SharePoint 2010 website design help needed

[cbrookhart]

I'm working on a website design using SharePoint 2010. I haven't had the opportunity to work with this application before, so I'm looking for some help in getting started. The basic site is already started, but I need to make a lot of layout changes.

[Dick Montage]

Layout changes how?  I mean, if you are new to SharePoint, I suggest not deviating much from the stock templates and concentrating on functionality for now.

 

And for the level you are at, I say screw off Visual Studio and get SharePoint Designer (or whatever they are banding FrontPage as these days).

[cbrookhart]

Layout changes how?  I mean, if you are new to SharePoint, I suggest not deviating much from the stock templates and concentrating on functionality for now.

 

And for the level you are at, I say screw off Visual Studio and get SharePoint Designer (or whatever they are banding FrontPage as these days).

 

I'm basically picking up where someone else left off with the site. Right now, the site essentially consists of medium-sized company logo near the top left of the page. To the right of the logo and sort of centered on the page is a directory listing. There are then a few links at the bottom of the page. What I'm going to need to do is move the text which consists of the directory over to the right side of the page. I'm then going to need to make a few department sub pages in the form of a navigation menu on the left side.

 

Is SharePoint Designer going to be the best option to go with? For inserting text, is it basically just clicking where the text will be and then making adjustments with alignment and the decrease/increase indent?

[Dick Montage]

You've no real SharePoint experience do you?  Not condescending, am genuinely asking...

 

You can edit the page and drag/drop the elements you speak of.  Insert text controls and so on...

 

But yes, SP Designer (under your Office license) is best :)

[cbrookhart]

I honestly don't have any SharePoint experience. I hope that doesn't prevent me from accomplishing something with regards to modifying the existing site design.

I will have time this week to work on the site, but I did try copying and pasting some existing text to a new location and noticed that the line spacing want consistent and the header text lost it's formatting. I was looking for a format painter type option, but didn't find one. I'll look into getting SharePoint designer installed.

[Dick Montage]

So, gotta ask - if not SharePoint Designer - what app were you using?

 

And look - SharePoint pages - you don't put content on a page itself.  You use templates and place webparts :)

[pack34]

I honestly don't have any SharePoint experience. I hope that doesn't prevent me from accomplishing something with regards to modifying the existing site design.

I will have time this week to work on the site, but I did try copying and pasting some existing text to a new location and noticed that the line spacing want consistent and the header text lost it's formatting. I was looking for a format painter type option, but didn't find one. I'll look into getting SharePoint designer installed.

 

I used to do a fair amount of SharePoint work and with designer it makes it dead simple to configure the master pages to do a large amount of the custom page layout, formatting, and branding you need. For anything content wise though, stick to the web interface. That's what SharePoint is for, dead simple webpart based content, calendars, data sharing, etc. If you try to hard code stuff into pages you'll just end up breaking stuff down the line and/or whenever someone else goes in and adds a webpart/moves something your hard coded adjustments will break.

[ShiZZa]

to change some of the layout you will need to look at the master pages.  A page in SharePoint get assigned a Master Page.  Think of the Master Page as the template that wraps the parts.

[cbrookhart]

I know I can edit the page by navigating to the site and then from the site actions menu, selecting edit page. That's what I've been doing in the short amount of time I've had to look at editing the page. How would the site be loaded into SharePoint designer for editing?

[pack34]

I know I can edit the page by navigating to the site and then from the site actions menu, selecting edit page. That's what I've been doing in the short amount of time I've had to look at editing the page. How would the site be loaded into SharePoint designer for editing?

 

It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure you can just add your site with a URL and then your login credentials.

[Dick Montage]

Open sharepoint designer, file, open site, open page from folder

[cbrookhart]

I've managed to create a desired layout for the main site. The one thing I am having difficulty with is trying to link to a network folder. In conducting research on how to do this, I found that I have to create the link as follows: file://servername. In my case, I am mapping to a network folder that is on the Y:\ drive, so I am putting in file://Y:\folderpathfile://servername actually becomes file:///servername once editing is done.

[cbrookhart]

After working on the site for a few days, I have been able to put together a homepage. My organization apparently has disabled the ability to use SharePoint Designer. Apparently they feel that sites should be edited by people with the proper permissions and without the need to have software installed on the workstation. With that being said, I am limited to editing the site directly from the web browser.

 

One issue that I am having a problem with is a table layout. I decided that I wanted to have a simple 2 x 2 table that would contain frequently used links. While I could probably have just created a list, I thought perhaps a table would look better. The issue I am having with the table layout is when it comes to linking to a network folder or to a file which has been uploaded to the shared documents, or even to an external website.

 

As an example, if the table were setup as follows:

 

Link 1      Link 2

Link 3      Link 4

 

The text physically fits inside the cell, although SharePoint is making the cell width wider than it needs to be. Then, when I go to provide the location to where Link 1 will point to, the cell width expands to twice the size it needs to be and in some instances, it forces a new table row to be created. This in turn has created problems with the HTML code in the table. Links aren't able to be clicked simply because extra code (such as < a >) has somehow been inserted. 

 

What I'd like to find out is if the table would be any easier to work with in SharePoint Designer and if the extra code insertion would be an issue if SharePoint Designer were to be used.

[Dick Montage]

My organization apparently has disabled the ability to use SharePoint Designer. Apparently they feel that sites should be edited by people with the proper permissions and without the need to have software installed on the workstation.

 

They are quite frankly asses and have no idea what they are talking about.

 

SP Designer is Microsofts prescribed too for editing the layout of Microsoft SharePoint.

[ShiZZa]

They are quite frankly asses and have no idea what they are talking about.

 

SP Designer is Microsofts prescribed too for editing the layout of Microsoft SharePoint.

 

Here is my take on this.  cbrookhart is not in a role of developer and they might even have developer workstation images, gpos, etc...  I have a feeling he is helping his department with something and not going through proper channels based on where he works and they are trying to get something done because IT / Developer Group might not be able to get something done.

[Dick Montage]

Quite possible - but the time he has spent on this - for a company to allow such a thing is a huge waste of time - because eventually they will need a developer rather than someone who can have a go...

[ShiZZa]

I've managed to create a desired layout for the main site. The one thing I am having difficulty with is trying to link to a network folder. In conducting research on how to do this, I found that I have to create the link as follows: file://servername. In my case, I am mapping to a network folder that is on the Y:\ drive, so I am putting in file://Y:\folderpathfile://servername actually becomes file:///servername once editing is done.

 

I would not recommend putting a network link in sharepoint.  Reason for this, is because odds are the user will be authenticated as themselves and navigating the site as themselves.  Now the user and not sharepoint will have to have permissions to this network drive.  And if its not nothing pisses off a user more then leaving an application for another window.  Its a context change.  Its not that its really hard.  You could just use a list.