Sharepoint Branding

Question

Hello everyone. I'm just tasked by my boss to create a Sharepoint solution for the scenerio below.

(I'm a total newbie to Sharepoint. So please forgive me if i use the terminology wrong)

The portal should open in a custom look than the default Sharepoint design and it should have links to the products. Every product page should have different look and feel but have same types of content. For example every product should have Published Materials list but with different set of content.

So, an example of the desired map is like this:

/Home
   -Latest News
   -Core Team List
   -Products
      -Product 1
      -Product 2
      -Product 3

I found Sharepoint a whole new and strange world. I thought i'm good at learning, until i met Sharepoint. Everything seems very detailed and i'm living difficulties in finding useful information quickly. Because i have no Sharepoint background and i don't event know what i'm lookin' for.

Could you please help me by telling me how can i accomplish this or even just telling me the name of "thing" that i'm trying to accomplish.

Thank you in advance.

PS. Oh, by the way, I learned the word Branding in my search for the holy grail. I don't even know that the word fits or not...

Answer 1

A good start would be using Sharepoint Designer.

Answer 2

you HAVE to check out Heather Solomon. She is the shiznat when it comes to sharepoint branding.

Answer 3

Check out the links I posted in the answer to this question for some links to SharePoint 101 tutorials online:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2068792/restaurant-review-site-in-sharepoint/2069143#2069143

Given you're looking for 'branding' that will mean a custom Master Page. A Master Page is what will determine the overall layout of your SharePoint Web Application's pages. After creating a standard SharePoint application, connect with SharePoint Designer and play with that Master Page for a while until you get the hang of it.

In modifying or creating custom Master Pages, it is important to take note of all the controls (special ASP.NET server-side tags) in particular Content Place Holders; if you create your own Master Page and these are missing you're in a world of uninformative-error-message hurt.

You're going to want to create Lists ( http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointtechnology/HA011199881033.aspx ) to represent 'News' and 'Products'... for Products you may even want to create a Content Type.

Once you create 'News' and 'Products' lists, to see those lists of Products you'll want to make views and use List View Web Parts ( http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA100240521033.aspx ) to include those views in Pages... but at the subject of Web Parts this is probably getting a bit overwhelming so I'll stop here. Comment me if you'd like more.

Addendum

"Is is possible to show only categories of a document library in home page and documents of the selected category in another page?"
-> Yes, and there are several ways. I'd suggest you look into either defining a View for that list which filters based on the category field, then add List View Web Parts to your home page, or writing custom XSLT for the Content Query Web Part, and then add it to your home page. Writing the XSLT for he Content Query web part is a little more difficult, but using the List View has it's short comings in being not-as-configurable, much like this guy is finding out: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2050090/no-code-solution-for-calendar-view-of-sharepoint-news-items/2082113#2082113

"But how can i change a list item to show its details as a whole new page with its own web parts and theme?"
-> Here's the kicker; in SharePoint, each Site you create has a special list for Pages, and each Page actually belongs to a Content Type. So you can take any content type and turn it into a page; all you have to do is create a Page Layout for it, and add that Content Type to the list.

(So, an example. This is purely speculative; I'm not saying do this specifically, and you probably can't do it exactly as I describe it as I'm oversimplifying a little)

You create a Content Type 'Product', but you also decide 'Category' should be a Content Type too. So you create a content type for 'Catagory', and you give it a lookup column, which refers to items in the 'Product' List. You specify that the lookup can contain multiple items.

Now you want a Page where people can see a category, and all the Products which belong to it. You create a 'Page Layout' (an aspx file) for the 'Catagory' Content Type. In the Page Layout aspx file you can include web controls which render the Catagory's fields, such as 'title' and 'description' and you can probably even add one to render the 'Products' lookup field. (maybe you'll have to code it yourself)

I hope I haven't lost you.

Now that you've created a Page Layout for 'Catagory' you can add 'Catagory' to the Pages list/library and then create pages which represent Catagories, and when people edit those pages, they will also edit the Catagory.

More Addendum

If "Announcements" is a list, the web part you added was a list view web part, and so it just shows the contents of the list (which is independent of the product pages) You'll want o specify filters of your view. I dunno if you can specify unique filters on the web part... but you can try :)

You might want to consider looking into The Content Query Web Part.

I don't fully understand your second question, but I get the feeling the answer is yes... what do you mean by "view"? You gotta be careful with the lingo; do you mean the Page Layout? or the List View Web Part? or the List View? or the Master Page? ...

Answer 4

Use SharePoint Designer to do your CSS work, particularly in discovering the CSS rules in play. DO NOT publish the finished work from SD; if you do, future Windows Updates may wipe out your files. Instead, deploy your customizations as a Feature. In MOSS 2007, you can add a single custom CSS file using Central Admin - this will then be applied AFTER core.CSS at runtime, To the best of my knowledge, this is the only practical way of doing this.

You need to indicate whether you are using WSS or MOSS. With WSS, you can use themes.

Answer 5

Hi again, I did try the method you post on other page (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2068792/restaurant-review-site-in-sharepoint/2069143#2069143) but unfortunately i couldn't succeed. I stucked at choosing what type of content type in the "Create Content Type" page at first and then tried some parent types but i couldn't get it show up in Sharepoint Designer 2007's New Sharepoint Content "Publishing Page" dialog.

So i tried something else.

At my homepage created a new Document Library of type "Web Part Page" called "Products". It created me a some sort of list whose all items are web pages. At this point i felt that i'm near to accomplish something at last.

Here are some questions i've collected: :)

• I add two Announcements web part to different "Products" pages. When I add a new announcement to the list from one product page, it shows up in the other one too! How can I make their content only visible in page that the content created on?
• *[Theming is a recurring theme in my posts]* Is it possible to change the view of each Product page at this setup so they have different design and color?

Thanks.