Our Company ProfileCompany Info• Founded in 1996• Privately Held• 200 Employees
Cardinal Offices• Cincinnati• Columbus• Charlotte• Raleigh
Vendor AlliancesDrive projects toour branch locations.
Our Practices
Our Microsoft Partnership…
Heartland and Southeast Districts
Solution Provider and Certified Training Partner Solution Provider and
Certified Training Partner
• One of very few Microsoft Managed Partners in the U.S.
• Gold Partner since 2000
• Heartland & South East Marketing Campaign• Redmond “Inner Circle” Member
• Gold Partner since 2001
• Certified Training Partner
Fast Facts:
• Over 200 professionals with offices in 4 cities
• One of very few Microsoft Managed Partners in the U.S.
• Gold Partner since 2000• Heartland & South East
Marketing Campaign• Redmond “Inner Circle”
Member• MVPs; Virtual TSPs
Our Focus:
• SharePoint 2007 & 2010• Microsoft Online Services• Microsoft Business Intelligence• Visual Studio ALM/TFS• .NET Architecture/ Development• Client Training
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Branding with SharePoint 2010
Welcome!
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Agenda
• Introduction
• Goals & Objectives
• What is Branding
• Key Concepts
• What’s new in SharePoint 2010
• Demo
• Branding Projects
• Q/A
Feel free to ask questions at any
time!
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
About Me
• Cardinal Solutions Group:–SharePoint Developer
• MCTS: WSS & MOSS Configuration• [email protected]• www.matthuber.com• Twitter: @Huber84
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Goals and Objectives
• To gain a better understanding of what branding is in SharePoint
• To show that branding can enhance your SharePoint experience
• To give you some ideas on how you can brand your environment
• To show how branding solutions are created.
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
?
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Agenda
What is branding SharePoint?
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
In a nutshell
• Customization of the ‘look & feel’ in SharePoint• Making SharePoint not look like SharePoint• Design Elements:
– Images
– Color Palette
– Tag lines, Titles
– Layout
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
What gets branded?
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
What are the benefits of branding?
• Provide a consistent look & feel across all SharePoint sites
• Can enhance your SharePoint experience
• Show your brand’s colors/look applied to the environment
• In my opinion….creates ownership, better adoption
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Agenda
Key Concepts
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Components of Branding
• Master Pages
• Page Layouts
• CSS
• Images
• And more…
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
What is a Master.page?
• Acts as a container to each page.– Includes: Navigation, Search, Logos, Site actions
controls and more
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Many, Many Master.pages
• Upwards to 5-6 different master.pages– Publishing, Teams, MySite, Search, Meeting Workspace
• Each contain different controls and custom actions related to that Site Definition
• Example: Search Center using a Team Site Master.page:
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
What is a Page Layout?
• Contains zones for webparts and content to base Pages off of.
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Page Layouts
• Each page has a page layout
• Has <asp:Content> tags that put content into an associated <asp:ContentPlaceholder> on the master.page
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
What is CSS?
• Cascading Style Sheets – is a simple way to add styles (fonts, colors, spacing) to web pages.
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
CSS
• Multiple ways to apply CSS– External, Inline, in header
• SharePoint has a lot of CSS…75+ style sheets
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Create new or edit existing?
• Never edit existing SharePoint files on the 14 hive (filesystem)!
• Create new branding assets in the 14 hive.
• Create new CSS files that are called AFTER the core.css and other SharePoint CSS files.
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Solution Architecture
• Ghosted or UnGhosted solution?
• Long story short…
– Ghosted customizations are compiled on the web server == faster, scalable, optimized
– UnGhosted customization are not compiled and pulled from the ContentDB == slower, individual sites
• Which one do we choose? It depends…
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Solution Architecture Cont.
• Branding, by default, is not automatically applied
• Resolved by Feature Stapling – activate features when a site definition is invoked– Feature Stapler
• Listens for site definitions to be invoked, then applies a Feature when its called.
• Contains an event receiver to apply branding to each site collection when activated and un-apply when deactivated.
– Feature Staplee• Contains the branding artifacts and event receivers to apply the
brand.
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Feature Stapling with Branding Diagram
Team Site Created
Team Site Definition Invoked
Feature Activated on new
Team Site
Feature Event
Receiver “On
Activated” event fires
Branding is Applied
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Feature Event Receivers
• Occur in two places:– Farm (Stapler)
• OnActivation – Add Feature to all sites that are not administration sites
• OnDeactivation – Remove Feature for all sites that are not administration sites
– Site Collection (Staplee)• OnActivation – change SPWeb.CustomMasterUrl (front-end),
SPWeb.MasterUrl (back-end), and SPWeb.AlternateCSSUrl (Overriding Style Sheet) to the custom branding
• OnDeactivation – revert back to default branding.
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Lots of work…for these benefits:
• Automatic application of proper master.page when the site definition is invoked
• Automatic ‘reset’ of master.pages when Features are deactivated
• No modification of SharePoint default files.
• Clean application, Clean removal, and no need to manually apply branding per site collection.
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Tools
• IE Developer Toolbar
• Firebug
• Multiple Browsers
• Notepad++ or a compare tool
• SharePoint Designer
• PowerShell
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Agenda
What’s new in SharePoint 2010
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
The Good
• Bland default brand. No branding from the Cornflower Blue theme
• Export PowerPoint Theme and upload to SharePoint
• Better cross-browser compliancy
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
The Bad, & The Ugly
• Some site definitions run off of a completely different set of styles
• To create teamsite layouts, need to Activate the publishing Features
• New sub-sites don’t automatically inherit the parent-site’s branding
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Agenda
Demo
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Tips & Tricks
• Use Starter Master.pages– Available on codeplex
• Use S4-NotDlg css class to exclude items from the Modal Popup window
• Achieving rounded web part corners are much easier
• Web Parts can have different styles…per Web Part Zone
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Agenda
Branding Projects
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Approx. breakdown of a project
Planning/Design Development TestingRollout Support
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Planning & Design
• Determine colors/styles/font/layout/etc.
• The Designer works with the developer to make sure SharePoint components are covered.
• Target browsers and resolutions
• Main “Mockup(s)” produced
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Development
• Implement the mockup
• Create master.page, CSS, and page layouts.– Custom web part dev might occur…if the brand requires
it
• Use tools to test multiple page types and the solution.
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Testing
• VERY Important!
• Have multiple testers because some people pay more attention to detail than others.
• Be particular– Look for pixel errors, font inconsistencies, color mis-
matches
• Track issues
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Rollout & Support
• Applying branding won’t change content…think of it as a mask you can put on and take off.
• There are 1000’s of lines of code in style sheets and master.pages…so issues might show up.
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Resources
• http://blog.drisgill.com/
• http://www.sharepointdevwiki.com/display/public/SharePoint+Branding+Development
• http://www.heathersolomon.com/blog/
• http://erikswenson.blogspot.com/2010/01/sharepoint-2010-base-css-classes.html
• http://www.matthuber.com
Copyright 2010 Cardinal Solutions Group www.cardinalsolutions.com
Agenda
Thank YouAny Questions?