SharePoint® 2010 Business Intelligence 24-Hour Trainer

23

Using SharePoint Designer to Customize Master Pages

In this lesson, you learn how to use SharePoint Designer to customize the layout of all the pages in your SharePoint site by using Master Pages. This lesson does not delve deeply into CSS or JavaScript, which are both HTML technologies that can be used in Master Pages, but it does touch on where they are used. An understanding of HTML and XML is a requirement.

INTRODUCTION TO SHAREPOINT DESIGNER

SharePoint Designer is used for customizations that aren't possible using SharePoint settings. It is designed for use by power users who aren't developers, and thus sits between using SharePoint web settings and Visual Studio in both complexity and capability. SharePoint Designer works only when connected to a SharePoint site — once a site is opened, the screen in Figure 23-1 is displayed.

The design surface is split into a navigation bar showing the site objects down the left, a context-sensitive ribbon on the top, with the remainder of the screen reserved for editing. The site settings are displayed on the opening screen.

FIGURE 23-1

Clicking the Master Pages link brings up a list of Master Pages, as shown in Figure 23-2.

Because all SharePoint content, including the Master Pages, is stored in SharePoint lists, the version control and document approval features are all enabled. In addition, in order to change the master page, it ...