Dustin Miller and Heather Solomon contribute regularly to NothingButBranding.com (NBB), a SharePoint resource site dedicated to helping people make SharePoint a better tool for their sites and users. Here are quick links to the articles they have authored:
Mega Menus for SharePoint
In this three part series, Heather Solomon and Dustin Miller will explore the ever-popular “Mega Menu”, and how to create a powerful, styled and functional mega menu for use on your SharePoint sites. In this first part, the focus is on the HTML markup and CSS styling to used to create this oft-requested UI element.
A common misconception about SharePoint master pages is that you need several of them. In our SharePoint UI/UX class, Dustin and I meet people who have created several master pages for their SharePoint sites(s) due to branding and site layout needs. Based on design differences, a master page is created for the home page, another master page for the sub pages, and perhaps even another master page for sub site(s) that need different branding and/or layout. There are very few reasons to have more than one master page, and differing home page vs. sub page vs. sub site designs isn’t one of them. Keep reading…
Our last article talked about creating your custom designs in SharePoint using only a single Master Page. From the very first delivery of our SharePoint UI/UX Class, our students have excitedly jumped on board – it’s amazing just how much you can do with a single master page! One student in particular spoke up: “Okay, great, one master page to rule them all. What about one CSS file? Any fancy tricks that will let me keep all my design work for all the sites and site collections in my entire farm in a single CSS file? Even those department sites that want different colors?” It didn’t seem like too much to ask. Keep reading…
A commonly misunderstood component of SharePoint is the navigation. We are frequently asked in class about how to make changes to the navigation and when we cover it, people are really surprised and honestly, it is pretty anti-climatic! Here are a few things everyone should know about manipulating SharePoint navigation. Keep reading…
CSS is a wonderful tool for branding SharePoint; unfortunately SharePoint 2010 has done a decent job of making things pretty hairy and confusing with working with CSS in a SharePoint site. Something we get asked all the time in our classes is “where do I link to my custom CSS file?” Great question and the answer isn’t just “from your master page”. Keep reading…
I often get questions about how can a particular web part be branded separately from all the rest or be branded by type. For example you want every Contacts list to have a green header bar instead of a tan header bar. Or perhaps you want a column of web parts on a page to look different than the main area that contains other web parts. Continue reading →
This is part three in a multi-part series. The predecessor of this post is Part 2: Creating the Design in SharePoint.
Depending on the customization method you selected (CSS, Theme or Master Page), at this point you have probably managed to alter parts of your SharePoint site. This part of the article series will focus on how to change the look and feel of SharePoint components that you don’t necessarily have direct or ultimate control over. Continue reading →
Oh SharePoint. It can be wonderful, and it can irritate you to no end. Don’t get me wrong, I really do like this application, but I admit to some dark moments in my past screaming at the monitor at yet another bit of text
or color that has appeared looking like the “old SharePoint” in my new custom design. Continue reading →
This is part two in a multi-part series. The predecessor of this post is Part 1: Designing your SharePoint Site.
In the first part of this series we covered some items to help get you started in creating a comp for your SharePoint site design. Now that you have a design ready to go, it is time to determine how you are going to implement your design. Continue reading →
Minimal or Base Master Pages
The following is a collection of stripped down master pages for your use with SharePoint 2007 sites. The master pages that ship with SharePoint (default.master, blueband.master, etc) are full of formatting code for the respective design for the master page, so to create your own master page you have to copy a master page and strip out all of formatting code (HTML, etc) in the file. With these base master pages, I have done that step for you, plus included comments tagging the Content Placeholders so you quickly identify the Content Placeholders and handle them how you see fit. Continue reading →
In SharePoint 2007, you may run into display issues with the form fields for Search Center. I am not referring to the Search inputs usually located in the header area, but the actual Search Center site (http://site.com/SearchCenter)
and the search area located near the top of the page under the horizontal
navigation: Continue reading →
With Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0, we can use the
Content Query Web Part (CQW or CQWP) to display SharePoint content from another source on a SharePoint page.
This web part is rather nifty and one of my new favorite things about MOSS 2007.
At first glance you tend to pass it by, then when you see what it can do, it is
pretty cool. Imagine if you will, creating a list in SharePoint 2003 and
then adding it as a web part to your WSS home page or SPS portal area. Continue reading →
