A CSS Challenge from Fred:
Make lists look like basic MS-Office tables:
- dark background header row with white text
- alternate rows with light color background
- dark bottom borders on every rows
Here is the CSS to start your list/library styles! Continue reading
If you are headed to SPTechCon in Boston this July, please stop by one of our sessions and say hello! The conference is running a registration special through June 15th. Save $400 bucks. 
Our sessions…
DUSTIN MILLER
See how easy it is to bend SharePoint’s XSL-based list view (a.k.a. the Data View Web Part) to your will, creating a view that generates any HTML and JavaScript your geeky heart desires. And now, learn how to do it without using SharePoint Designer. With just a Web browser, you’ll learn the secrets of creating magical, powerful and totally customized list views. Web designers and developers: Don’t miss this session!
DUSTIN MILLER and HEATHER SOLOMON
HTML5 is the new Web hotness. If it seems daunting, or you think you have to scrap what you have now and start over, then check out this class. Learn how to easily convert your existing SharePoint master page to HTML5 while creating better structure for your content. And yes, everyone will still be able to access your site!
HEATHER SOLOMON
Master pages are so yesterday. The real key to branding SharePoint is CSS. Update SharePoint controls, create different branded versions of your Web site, and write crafty CSS statements that override inline SharePoint styles. Become best friends with descendent selectors, pseudo selectors and attribute selectors. We will round out the class with taking a look at the many things CSS3 has to offer.
My golden site design coding rule is site design supporting images are only referenced through the CSS. This would include logos, header images, gradation bars, decorative backgrounds, etc. Content supporting images (like Bob and Joe hanging at the company picnic) are content supporting images and therefore can end up in other places outside of CSS.
A question that often comes up when I teach this is “what about the ALT text value for the image?”. Continue reading
Sigh, the ribbon. Those two words manage to give most SharePoint developers and designers the chills. And not necessarily in the good way. While the ribbon provides a lot of cool interactivity and functionality for our end users, you just look at it wrong and stuff can go whacky in your SharePoint site. This is the first post in a series dedicated to working with the ribbon. Let’s start off with reviewing what the ribbon really is and what code bits are involved. Continue reading
In just about every SharePoint site I customize and every CSS demo I do for people, I always use CSS to convert the SharePoint site title to a clickable logo, much like how we see all across the web. Having your company logo in the upper left corner of your web site that when clicked takes you back to the home page is a very established usability pattern. People just expect it! Continue reading
So, seeing this error?
The user interface of the master page cannot be determined. Do you want to continue?
In SharePoint 2010 the master pages can be assigned to User Interface (UI) Version 3, 4 or even both. What this error message means is that your master page has not been assigned a UI Version. This is a super quick thing you can fix. Continue reading
Switching your SharePoint site from a fluid width (how it is setup out-of-the-box with v4.master or nightandday.master) is a simple task. It requires one change to the master page and the addition of one style statement. Where things get tricky is how to go from there in regards to handling the scroll bar SharePoint automatically generates under the docked ribbon. But let’s get the easy part done first. Continue reading
Updated my Magic Data View Builder with cool new features. Info and video in the original post.
Want to make SharePoint output the markup YOU want when you create a List View?
Updated! Check out the new features below…with new video, too!
For years, I’ve advised people who have the guts and the skills to ditch Visual Studio and learn more about XSL, CSS and JavaScript (including libraries like jQuery). Maybe I’m a rebel, I don’t know, but I don’t need to write C# to create a kick-ass front end component for SharePoint. So much can be done with the product out of the box, it just takes a creative approach.
Many people know me as the original proponent of the Data View Web Part, first introduced back when WSS v2.0 was released. While SharePoint has come a long way since then, the web developer experience for creating custom views hasn’t. Last week, as I was rehearsing my demonstrations for my SP TechCon session (on, naturally, the Data View Web Part) it occurred to me: This could be easier. Easier to demonstrate. Easier to write. Easier to get excited about. Easier to get the creative juices flowing.
Heather and I have been having a blast at SP TechCon in San Francisco, and we will be updating this post with resources to share with attendees to our sessions.
Heather and I demonstrated that HTML5 can be used in your SharePoint sites today, and it isn’t rocket science! After a lively discussion with the audience, we started the demos!
First, Heather demonstrated a sample HTML5 page with simple, semantic markup. Then, using the a copy of her “Just the Essentials” Master Page, she added some of the new HTML5 elements like <header>, <nav> and <footer>.
Then, I took the wheel to show how you can get any kind of markup you want from any SharePoint list. Creating a new view of the announcements list (Insert → Data View → Empty Data View), I wiped out the data view and replaced it with my own custom “Baseline DVWP.xsl” file to render the Announcements list with HTML5 markup.
Here we go again – More CSS goodness for your SharePoint sites! First, Heather brings up this awesome CSS Specificity chart called “CSS Specifishity“.
Based on Heather’s new approach to writing CSS for SharePoint, she showed several samples of writing style statements that simply have a stronger specificity score/weight than what is being applied to a SharePoint component. For example:
a[id$=editPageLink] {
background: red;
}
The above style statement targets the “Edit this Page” link in a SharePoint wiki page by looking for specific text at the end of the anchor’s ID value. There is no need to track down the style statements used by SharePoint and make copies of these long style selectors; that just adds more baggage to your CSS file. Instead use a tool like Firebug in Firefox to identify and build your own selector. Heather showed style statement samples for editing table views, controlling a web part based on location and a quick trick for controlling form inputs based on type.
I was super pumped to do this session. I will blog more about it real soon, but I have come up with a new, and in my view, wildly efficient way to create custom views of your SharePoint data with XSL. While I work feverishly on a detailed post discussing my new “Magic Data View Builder” template, here’s a quick recap:
First, I demonstrated replacing a List View Web Part’s “XSL Link” property with the URL to a copy of the Magic Data View Builder template, which I uploaded to a document library. On refresh, you’re given a starter template for your own custom list view.
Using that starter template, I created an HTML5 version of the announcements list, marked up as a series of articles. Then, I showed how to create a bar chart using the HTML5 Canvas and a tasks list. Finally, a custom view of a Contacts list including embedded HTML5 Microdata in the hCard format. I had a blast, and I will be writing a super-deep dive article soon outlining my new method of creating custom Data View Web Parts – without SharePoint Designer.