SBC301 Course Offerings
Dec 16 - New York, NY
Taught by Ted Pattison
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SBC301: SharePoint Brand Camp

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Author: Ted Pattison and Randy Drisgill
Format: Instructor-led Training with Hands-on Labs
Audience: Web Designers and SharePoint Designer Users
Length: 3 Days
Description: SharePoint Brand Camp is an intensive 3-day course that teaches design techniques and best practices used in branding SharePoint sites. Emphasis is given to techniques that promote ease of deployment and reusability across site collections and across SharePoint farms. You will learn how to customize and extend the built-in CSS files that give SharePoint sites their standard look and feel. You will also learn how to design and implement master pages with modern page layouts using HTML 4.01 instead of the standard HTML 3.2 tables that SharePoint 2007 uses by default. Lab exercises will be completed using the SharePoint Designer, the Internet Explorer and Firefox and you will get hands-on experience using other helpful web design tools such as the IE developer toolbar, firebug and Photoshop. SharePoint Brand Camp will also take a deep dive into the SharePoint development techniques required to package up and deploy your master pages, CSS files and images using SharePoint features and solution packages. This will give you the greatest level of control and flexibility in SharePoint deployment, reusability and versioning.
Prerequisites: Students should have a basic knowledge of HTML and CSS and should have experience working with WSS 3.0 team sites and MOSS publishing portals. It is also recommended (but not required) that students have previous experience with a Web design tool such as the SharePoint Designer, ColdFusion or Dreamweaver. Previous experience with a professional graphics tool such as Adobe Photoshop is also helpful.
Revision Date: 2008-10-06
Price: $1,795 USD

Schedule of Lectures

  1. Introduction to SharePoint Branding
  2. CSS Primer for SharePoint Designers
  3. Creating and Customizing Themes
  4. Working with Master Pages
  5. Designing and Branding a Publishing Portal
  6. Migrating a Design from Photoshop into SharePoint
  7. Deployment using Features and Solution Packages
  8. Using XSLT to Generate Formatted Output
  9. Compliance and Accessibility
 Day 1   (runs from 9AM to 5PM)

Introduction to SharePoint Branding   

  • Anatomy of a WSS Team Site
  • Configuring a Site Icon
  • Applying A SharePoint Theme
  • Master Pages and the Master Page Gallery
  • Anatomy of a MOSS Publishing Portal
  • Switching the Master Page in a publishing portal

CSS Primer for SharePoint Designers   

  • CSS Fundamentals: Cascade and Specificity
  • Overview of CSS rules defined in CORE.CSS
  • Discovering CSS class names using FireBug and IE Developer Toolbar
  • Adding custom CSS to a master page
  • Adding the HTML 4.01 DocType to a master page
  • Designing for a cross-browser experience

Creating and Customizing Themes   

  • How Themes work in SharePoint
  • Creating a new Theme based on an existing Theme
  • Customizing a Theme using the SharePoint Designer
  • Finalizing and deploying a Theme in a production farm
  • Tips and Tricks for working with Themes
 Day 2   (runs from 9AM to 5PM)

Working with Master Pages   

  • Overview of ASP.NET syntax used with Master Pages
  • Understanding the standard SharePoint Master Page (default.master)
  • Customizing Master Pages using the SharePoint Designer
  • Understanding the effects of unghosting a Master Page
  • Best practices in Master Page design in SharePoint 2007
  • Using standard SharePoint Controls that ship with WSS
  • Overriding Standard SharePoint Placeholders

Designing and Branding a Publishing Portal   

  • Functionality provided by the MOSS Publishing features
  • Overview of Page Layouts and the Pages library
  • Approving changes to master pages, page layouts and Publishing page instances
  • Uploading CSS files and images to the Style Library
  • Starting a design using a minimal master page
  • Designing page layouts with content types and field controls
  • Deciding between field controls and web parts
  • Customizing navigation within a Publishing Portal

Migrating a Design from Photoshop into SharePoint   

  • Quick primer on using Photoshop to create Web graphics
  • SharePoint design considerations
  • Starting a design using a wire frame
  • Slicing and dicing Photoshop graphics
  • Moving design assets into SharePoint
 Day 3   (runs from 9AM to 5PM)

Deployment using Features and Solution Packages   

  • Understanding SharePoint customization versus SharePoint development
  • Creating and testing a SharePoint feature using Visual Studio
  • Using features to deploy master pages, page layouts and custom CSS files
  • Configuring a site's AlternateCssUrl property
  • Creating and testing a solution package
  • Walkthrough of a complete SharePoint branding solution

Using XSLT to Generate Formatted Output   

  • World's Fastest Primer on XSLT
  • Working with the XML Web Part
  • Working with the DataView Web Parts
  • Working with the Content Query Web Part
  • Formatting MOSS Search Results using XSLT

Compliance and Accessibility   

  • W3C compliance
  • Section 508 of the U.S. Disabilities Act
  • Introduction to the SharePoint Accessibility Toolkit
  • Working with Control Adapters