Real World SharePoint® 2010: Indispensable Experiences from 22 MVPs

Chapter 7. Working with SharePoint Designer 2010

By John Ross

SharePoint Designer (SPD) is a powerful tool for editing sites in SharePoint. It is a product with a long list of capabilities that entire books have been dedicated to. This chapter takes you on a tour of the most notable changes to SharePoint Designer 2010, with a special focus on the SharePoint capabilities that are unique to SPD. It's time to put on some of your favorite music, turn up the volume, and get psyched up to experience the awesomeness of SPD 2010.

EVOLUTION OF SHAREPOINT DESIGNER

SPD began life several years ago as a product called FrontPage. For users who are new to the product, this may sound like just an interesting bit of trivia. However, most likely many of you have strong feelings about FrontPage that may have evolved when SharePoint Designer 2007 was released. Before getting too far into this overview of SPD, let's clear the air on the controversy surrounding FrontPage.

When Microsoft FrontPage was released, it was designed to be a tool that made creating websites easy — too easy in many cases. Bad websites created with FrontPage began to pop up with more frequency. To many web designers, the mention of FrontPage would normally make them shudder. In fact, there have been stories of web designers not being hired because they listed FrontPage on their resumes.

The toxic reputation of FrontPage didn't stop with just web designers. It was also the tool of choice for customizing sites in SharePoint 2003. For ...