Professional Microsoft® SharePoint® Designer 2007

1.1. SharePoint Designer as a Web Editor

SharePoint Designer is a descendant of Microsoft FrontPage, and a close relative of Expression Web, Microsoft's dedicated Web design tool. In fact, SharePoint Designer provides a true superset of Expression Web functionality, and therefore makes an excellent all-around tool for Web design.

In addition to the SharePoint-related features, SharePoint Designer includes more features for backward compatibility with existing FrontPage-based sites than are a part of Expression Web 1.0.

For the 2007 Microsoft Office System, Microsoft has replaced many of the traditional user interface elements in several client applications, such as Microsoft Word, with what it calls the fluent user interface, the most noticeable feature of which is a tabbed mega-toolbar called the Ribbon. Microsoft has not done this in SharePoint Designer 2007, which sports menus, toolbars, and so on in all of their historical profusion. See Figure 1-1.

Figure 1-1. Figure 1-1

The overall interface in SharePoint Designer is very much in the mold of an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) such as Visual Studio, or web design and development tools like Adobe Dreamweaver (formerly of Macromedia). As you learn about the various tools at your disposal, you will quickly feel at home in SharePoint Designer.

If you are new to the IDE experience, you want to be aware of the need ...