Developing branding solutions

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Developing Branding SolutionsThomas Daly, tdaly@bandrsolutions.com

About Me SharePoint Consultant @

B&R Business Solutions, based out of NJ A SharePoint Developer – specializing in

UI objects (webparts, user controls) both ASP.NET & jQuery components.

A SharePoint Brander – transform designs into CSS & images to skin SharePoint.

Topics we’ll cover Master Pages Themes Deployment Considerations Advanced Themes Additional Page Head Methods Auto-Brand New Sites Feature Based Application of Branding

What is SharePoint Branding? Creating a visual identity in SharePoint

Why brand SharePoint? – Top 4 Reasons Create a unique look and feel Maintain company visual identity Create distinct web areas Make it not look like SharePoint

What does branding involve? Master Pages Page Layouts Themes Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Images JavaScript

What to be aware of Plan your approach Consider the end users Have the right tools Browsers, Browsers, & Browsers

Tools Visual Studio 2010 SharePoint Designer 2010 Browser Developer Toolbars

IE (F12) Dev Toolbar Firebug (for FireFox)

Visual Studio CSS Plugins Web Essentials

Theme Builder CKS: Development Tools Color Pickers

ColorPic ColorCop

Themes 3 Approaches to creating/updating the

theme Existing theme can be modified in UI

(Publishing Features on SC level) New theme can be created in PowerPoint

and imported Microsoft Theme Builder Toolhttp://connect.microsoft.com/themebuilder

Master Pages Creates a consistent look & layout for pages in your site. If your going custom, Start Clean!

Clean v4 – Tom Daly My Master Page – basically V4.master, subtracting the V3

content areas, highly document, all controls, & maintain all SharePoint functionality

Starter Master Pages – Randy Drisgill Codeplex project, nicely documented Problem with Treeview Nav & Vertical Grip

Others, haven’t used yet Just the Essentials – Heather Solomon HTML 5 – Kyler Schaeffer

Master Pages (key points) Search – uses Minimal.Master

If you plan to have it look like your custom SharePoint master page follow this blog to convert it. Link

Important things to remember when working in your Master Page Special Classes

noindex – prevent content from being indexed s4-notdlg – prevent contents from appearing in dialogs s4-notsetwidth – used to set a fixed width Be careful working with the s4-workspace, test the master

page at various times to ensure that the scrollbars still work Use a DEV toolbar to inspect elements & test CSS Do not cut out ASP controls, Hide them.

Consideration for CSS & Images

SharePoint:CSSRegistration vs <Link>

Deploy to Style Library or Layouts Conditional CSS for Browsers Targeting

Feature Based Branding

Pros Easy to apply across

Site Collections, Sites and Sub-Sites

Repeatable Branding Powerful, can

accomplish many tasks – fast!

Easily rolled out across environments

Cons Difficult to make

quick style changes (there’s a trick)

You’ll need to know how to use Visual Studio 2010

Feature Based Branding – cont.

Feature

Feature Receiver

Theme

Site Icon

Master Page

Pseudo Theme When regular theming is just not enough! No touching the Master Page Both feature based – samples provided

Technique #1 Apply Theme Apply Alternative CSS

Technique #2 Apply CSS File via AddtionalPageHead

Technique #1 Take advantage of

the power of the feature receiver to apply an alternate CSS & apply a theme

Use the theme as a base CSS layer

Technique #2 Additional Page Head – a delegate control located in the

<HEAD> of SharePoint master pages. Can be used to load multiple controls via code without touching the master page directly.

Technique #2 – continued

Element

User Control

Feature

Auto Brand New Sites By default, SharePoint does not trickle down applied

themes, master page, alternate css By creating Web Provisioned Event Handler we can

make the new children sites have the same branding as their parent.

Common things to set are: Master Page Url Custom Master Page Url Site Logo Parent Navigation Theme

Use Synchronous Property

Questions or Comments?

Contact information Thomas M Daly Email - tdaly@bandrsolutions.com Blog - http://thomasdaly.net Twitter - _TomDaly_ LinkedIn Company Site –

http://www.bandrsolutions.com