Heather Watermanhttp://www.heatherwaterman.comRSS feed for the Posts list.Sat, 04 Jul 2009 08:15:05 GMTSharePoint CKS:EBE60Heather Watermanhttp://www.heatherwaterman.com/_layouts/images/homepage.gifhttp://www.heatherwaterman.comUStream Video of my Share Point Branding Presentationhttp://www.heatherwaterman.com/archive/2009/06/25/.aspx/archive/2009/06/25/.aspx

Eric Harlan was nice enough to watch and record my very first SharePoint presentation. 

Check out Eric’s site for more presentation videos from SharePoint Saturdays.  You may have to turn up the sound a bit to hear everything.  Let me know what you think!

]]>Heather WatermanThu, 25 Jun 2009 11:32:16 GMTBranding a site live….http://www.heatherwaterman.com/archive/2009/06/23/.aspx/archive/2009/06/23/.aspx

For SharePoint Saturday in Charlotte, I quickly branded a SharePoint site live.

6-19-2009 2-09-15 PMI found a simple template off of the PixelMill site, one that I thought would match the layout of SharePoint pretty well.  Next I used the minimal master page from Heather Solomon. 

After making a few changes to master page to make it more WSS friendly I showed the attendees how to merge the two together. 

I will start a series on this session showing you have to take a WSS out of the box SharePoint site and transform it to this…

Have a great day and thanks for reading!

]]>Heather WatermanTue, 23 Jun 2009 10:16:37 GMTPresenting at SharePoint Saturday in Charlottehttp://www.heatherwaterman.com/archive/2009/06/18/.aspx/archive/2009/06/18/.aspx

I am going to be co-presenting with Michael Lotter on Branding at the SharePoint Saturday event in Charlotte.  SharePoint Saturday is a great event and I was lucky enough to attend the one last weekend in Chicago.  I am very happy to have the opportunity to share my knowledge of branding with the attendees.  And I cannot wait to meet some awesome SharePoint people (you know who you are).  Thank you to Dan Lewis for organizing this event!

Have a great day all, and thanks for reading.

]]>Heather WatermanThu, 18 Jun 2009 10:57:00 GMTSteps to building XHTML compliant and performing MOSS publishing siteshttp://www.heatherwaterman.com/archive/2009/06/15/steps-to-building-xhtml-compliant-and-performing-moss-publishing-sites.aspx/archive/2009/06/15/steps-to-building-xhtml-compliant-and-performing-moss-publishing-sites.aspx

wrouterWouter van Vugt, with Code Carousel Blogs posted 8 steps to building XHTML compliant MOSS publishing sites and keeping them performing. 

Read the full post: ...building XHTML compliant and performing MOSS publishing sites...

 

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]]>Heather WatermanTue, 28 Apr 2009 07:53:00 GMTTwitter for SharePoint?http://www.heatherwaterman.com/archive/2009/06/15/twitter-for-sharepoint.aspx/archive/2009/06/15/twitter-for-sharepoint.aspx

Daniel McPhersonFor those of you that are in an organization where you are blocked from using Twitter, this could be for you.  Daniel McPherson just added a post to his blog (www.zevenseas.com) about Twitter for SharePoint. 

Here’s some teaser info straight from his blog….

How it works…

    • It integrates with the “My Colleagues” functionality which you can find on your MOSS “My site”. This integration means that you “Follow” anyone you make your “Colleague”.
    • When you want to send someone a message you use the normal “@<person>” syntax. The current version defaults to using your Windows Account Name (without the domain)
    • Its a “Site” based feature which you can activate wherever you like. So it could be part of your “My Site” or it could sit on a “Twitter hub” in its own dedicated Web Application.

Here is the link to Daniels blog post in it’s entirety.  http://community.zevenseas.com/Blogs/Daniel/archive/2009/04/24/twitter-for-sharepoint.aspx.

]]>Heather WatermanFri, 24 Apr 2009 07:56:00 GMTSharePointCustom Login Page for FBA on your SharePoint site.http://www.heatherwaterman.com/archive/2009/06/15/custom-login-page-for-fba-on-your-sharepoint-site-.aspx/archive/2009/06/15/custom-login-page-for-fba-on-your-sharepoint-site-.aspx

I am not a SharePoint techie by any means, but when something comes along that is simple enough for me then I will share. 

I am working on a clients site and they requested a custom login page for their FBA.  Here are some of the basics of how I was able to get it to work.  First things first, (this was taken from the forum where the basic how to question was posted – I have tweaked the text a little.)

This is a common task when setting up FBA and/or ExCM. It is best practice to not edit existing WSS or MOSS files.

  • 1. Navigate to the the SharePoint 12 hive...
  • C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS
    2. Copy the login.aspx page and rename it to your custom page name (customlogin.aspx). – I did it a bit different.
  • 3.  Tell SharePoint the new login page name.  This can be done from the web.config file of your FBA zone. Modify the loginUrl attribute of the <forms /> tag.  Change the login.aspx name to the page that you created in step 2.

ExCM ships with different sample login pages. Some include a 'Forgot my password', others include links to the ExCM registration pages. You can find these examples here… C:\Program Files\SharePoint Solutions\Extranet Collaboration Manager\Customizations.  This directory also includes samples for login pages which match your publishing or team site.

I started  with a new .aspx page and added the code below and then named my page customlogin.aspx. We changed the web.config file to look for our new aspx page.  With some guidance from another colleague, we created a very simple customlogin.aspx page.     

<script runat=”Server”>
        protected override void OnLoad(EventArgs e)
        {
            Response.Write(“This is from the onload event”);
            base.OnLoad(e);
        }
    </script>
    <html>
         <body> 
             <form runat=”Server”> 
                 <asp:login id=”login” runat=”Server” /> 
             </form> 
         </body>

    </html>

Once this was done then we tested the page out and everything worked. Now all that is left to do, is to brand the page. 

Remember since this page (customlogin.aspx) is living in the _layouts directory, it’s best to create a feature from your custom master page,  That way pointing to the style sheet and any images, used in your page, is simplified.

I will update you later on the final results and any other challenges we face.

 

]]>Heather WatermanFri, 24 Apr 2009 07:54:00 GMTSharePoint Designer is now Officially FREEhttp://www.heatherwaterman.com/archive/2009/06/15/sharepoint-designer-is-now-officially-free.aspx/archive/2009/06/15/sharepoint-designer-is-now-officially-free.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx is the download link to your copy of SharePoint Designer.  

Here’s a link to the Q&A on the Licensing Changes http://office.microsoft.com (thanks Joel O.)

 

]]>Heather WatermanThu, 02 Apr 2009 14:53:00 GMTSharePointCustom List Forms and Redirecting after Update | The Sydney SharePoint Developer, Trainer and Consultanthttp://www.heatherwaterman.com/archive/2009/06/15/custom-list-forms-and-redirecting-after-update-|-the-sydney-sharepoint-developer-trainer-and-consultant.aspx/archive/2009/06/15/custom-list-forms-and-redirecting-after-update-|-the-sydney-sharepoint-developer-trainer-and-consultant.aspx

 

Custom List Forms and Redirecting after Update | The Sydney SharePoint Developer, Trainer and Consultant

If you are looking for a method of creating a thank you page or any other page after the user has submitted a form, check out the post link above.

I used this on a customer site and it worked like a charm.  Thanks to www.sharepointings.com for a great post.

]]>Heather WatermanTue, 20 Jan 2009 13:53:00 GMTCustomizing SharePointDesigning a Centered Fixed Width WSS Sitehttp://www.heatherwaterman.com/archive/2009/06/15/designing-a-centered-fixed-width-wss-site.aspx/archive/2009/06/15/designing-a-centered-fixed-width-wss-site.aspx

I am about to release some centered skins that are a fixed width.  These have a background image that is very easy to change.  Before these can be sold, I have to overcome a few issues when using a background image and trying to use a centered content area.

When creating skins I try to stay hands off the master page as much as possible.  So some of the changes that I make are perhaps adding a class to a table or adding a link to a CSS file. 

OOTB the master page has a class applied to the table called .ms-main, so my first order of business is to add some styling to the .ms-main.

.ms-main {
    background: #fff;  width: 1020px !important;
    height: 100%; margin: 0px auto !important;}

Now my master page will be a fixed width.

Next I want to center my page in my browser.  I added the align=”center” to my table with the .ms-main class.

I also add to my CSS some code to make sure everything gets moved to the center and that it will look right in the browser.

body {text-align: center; margin: 0px auto;}

I am going to add to more changes to my master page, an ID to the form and to the body tag.

<BODY class="mybody" scroll="yes" …">
  <form id="myform" runat="server" onsubmit…>

So now I have a little more control over the body tag, the form, and the main table.  I am going to go one step further and add a content wrapper around my table area (I like control).  This is just a div with the ID contentwrapper.

<div id="contentwrapper">
    <table class="ms-main" width="100%" height="100%" align="center">

QUICK TIP: Instead of scrolling down to the bottom and making sure you are at the closing part of a selection, in SharePoint Designer try this: hit CTRL SHIFT and ; (semicolon) and the selection will be highlighted for you.

Now I have my master page with the changes; the CSS link, the IDs/Classes on the body, form and added a wrapper.

Your site should now have a fixed width centered page that you can work with.

Here is my CSS code so far:

body {text-align: center; margin: 0px auto;}

body .mybody #contentwrapper, /* controlling my master page */
body #aspnetForm /* this helps with control on the _layouts pages */

{height: 100%;  margin: 0px auto !important;}

#aspnetForm {height: 100%;} 

#myform {background: none !Important;}

.ms-main { background: #fff;  width: 1020px !important;    height: 100%;
     margin: 0px auto !important;}

Looks good, but I have one problem.  Since I set my body to text-align: center, my RTE is out of wack.

Here is where that extra control will help.  I want to tell my .ms-main to align the text to left, so I add table.ms-main {text-align: left} to my CSS.  With some searching I finally figured out what class I needed to control the centering of the RTE body.

The RTE has a class of its own called .ms-BuilderBackground.  So I add

body.ms-BuilderBackground {
    text-align: left !important;}

to my CSS and my RTE is now aligned left.

So far this is pretty cool and I could brand my site from here but I want to show you one more step.  Let’s add a background image.

For demo purposes I am just picking a random image and have placed the CSS file and the image file in the master page gallery.

I added a line to my CSS style for my body…

body .mybody #contentwrapper, /* this is for my master page */
body #aspnetForm /* this is for my _layouts pages */

{height: 100%;
 background: url('pmblog-bg.jpg') no-repeat center top;

margin: 0px auto !important;}

Now I have a cool background to my site, but what about the RTE, lets see what’s happened there.

Not bad, but I can see some of the image creeping in at the top and since I am picky I don’t want anything there.

To remove the background image from my RTE, I add a new line of CSS

body.ms-BuilderBackground #aspnetForm
{background-image: none !important;}

Voila – I now have a Fixed Width Centered Master Page with a background image that does not interfere with the RTE.

There is one more thing I have to add to my CSS file to make sure the other parts are working. For instance when I want to add a webpart to my page, the box that pops up is missing the ADD and CANCEL button and has inherited the background image.

With more research I find the classes I will need to add to my CSS style sheet to fix this problem.

body table#mainTable {
    background: #fff;
    height: 100%;
    width: 100% !important;}

#WebpartPickerTable {height: 100%;}

After this has been added my Web Part Picker Table has the ADD and CANCEL button and no background image.

And with my skinning technique the _layouts pages has the same look and feel as the main pages.

Here is the CSS code I used:

body {text-align: center; margin: 0px auto;}

body .mybody #contentwrapper,
body #aspnetForm {
    height: 100%;
      background: url('pmblog-bg.jpg') no-repeat center top;
    margin: 0px auto !important;}

#aspnetForm {height: 100%;}

#myform {background: none !Important;}

.ms-main {
    background: #fff;
    width: 1020px !important;
    height: 100%;
     margin: 0px auto !important;}

table.ms-main {text-align: left;}

body.ms-BuilderBackground {
    text-align: left !important;}

body.ms-BuilderBackground #aspnetForm {background-image: none !important;}

body table#mainTable {
    background: #fff;
    height: 100%;
    width: 100% !important;}

#WebpartPickerTable {height: 100%;}

Give it a try and let me know how it works for you.

 

]]>Heather WatermanMon, 22 Dec 2008 07:04:00 GMTEnhanced Rich Text for SharePoint Extendedhttp://www.heatherwaterman.com/archive/2009/06/15/enhanced-rich-text-for-sharepoint-extended.aspx/archive/2009/06/15/enhanced-rich-text-for-sharepoint-extended.aspx

My friend Boris (B4Contact) has just released an extended RTE for SharePoint.  Now it is much easier to embed code.  All of this is done with JavaScript so there is no server side code.

Be sure to check this out on CodePlex and also check out his blog.

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]]>Heather WatermanMon, 22 Dec 2008 07:03:00 GMT