UX & IA Design Thinking

As you all know SharePoint has a new theme engine for 2010. You can do cool things such as create a theme in PowerPoint, export it and then import it into SharePoint 2010, click apply and you got a custom theme. One aspect that I could not find documented is the definition of when you choose a color for a particular element what is it really changing? If you modify the theme for a site you can use the picker to choose a OOTB or custom theme. Or you have the ability to choose your own color scheme via the following elements. My approach: Make each element white to start with and then one by one add color and document the results. Just for kicks here is what it looks like when it is completely white… (not a color scheme I would recommend…) I will be using a red color: #C12345 for testing. Here are the details for each one of the elements above: Text/Background- Dark 1 (41 Classes) Page Title Hyperlink Text Hover Text VB Body Text Site Action Menu Text ...

Here is a simple yet effective way to stylize individual top navigation items for SharePoint 2007 & 2010 just using CSS. SharePoint 2010 will need a slight modification to the master page but the same effect can be achieved. See bottom of post for 2010 implementation. To start off with lets review how this can be accomplished for 2007. SharePoint 2007 provides a unique ID for each note in the navigation. 1st Tab: Dedicated as your default Home or root node ID: zz1_TopNavigationMenun0 2nd Tab: This is the first child node from the root ID: zz1_TopNavigationMenun1 3rd Tab: This is the second child node from the root ID: zz1_TopNavigationMenun2 4th Tab: This is the third child node from the root ID: zz1_TopNavigationMenun3   See the pattern… It keeps going and going. Here is what it looks like from the IE DOM Explorer in IE8: So you might ask well what can I do with this unique ID? Well here is a quick samp...

Here are some of the most common ways to reference your custom CSS for SharePoint 2010. One key change over 2007 is the ability to specify After=”corev4.css” in the CssRegistration to make sure your custom CSS is referenced after the OOTB corev4.css file. <SharePoint:CssLink runat="server" Version="4"/> Note: Default OOTB Output Order: <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/_layouts/1033/styles/Themable/corev4.css"/> <SharePoint:Theme runat="server"/> Note: If a theme is enabled Output Order: <link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” href=”/_themes/ [UniqueCounter#] /corev4- [u=UniqueHex#] .css?ctag= [UniqueCounter#] ”/> <SharePoint:CssRegistration name=”customfolder/samplecustom.css” runat=”server”/> Note: Alternate CSS on Server but comes before corev4.css Output Order: <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/_la...

I created a post awhile ago on how to change the SharePoint site logo via CSS so that you don’t have to modify the titlegraphic.gif file on the file server or change it via the UI for every site to make a global change. I have a simple solution that changes the search GO icon from the standard to something more custom with just CSS. The icon is not specified via the master page so you will not be able to change it there. <asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderSearchArea" runat="server">         <SharePoint:DelegateControl runat="server" ControlId="SmallSearchInputBox" /> </asp:ContentPlaceHolder> You might be tempted take the route of changing the following files on the server and replacing them with your own custom ones. But I have an alternative that works just as well and you don’t have to mess with any of these base Image files. GOSEARCH.GIF ICONGO01.GIF ICON...

This will be the first of many SharePoint 2010 posts. I will be focusing on a few of the main CSS classes used for SharePoint 2010 Public Beta. As the product becomes more final there might be some changes to the class names but I will be sure to create a new post if that happens. This will be quite a lengthy but it should be helpful. The default CSS given below are just highlights of the full CSS attributes for that class. I will be using a basic team site as my base for the screenshots. Here is a basic structure of the main areas that I will cover. Ribbon Row Table Row Left Site Actions Navigate Up Edit Tab List Browse Page Table Row Right Give Feedback Welcome Menu Workspace Body Container Title Row Title ...