Hours	Governance Communication Communications will include the type of release, schedule, impact, and list of new or changed Web Parts.	Core SharePoint Team
~.5 Hours	Training Definition on where users get training, and in what format.	Core SharePoint Team Business Units
~2 Hours	Security / Permissions Defining policies around who can grant permissions and to what level.	Core SharePoint Team App. Administrators

Meeting #3: Support

Date/Time	Meeting Topic(s)	Proposed Resources
~1Hour	Search Responsibilities for relevancy settings expectation, Define Content Sources to be indexed, Usages of Keywords and Best Bets.	Core SharePoint Team
~1Hour	Release Schedule Schedules for Bug Fixes, Major Minor Releases. Dev, QA, Production Cycles and who signs off on it.	Core SharePoint Team App. Administrators Application Developers
~1Hour	Service Level Agreements (SLAs) Time estimations for site creations, Site Quotas, Escalation procedures, and Resource Availability	Core SharePoint Team Service/Help Desk
~.5 Hours	Testing Policies around Who, and what is required for testing. Mechanisms for testing feedback, and references to test plans	Core SharePoint Team Business Analysis

Meeting #4: Policies/Procedures

Date/Time	Meeting Topic(s)	Proposed Resources
~1Hour	Site Policies Defining Policies for some of the following: Templates, Upload sizes, Document Retention's, Document Management, Auditing, and Logs.	Core SharePoint Team App. Administrators Business Units
~1Hour	Site Provisioning Defining what metadata should be captured during the creation of a site, branding, quotas, Charge back models, and naming standards.	Core SharePoint Team
~1Hour	Site Use Confirmation & Deletion Policies around site monitoring, usage, and retention.	Core SharePoint Team App. Administrators Infrastructure
~1Hour	My Sites List of Features that will be enabled and for which users.	Core SharePoint Team Business Units
~1Hour	Change Management Process Definition of change request process, and issue ticketing.	Core SharePoint Team App. Administrators Service/Help Desk
~1Hour	Deployment / Customization Policies around 3^rd party webparts, Customization software (Visual Studio, SharePoint designer), Source Code Repositories, and Coding standards.	Core SharePoint Team App. Administrators Application Developers

A fix for the annoying line below the Main Navigation in publishing sites

noreply@blogger.com (Erik Swenson) — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 17:03:00 +0000

There are some things in SharePoint that you just have to take a second to shake your head in disbelief on why it was built that way. In most cases if you have been working with SharePoint as long as I have your perception on what is normal is a little skewed... To this point on many of my designs I have worked around this little gem. In most cases it does not effect the designs or I could create a simple fix for it.

One of the functions of a publishing site the is not available for a WSS site is the "Page Editing Toolbar".

This toolbar is only suppose to be visible if you either click on Site Actions > Edit page, or Site Actions > Show Page Editing Toolbar. This is technically not the case. If you look at the screenshot below you will see that there is a 1px high by 100% wide background color of #79a7e3 from the toolbar showing through into the design in normal mode: Normally you would think this would be a border bottom to the main navigation but it is not.

What I normally do is to take that "ms-consolemptablerow" class and just change the background color from #79a7e3 to "transparent".

This is especially important for designs that are very simple and do not need that extra line below the navigation.

Once you use the following css, the line will be removed.

.ms-consolemptablerow{
background-color: transparent;
}

You might ask yourself well how will this look if I edit the page and show the toolbar? Well this is where you start scratching your head... It actually is hidden from view when the toolbar is visible...

Try it for yourself, make the background red and view the page in non-edit mode, and then either view the toolbar or edit the page and see what happens... Its gone like Magic.

BG Red (Non Edit Page)	BG Red (Edit Page)

Go figure...

Benefits of VMware Workstation for Branding

noreply@blogger.com (Erik Swenson) — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:07:00 +0000

Just because I work for EMC does not mean that I have to use VMware over Virtual PC or any other Virtual OS software. I just find VMware very easy to use.

I have been using VMware for about 4 years now for all of my branding projects. I store them on an external drive and back it up frequently. This allows me to take all of my work on the road or to any client site as needed. As you can see from the screenshot on the left I normally start all of my projects from a base vanilla image of SharePoint. I have blurred out some of the names to protect my clients names.

On this image I have all of the tools I need to create my branding masterpieces. (SharePoint Designer, Office 2007, IE Developer Toolbar, and Visual Studio)

The great thing about VMware is that I can always go back to any of my past projects and make edits or changes as needed. Say for example you finished up a project about a month ago and you are knee deep into another project. When all of a sudden you get an email that there was this weird bug that needs to be fixed. All you would have to do is save a snapshot of your current project and open up the snapshot of the old project make the fix and you are done.

I guess the trick is to remember to save those snapshots. They really don't take up that much room on your drive.

If you have not tried out VMware you can try an evaluation copy here: http://www.vmware.com/products/ws/

Creating a Center Justified Fixed Width Design

noreply@blogger.com (Erik Swenson) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 14:29:00 +0000

If you have ever had the task of creating a SharePoint Design with a fixed width that is centered on the page here is a post that might help you. (Sorry about the length...)

In your alternate stylesheet add the following classes and properties:

body{
background-color:#EEE;
font-family:verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;
color:#000;
text-align: center;
padding-top: 20px;
}
.ms-main{
width: 980px;
border: 3px #006699 solid;
border-bottom: 0px #0066699 solid;
background-color:#FFF;
}
#mainTable{
width: 100%;
}

Here is an example of what the results of the code above would look like:

Simplified HTML from OOTB SharePoint

Basically if you look at the the simplified SharePoint's html and Classes above you will notice we are simply applying a light background color, Top Padding, and Text-Aligning property to the <Body> tag. This helps center the site, and brand it as a container.

As for the "ms-main" class we are setting the width of the site to be 980px (you can set this to what ever you like but If majority of your users are all 1024x768 or above I would recommend using this size.) I have also added in a border to help contain the site and a background color of white, so when classes that do not have a background color specified do not show the gray <body> background.

The reason why I needed to add the #mainTable class with a width of 100% is that there is a issue with the Web part picker that when you click on Add a Web Part it uses the class of ms-main and since that class now has a fixed width it does not display properly. See screenshot below: Notice you cannot see the "advanced web part gallery and options link or the ADD, and Cancel Buttons... To see them you have to expand the window. (Not a good experience for your users)

So by using the #mainTable class properties above to set the width to 100% you get the correct display of the Web Part Picker.

I guess the way the webpart picker works is that there is a masterpage that lives in the "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS" directory called "pickerdialog.master" and in this master page there is the following html:

<TABLE class="ms-main" CELLPADDING=0 CELLSPACING=0 BORDER=0 WIDTH="100%" HEIGHT="100%" id="mainTable">

I have simply taken the ID of that table to fix the issue with webpart picker. The reason why this works is that on the default masterpage this ID is not present.

If you dive deeper into the file there is a content place holder called: <asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderDialogBodySection" runat="server"/>

The file that defines this Content Control is located in the same directory called "webpartgallerypickerpage.aspx". This page has the classes that define the look and feel of the Webpart selection but not the outside container of the picker. The outside shell is controlled by the Master page listed above.

Sorry about the rant on the Picker but it is very important to know about how classes are shared across many different types of pages. That is why it is always a really good idea to make sure you dedicate enough time for testing!

Example: SharePoint Branding Install Instructions

noreply@blogger.com (Erik Swenson) — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 18:42:00 +0000

After all branding files have been created we as designers sometimes don't get the option to install and implement the visual design ourselves. So the creation of an Install Guide can be important in two ways.

Ability for the site owner/Administrator to have a back up guide on how to re-apply the visual design in case of a Disaster Recovery.
If someone other than the creator of the branding files needs to apply the branding due to security reasons/Location.

Below are some install instructions for a site with the following:

Publishing Site
Custom Master Page
Custom Page Layout
Custom CSS
Custom Images

Step 1: Enable Publishing Feature:

Enable the Office SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure Feature for the top level site collection.

Click on Site Actions > Modify All Site Settings
Click on Site collection features
Make sure the "Office SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure" is Active

Enable the Office SharePoint Server Publishing for the site.

Click on Site Actions > Modify All Site Settings
Click on Site features
Make sure the "SharePoint Server Publishing" is Active

Step 2: Images:

Go to the following directory on the server (if there are more than 1 web server make sure this is done on each)

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\IMAGES
Copy over the “XYZ_Images” folder.

Step 3: Styles:

Go to the following directory on the server (if there are more than 1 web server make sure this is done on each)

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\1033\STYLES
Copy over the “XYZ_Styles” folder.

Step 4: Upload Master Page and Page Layout:

From the top level site collection do the following:

Click on Site Actions > Modify All Site Settings
Click on “Master pages and page layouts”
Upload both the “XYZ_Custom.master” and “XYZ_PageLayout.aspx” files. Make sure these files are Checked in as a major version, and Accepted if approval is required.
Change the XYZ_Custom.master file properties to the following:

Content Type: Publishing Master Page

Change the XYZ_PageLayout.aspx file properties to the following:

Content Type: Page Layout
Content Type Group: Page Layout Content Type
Content Type Name: Welcome Page

Step 5: Apply Master Page and Alt CSS:

From the top level site collection do the following:

Click on Site Actions > Modify All Site Settings
Click on “Master page”
Choose the “XYZ_Custom.master” for both the Site Master Page, and the System Master Page.

Check off the boxs to reset all sub sites.

At the bottom of the page click on Specify a CSS to be used… and paste in the following path:

/_layouts/1033/styles/xyz_styles/xyzstyle.css
Check off the box to reset all sub sites.

Step 6: Apply Page Layout:

From the top level site collection do the following:

Click on Site Actions > Edit Page
In the Toolbar click on the “Page” button then “Page Settings”
Under Page Layout section choose “xyz_PageLayout.aspx” from the drop down

Drop me a note if you found this useful!

Knowing the basics of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)

noreply@blogger.com (Erik Swenson) — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 17:17:00 +0000

If you want to know more about CSS and how to use it, there are many great resources out there that can help you get started: I would start with http://www.w3schools.com/Css/default.asp

Here are the basics that you will use:

Syntax
selector {property: value;}

External Style Sheet - (Added within the <head> tags)
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css" />

Internal Style - (Added within the <head> tags)
<style type="text/css">
selector {property: value;}
</style>

Inline Style- (Added within the <body> tags)
<tag style="property: value">

Or use the following table with some of the most basic Properties. I am using the .MS-Main class as a reference for all of the examples below.

Properties	Example	Other Values
Backgrounds
background-color	.MS_Main{ background-color: #000000 }	black rgb(0,0,0) transparent
background-image	.MS_Main{ background-image: url(imgname.gif); }	none
background-position	.MS_Main{ background-position: top left; }	top center top right bottom right x% y% xpos ypos (Many Others)
background-repeat	.MS_Main{ background-repeat: no-repeat; }	repeat repeat-X repeat-Y
background-attachment	.MS_Main{ background-attachment: fixed; }	scroll
Borders
border	.MS_Main{ border: 1px #000000 solid; }	none
Element Position and Visibility
display Note: You will never use display none for the body of you website.	.MS_Main{ display: none; }	Block (Many others)
visibility	.MS_Main{ visibility: hidden; }	visible collapse
position	.MS_Main{ position: relative; top: 10px; left: 10px; }	static absolute fixed
Heights and Widths
height	.MS_Main{ height: 400px; }	auto length (px) %
width	.MS_Main{ width: 980px; }	auto length (px) %
Fonts and text treatments
Font-family	.MS_Main{ Font-family: arial, sans-serif; }	Times, Serif (many Others)
Font-size	.MS_Main{ Font-size: 12pt; }	10px 1.1em x-large
Font-style	.MS_Main{ Font-style: italic; }	normal oblique
Font-weight	.MS_Main{ Font-style: bold; }	normal bolder lighter 100 (Many Others)
Text-align	.MS_Main{ Text-align: center; }	left right justify
Text-decoration	.MS_Main{ Text-decoration: underline; }	none overline line-through blink
Line-height	.MS_Main{ Line-height: 20px; }	normal number length (px) %
Spacing of Elements
Padding	.MS_Main{ Padding: 20px; }	padding-top padding-left (Many Others)
Margin	.MS_Main{ margin: 10px; }	margin-top margin-left (Many Others)
Pseudo-classes
Hover Note: you apply this pseudo class after the class name to achieve a hover state effect.	.MS_Main:hover { Background-color: #CC0000; }
Transparencies Note: You can make a class’s opacity to give it a transparent look.	.MS_Main: { filter:alpha(opacity=50); -moz-opacity:0.5; -khtml-opacity: 0.5; opacity: 0.5; }
!Important tag Note: Sometimes your css will not override hardcoded inline styles or ids so you can simply force the style with the !important tag.	.MS_Main{ Background-color: #CC0000 !important; }

Differences between Classes and ID's

A class is referenced in the HTML as the following:
<td class="ms-main"></td>

Notice the class does not have the "." period in front of it. To add style to this class you would use the following syntax:
.ms-main {color: red;}

A ID is referenced in the HTML as the following:
<DIV ID="ms-main"></DIV>

To add style to this class you would use the following syntax:
#ms-main {color: red;}

So if you can remember that Classes use (.) periods and ID's Use (#) Pound signs you should be golden.