In the real world of actual organizations (at least in my experience) not everyone is willing or interested in using SharePoint. There are ways to integrate external applications with SharePoint that can create very powerful solutions but in some cases the issues is more than just connecting to other data sources. There are cases where you just need to pull information out of SharePoint for a report to management or for a meeting where you will not have access to your SharePoint site.

This is one place where things could be made easier. SharePoint does allow users to export content to excel or access for manipulation but in 2007 there was not a very good print view. For instance, if I was to run a search and needed to print the results or manipulate them to generate a report there is not an easy way of doing so. There are some add-ons you can install to make the process easier such as this one from ZenPo Software Innovations.

I think this issue can in some cases help hinder adoption. Users are comfortable with Excel, Word and Outlook and expect to easily transfer information between them. When users are new to SharePoint it’s can be daunting when they hear they are supposed to do all their work in this new tool.

There are several simple ways to help ease the transition.

• Don’t just focus on SharePoint features in training, also show the user how they can easily transition information from SharePoint into tools they are more comfortable
• Exporting to Excel, using the data sheet view to copy/paste from Excel and connecting lists to outlook are all very useful features that can make using SharePoint far more palatable for a novice user.

Related posts:

1. Updating the People Picker
2. Block multi-document uploads in #SharePoint
3. I saw this coming (SharePoint 2010)

AnythingSlider in SharePoint

Setup

To get this working in SharePoint you will need to make sure you have a reference to jQuery in the page somewhere as well as a list for the slider to read from. For my example I am using an out of the box annoucements list.  You will also need the files for the plugin download the anythingSlider plugin from css-tricks.com.

• In SharePoint Designer add a dataview webpart to the page with any field from your annoucements list.
• Switch to code view and find the first <xsl> tag. It should be right after the closing <DatasSources> tag. 
• Right click on the tag and choose “Select Tag”. Press delete, don’t worry we will be adding in our own xsl.



• Paste the following xsl into the page where you deleted the code.

<Xsl>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:x="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/dsp" version="1.0" exclude-result-prefixes="xsl msxsl ddwrt" xmlns:ddwrt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebParts/v2/DataView/runtime" xmlns:asp="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ASPNET/20" xmlns:__designer="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebParts/v2/DataView/designer" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt" xmlns:SharePoint="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls" xmlns:ddwrt2="urn:frontpage:internal">
	<xsl:output method="html" indent="no"/>
	<xsl:decimal-format NaN=""/>
	<xsl:param name="dvt_apos">&apos;</xsl:param>
	<xsl:variable name="dvt_1_automode">0</xsl:variable>
	<xsl:template match="/" xmlns:x="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/dsp" xmlns:asp="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ASPNET/20" xmlns:__designer="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebParts/v2/DataView/designer" xmlns:SharePoint="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls">
		<xsl:call-template name="dvt_1"/>
	</xsl:template>
	<xsl:template name="dvt_1">
		<xsl:variable name="Rows" select="/dsQueryResponse/Rows/Row" />
		    <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/page.css" type="text/css" media="screen" />
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/slider.css" type="text/css" media="screen" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/jquery.easing.1.2.js"></script> <script src="js/jquery.anythingslider.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> <script type="text/javascript">
        function formatText(index, panel) {
		  return index + &quot;&quot;;
	    }
        $(function () {
            $(&apos;.anythingSlider&apos;).anythingSlider({
                easing: &quot;easeInOutExpo&quot;,
                autoPlay: true,
                delay: 3000,
                startStopped: false,
                animationTime: 600,
                hashTags: true,
                buildNavigation: true,
         	pauseOnHover: true,
     	startText: &quot;Go&quot;,
     	stopText: &quot;Stop&quot;,
	navigationFormatter: formatText
            });
            $(&quot;#slide-jump&quot;).click(function(){
                $(&apos;.anythingSlider&apos;).anythingSlider(6);
            });
        });
    </script>
<div class="anythingSlider">
	<div class="wrapper">
		<ul>
		<xsl:call-template name="dvt_1.body">
			<xsl:with-param name="Rows" select="$Rows" />
			</xsl:call-template>
		</ul>
		    </div>
        </div>
	</xsl:template>
	<xsl:template name="dvt_1.body">
		<xsl:param name="Rows" />
		<xsl:for-each select="$Rows">
			<xsl:call-template name="dvt_1.rowview" />
		</xsl:for-each>
	</xsl:template>
	<xsl:template name="dvt_1.rowview">
		<li>
		<div class="textSlide">
<!-- display the item title and a link to the item -->
<h3><a href="/{@FileDirRef}/DispForm.aspx?ID={@ID}" title="{@Title}"><xsl:value-of select="@Title" /></a></h3>
<!-- display the body of the item  -->
	<xsl:value-of select="@Body" disable-output-escaping="yes" />
	</div>
	</li></xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
</Xsl>

• Important: Adjust the links on the code so that point to your local copies of the css easing and plugin files.

Notes

 I made a few small changes in the css file to make things work better with SharePoint.  In page.css file I deleted several of the classes so they would not interfere with SharePoint’s styles.  In the xsl I used a div with a class of  .textslide to wrap the content so I had to change that in page.css as well.  To keep long annoucements from breaking the design I set the overflow on the .textslide div to hidden. Below is the code I used in page.css.  

/*hide content that is too long */
.textSlide { padding: 10px 30px; overflow:hidden; }
.textSlide h3  { font: 20px Georgia, Serif; margin-bottom:12px; }
.textSlide h4  { text-transform: uppercase; font: 15px Georgia, Serif; margin: 10px 0; }
.textSlide ul  { list-style: disc; margin: 0 0 0 25px; }
.textSlide ul li  { display: list-item; }

 I did not make any changes to slider.css. It may be easier to just combine the tow files to keep things simple and reduce page load times.

Conclusion

The AnythingSlider plugin is lightweight, powerful and easy to customize.  Adding this type of functionality that is common on regular websites to a SharePoint site can help guide users to important information and of course make your site ‘cooler’ than the average SharePoint site. 

The code above just shows all the items in the list but once you have it working it is easy to add your own sort/filter parameters to the data view so only certain items are shown.

The slider could also be implemented to run off of the SharePoint list web service the same way I did in this post.  If you have any questions or comments feel free to post.

Related posts:

1. Anything Slider in SharePoint – Update
2. Zoomable Photo Grid
3. A Better Annoucements Ticker

 Will Joomla make custom web design and creations from scratch obsolete?

I saw this question posted on LinkedIn last week and I thought it was interesting that people still think custom web designs will ever become irrelevant.

Creating functional good looking websites has become alot easier because of  CMS tools available for the novice web designer including Joomla, WordPress, MovableType, Expression Engine, Drupal and others. In terms of design sites like ThemeForest offer many cheap templates that can be slightly customized to fit specific needs.

So based on all this do you really need a custom design for your website?  My answer is it depends.

If the site is not meant to convey a specific message and the organization does not have branding requirements then using a template is fine. However in cases where a site has very specific requirements in terms of look and feel and functionality CMS tools and templates like those mentioned above are a good starting platform. To create a truly effective site in terms of design and messaging will  require custom CSS and design in order to be unique, convey the client’ s message effectively, and work with existing company logos and other branding elements. 

What does your site say about you?

From the perspective of a customer (who just happens to be a web designer)

When I see a website that uses a template and only changes out the logo and a few other graphics I think ‘this company did not care enough about me as a customer to design a site to appeal to me specifically’.  Many templates are very well designed and visually appealing but this does not mean they will convey the message or ideas that your website needs to communicate. In order to most effectively communication with site visitors the site will need to be custom designed after a careful analysis of  business goals and target customer demographics. 

Using stock templates will seems to save you time and money but the site will never really connect with its users like one that was designed for the purpose.

Related posts:

1. #SharePoint Designer Custom Activities Risky?
2. WordPress as a CMS
3. Simple Search Box with Radio Buttons

1. User can easily add items
2. Users  can choose a style for each item
3. Expired Items must not show
4. Each item will have a Title, Body and a customizable “read more” link.

Here’s how I did it.

First I created a custom list to store the slider items.  These are the columns I used:

Title – Single Line of text
Body – Multiple Lines of text
Link URL – HyperLink
Expiration – Date and Time (expired items will not be shown)
Image – Picture
Style – Choice  (we will use this column to allow users to choose the style of each item)

On the page I used a DataView WebPart to display the Title, Body, Image and Link URL columns.   Using Sharepoint Designer I setup filtering on the expiration date.  To do this in design view right click on the data view webpart and bring up the “Common Data View Tasks ” box and choose Filter.  In the window I set the conditional statement so that items would only be shown if the expiration date was greater than today.

You can find a basic tutorial on using the DVWP here

Once we have the data we want showing on the page we need to get it into the right format.  For the Content Slider to work properly the page needs to refernce an external JavaScript file and a CSS style sheet. Additionally the Slider itself has to follow this pattern:

<div id="slider1" class="sliderwrapper">
<div class="contentdiv">Content 1 Here.
</div>
<div id="paginate-slider1" class="pagination"></div>

Basically the whole content slider has do be wrapped in a div with an ID of ‘slider1′  each of the items must be wrapped in a div with the class ‘contentdiv’.  For more explanation on this visit Dynamic Drive

SharePoint uses xsl to style the data view so we have to go into the code view and add the nessecary Javascript, CSS and div elements to make everything work. Here is the xsl I used to get everything working in the page

<Xsl>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:x="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/dsp" version="1.0" exclude-result-prefixes="xsl msxsl ddwrt" xmlns:ddwrt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebParts/v2/DataView/runtime" xmlns:asp="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ASPNET/20" xmlns:__designer="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebParts/v2/DataView/designer" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt" xmlns:SharePoint="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls" xmlns:ddwrt2="urn:frontpage:internal">
	<xsl:output method="html" indent="no"/>
	<xsl:decimal-format NaN=""/>
	<xsl:param name="dvt_apos">&apos;</xsl:param>
	<xsl:param name="Today">CurrentDate</xsl:param>
	<xsl:variable name="dvt_1_automode">0</xsl:variable>
	<xsl:template match="/" xmlns:x="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/dsp" xmlns:asp="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ASPNET/20" xmlns:__designer="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebParts/v2/DataView/designer" xmlns:SharePoint="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls">
		<xsl:call-template name="dvt_1"/>
	</xsl:template>
	<xsl:template name="dvt_1">
		<xsl:variable name="dvt_StyleName">Table</xsl:variable>
		<xsl:variable name="Rows" select="/dsQueryResponse/Rows/Row" />
		<div id="slider1" class="sliderwrapper">
			<xsl:call-template name="dvt_1.body">
				<xsl:with-param name="Rows" select="$Rows" />
			</xsl:call-template>
		</div>
		<div id="paginate-slider1" class="pagination">
</div>
<script type="text/javascript">
featuredcontentslider.init({
	id: "slider1",  //id of main slider DIV
	contentsource: ["inline", ""],
	toc: "#increment",  //Valid values: "#increment", "markup", ["label1", "label2", etc]
	nextprev: ["Previous", "Next"],
	revealtype: "click",
	enablefade: [true, 0.2],  //[true/false, fadedegree]
	autorotate: [true, 3000],  //[true/false, pausetime]
	onChange: function(previndex, curindex){  //event handler fired whenever script changes
		//previndex holds index of last slide viewed b4 current (1=1st slide, 2nd=2nd etc)
		//curindex holds index of currently shown slide (1=1st slide, 2nd=2nd etc)
	}
})
</script> </xsl:template>
	<xsl:template name="dvt_1.body">
		<xsl:param name="Rows" />
		<xsl:for-each select="$Rows">
			<xsl:call-template name="dvt_1.rowview" />
		</xsl:for-each>
	</xsl:template>
	<xsl:template name="dvt_1.rowview">
		<div class="contentdiv">
		<div class="{@Style}">
		<img border="0" align="left" hspace="0" vspace="0" alt="{substring-after(@Image, ', ')}" src="{substring-before(@Image, ', ')}" />
	<a href="{substring-before(@Link_x0020_URL, ', ')}" title="{@Title}">
	<h1><xsl:value-of select="@Title" /></h1></a>
	<p><xsl:value-of select="substring(@Body,1,330)"/>...</p>
	<a href="{substring-before(@Link_x0020_URL, ', ')}" class="readMoreLink" title="{substring-after(@Link_x0020_URL, ', ')}">
	<span class="readMoreIcon"><xsl:value-of select="substring-after(@Link_x0020_URL, ', ')" /></span>
	</a>
	</div>
	</div></xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
</Xsl>

For information on how to write xsl stylesheets read this post on Heather Solomon’s site. Basically using tags like this:
allows you to insert various peices of data from the list. In the xsl above I am wrapping each item with the nessacary div to make the slider work. Inside each div I am inserting the title inside an h1 tag, the first 330 characters of the body in an a p tag, and the Link URL formatted as a Hyperlink.

To make everything look good I had to customize the CSS that comes from Dynamic Drive. The code is below.

.sliderwrapper{
position: relative; /*leave as is*/
overflow: hidden; /*leave as is*/
border: 0px;
width: 100%; /*width of featured content slider*/
height: 231px;
}
.sliderwrapper .contentdiv{
visibility:hidden; /*leave as is*/
position:absolute; /*leave as is*/
left:0;  /*leave as is*/
top:0;  /*leave as is*/
padding: 0px;
background:#fff;
width:100%;
/*width of content DIVs within slider. Total width should equal slider's inner width (390+5+5=400) */
height:100%;
filter:progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.alpha(opacity=100);
-moz-opacity:1;
opacity:1;
color:#fff;
font-size:x-small;
}
.contentdiv img{
height:205px;
width:270px;
margin:10px;
border:1px solid #ccc;
}
.contentdiv h1{
color:#eee;
font:normal normal large Georgia;
margin:0px;
padding:5px 0 0 0;
line-height:20px
}
.contentdiv a:hover, .contentdiv a{
text-decoration:none !important;
padding:0px;
}
.contentdiv p{
line-height:19px;
padding:0px 10px 0px 10px;
}
a.readMoreLink {
color:#555;
padding:4px;
background-color:#fff;
}
a.readMoreLink:hover {
color:#555;
text-decoration:none;
padding:4px;
background:#fff url('link_bg.gif') repeat-x bottom center;
}
.pagination{
width: 100%;
/*Width of pagination DIV. Total width should equal slider's outer width (400+10+10=420)*/
text-align: right;
padding: 3px 1px;
font-size:x-small;
background:#fff url('link_bg.gif') repeat-x bottom center;
border-top:1px solid #ccc;
}
.pagination a{
padding: 0 4px;
text-decoration: none;
color: #666;
background:#fff;
}
.pagination a.selected{
color: #fff;
background-color: #666;
}
.pagination a:hover{
color:#fff;
background:#666;
text-decoration:none;
}

In the XSL stylesheet each item is wrapped in a div, the class name for the div is pulled from the ‘Style’ column in the list. The make the styles work I added the following CSS to my stylesheet

.Red_Style{
height:230px;
background:#671818 url('red_bg.gif') repeat-x top center;
}
.Blue_Style{
height:230px;
background:#3A5E97 url('blue_bg.gif') repeat-x top center;
}
.Green_Style{
height:230px;
background:#4E8822 url('green_bg.gif') repeat-x top center;
}

All I am doing is changing the background image and color for each style. Because the div wraps each item it would be possible to also change font colors, font size, image position and more but I just wanted to keep it simple.

The only drawback with using the dataview webpart is that this webpart cannot be easily moved from one site to another.

Related posts:

1. Anything Slider in SharePoint – Update
2. CSS-Tricks AnythingSlider in SharePoint
3. Zoomable Photo Grid

http://www.onderhond.com/tools/ie6fixer/

No related posts.

Here are some additional resources on using WordPress as a CMS

• CSS Tricks
• WordPress CMS Hacks and Tricks
• How to use WordPress as a Truly Customized CMS (Multiple Headers, Footers, Sidebars and more!)

Related posts:

1. Are custom designs becoming obsolete?
2. Better page titles in SharePoint
3. CSS-Tricks AnythingSlider in SharePoint