I'm setting up a public-facing website with 4 levels of navigation. There is a fixed top level navigation that breaks things into section. The second level of navigation is a horizontal menu. The 3rd and 4th levels are displayed in a tree menu.
Should this be set up in lists, or in subsites? I understand that you can nest folders inside other lists, so I'm not sure how you'd go about handling this navigation.
When should you use a subsite instead of a list?
The look/feel of all top level sections is the same.
I'm new to this Sharepoint stuff, so I'd like to know some best practices. Thanks!
Edit: Site Structure
There is a fixed horizontal top-level navigation. Each of these links points to a landing page for that section.
Each top-level section has it's own sub navigation. This is a horizontal single level navigation.
Pages within that 2nd level could have sub-pages displayed in a two-level tree style. The 3rd level would be clickable with it's own landing page, so it's not just a 'folder' or container. So, that makes four levels of navigation.
Vent
This kind of information architecture should be very straightforward to set up in any content management product, but SharePoint is just not intuitive to me at all. I find that documentation on creating public facing custom designed sites to be extremely lacking.
That depends - A list and a site hold very different content. Your navigation shouldn't dictate your content. It should be the other way around. A list describes related items, whereas a site is a container for many lists, document libraries, etc.
Here is a good solution for a custom navigation in Sharepoint 2010 utilizing their built in aspmenu.
http://sharepoint2010customnavigation.blogspot.com/
Related
I am looking to set up a home page for our group in SharePoint that essentially has four areas. I kind of foresee four columns of accordion menus. The problem is that not all the items under the drop down will have web page links.
Is this possible to do? Is it possible to add icons at the top of each column to represent what the areas are? I am pretty new to SharePoint design and am taking a class but my boss is wanting something like this done to make it more user-friendly.
I would prefere to use the jQuery or another JavaScript driven accordeon to solve your problem. You can fetch you item the through SharePoint REST API or JSOM.
There are also a lot of examples out there but too long to copy in here:
HOW TO CREATE DYNAMIC ACCORDIONS IN SHAREPOINT PAGES
CSR code samples #6 (Accordion)
Customize the rendering of a List View in Sharepoint 2013: Displaying List Items in Accordion
I'm new to Liferay and I'm trying to figure out if it's possible to dynamically add or subtract child pages on the fly. From what I've done so far I've only been able to use the Admin Control Panel to add a static amount of child pages to a main page.
My use case is I have a main page that houses all of my graphing charts and then I have a bunch of child pages for each type of graph. The amount of graphs are dynamic depending on the company though so some may have 10 child pages and others may have only three. Is this possible? The only thing I've been able to find is this article on custom navigation, https://liferayinfo.wordpress.com/2012/09/24/liferay-custom-navigation/.
It depends on what you consider "dynamic": If it's literally "on the fly": Yes, there are options to dynamically handle pages - this approach is quite complex. Way too complex for a simple answer on stackoverflow.
But not everything is lost: You might get away with building your own navigation portlet that determines how many (and which) of the child pages that you've statically created get displayed, based on criteria that you know.
When each of your companies (careful: Misleading term - Liferay uses "company" as the technical name for "portal instance") uses a different site, you can also use site templates, or page templates - including this custom navigation portlet.
Also you can always create pages and page hierarchies with Liferay's API. Thorsten Laux's comment already mentions LayoutLocalService. For maintainability: it'll be easier if you use it statically when you create the pages, instead of dynamically when you have the data (there we are again: dynamic use is too complex for this answer).
If it's good enough to hide certain pages: Go with a custom navigation portlet instead of Liferay's own. Depending on the complexity that you're willing to end up with: You can either create your own portlet or utilize a WebContent structure and template to dynamically decide which pages to link and which not to link (which effectively will hide them).
I am kind of new to SharePoint. I am learning it on the go and learned about the concept of pagelayout and publishing features on the site. But I am not really 100% sure what is the difference between a WebPartPage, SitePage and PublishingPage. I kind of know what all these pages be used for, but what I not get is: why do they need to separate all these pages?
I think we can just get a publishing page and have all the feature there including webpart and everything else (with our choice of PageLayout). However I dont see a way to use a pagelayout on a particular SitePage.
Is there any particular reasons for using either one of them? Even though it seems like one of them can serve as all of them?
You should use page layout when ever you know the page structure. For example you are running an online news paper. You want to show the news to the users into three columns. First column is for menu, second column is for news content and third column is for advertisements. Now in your daily usage this layout is common. So you can use this page layout for entering the news. After creating the page layout you can make it as a default to your pages. Page layout is nothing but the structure of a page simply!!
A webpart page does not have a field for content directly on the page like a SitePage has. A Publishing Page is like a SitePage, but requires extra fields for dealing with the publishing extra features.
Using a single layout for all three risks being confused as to why one page does not work the same as another when it has the same layout (the difference would be the underlying features are different.).
I will make a comparison with cars. There are three type of cars, each is better suitable for a certain purpose: tractors for farming, buses for public transport, light cars for private transport. You could use a tractor for all the purposes above but it's not ideal.
"One of them can serve as all of them". This is not true in their current implementation. I'll give you one example: prefer Web part pages against Publishing pages to better control content added by contributors in an intranet. There are many other examples.
I'm just tasked by my boss to create a Sharepoint solution for the scenerio below.
(I'm a total newbie to Sharepoint. So please forgive me if i use the terminology wrong)
The portal should open in a custom look than the default Sharepoint design and it should have links to the products. Every product page should have different look and feel but have same types of content. For example every product should have Published Materials list but with different set of content.
So, an example of the desired map is like this:
/Home
-Latest News
-Core Team List
-Products
-Product 1
-Product 2
-Product 3
I found Sharepoint a whole new and strange world. I thought i'm good at learning, until i met Sharepoint. Everything seems very detailed and i'm living difficulties in finding useful information quickly. Because i have no Sharepoint background and i don't event know what i'm lookin' for.
Could you please help me by telling me how can i accomplish this or even just telling me the name of "thing" that i'm trying to accomplish.
Thank you in advance.
PS. Oh, by the way, I learned the word Branding in my search for the holy grail. I don't even know that the word fits or not...
I did try the method you post on other page (Restaurant review site in SharePoint) but unfortunately i couldn't succeed. I stucked at choosing what type of content type in the "Create Content Type" page at first and then tried some parent types but i couldn't get it show up in Sharepoint Designer 2007's New Sharepoint Content "Publishing Page" dialog.
So i tried something else.
At my homepage created a new Document Library of type "Web Part Page" called "Products". It created me a some sort of list whose all items are web pages. At this point i felt that i'm near to accomplish something at last.
Here are some questions i've collected: :)
I add two Announcements web part to different "Products" pages. When I add a new announcement to the list from one product page, it shows up in the other one too! How can I make their content only visible in page that the content created on?
*[Theming is a recurring theme in my posts]* Is it possible to change the view of each Product page at this setup so they have different design and color?
Thanks.
Check out the links I posted in the answer to this question for some links to SharePoint 101 tutorials online:
Restaurant review site in SharePoint
Given you're looking for 'branding' that will mean a custom Master Page. A Master Page is what will determine the overall layout of your SharePoint Web Application's pages. After creating a standard SharePoint application, connect with SharePoint Designer and play with that Master Page for a while until you get the hang of it.
In modifying or creating custom Master Pages, it is important to take note of all the controls (special ASP.NET server-side tags) in particular Content Place Holders; if you create your own Master Page and these are missing you're in a world of uninformative-error-message hurt.
You're going to want to create Lists ( http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointtechnology/HA011199881033.aspx ) to represent 'News' and 'Products'... for Products you may even want to create a Content Type.
Once you create 'News' and 'Products' lists, to see those lists of Products you'll want to make views and use List View Web Parts ( http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA100240521033.aspx ) to include those views in Pages... but at the subject of Web Parts this is probably getting a bit overwhelming so I'll stop here. Comment me if you'd like more.
Addendum
"Is is possible to show only categories of a document library in home page and documents of the selected category in another page?"
-> Yes, and there are several ways. I'd suggest you look into either defining a View for that list which filters based on the category field, then add List View Web Parts to your home page, or writing custom XSLT for the Content Query Web Part, and then add it to your home page. Writing the XSLT for he Content Query web part is a little more difficult, but using the List View has it's short comings in being not-as-configurable, much like this guy is finding out: No-code solution for calendar view of SharePoint news items
"But how can i change a list item to show its details as a whole new page with its own web parts and theme?"
-> Here's the kicker; in SharePoint, each Site you create has a special list for Pages, and each Page actually belongs to a Content Type.
So you can take any content type and turn it into a page; all you have to do is create a Page Layout for it, and add that Content Type to the list.
(So, an example. This is purely speculative; I'm not saying do this specifically, and you probably can't do it exactly as I describe it as I'm oversimplifying a little)
You create a Content Type 'Product', but you also decide 'Category' should be a Content Type too. So you create a content type for 'Catagory', and you give it a lookup column, which refers to items in the 'Product' List. You specify that the lookup can contain multiple items.
Now you want a Page where people can see a category, and all the Products which belong to it. You create a 'Page Layout' (an aspx file) for the 'Catagory' Content Type. In the Page Layout aspx file you can include web controls which render the Catagory's fields, such as 'title' and 'description' and you can probably even add one to render the 'Products' lookup field. (maybe you'll have to code it yourself)
I hope I haven't lost you.
Now that you've created a Page Layout for 'Catagory' you can add 'Catagory' to the Pages list/library and then create pages which represent Catagories, and when people edit those pages, they will also edit the Catagory.
More Addendum
If "Announcements" is a list, the web part you added was a list view web part, and so it just shows the contents of the list (which is independent of the product pages)
You'll want o specify filters of your view. I dunno if you can specify unique filters on the web part... but you can try :)
You might want to consider looking into The Content Query Web Part.
I don't fully understand your second question, but I get the feeling the answer is yes... what do you mean by "view"? You gotta be careful with the lingo; do you mean the Page Layout? or the List View Web Part? or the List View? or the Master Page? ...
you HAVE to check out Heather Solomon. She is the shiznat when it comes to sharepoint branding.
A good start would be using Sharepoint Designer.
Use SharePoint Designer to do your CSS work, particularly in discovering the CSS rules in play. DO NOT publish the finished work from SD; if you do, future Windows Updates may wipe out your files. Instead, deploy your customizations as a Feature. In MOSS 2007, you can add a single custom CSS file using Central Admin - this will then be applied AFTER core.CSS at runtime, To the best of my knowledge, this is the only practical way of doing this.
You need to indicate whether you are using WSS or MOSS. With WSS, you can use themes.
I've got a situation where I want to have a master list at the top level of a Sharepoint site, and then allow the sub-sites to see the master list. I've tried working with Content Types, and either I'm slow and just can't get the concept, or it doesn't seem to apply.
Anyone have any luck?
It depends on what you mean by "see" the master list.
If you're writing code to access it, you can do that by getting an SPWeb object for the top level site and using its Lists property.
If you just want to display it on a web part page, you can do that with a Content Query Web Part.
If you want to use it in other lists somehow, that's a more involved question. You can definitely set up lookup columns to point to lists in other sites, but we've only done that via custom site and list definitions.
Also, if you want to reuse some text or HTML from your master list and you're using MOSS, the Reusable Content list in the site collection's top site is useful.
I heard some web parts can build relation between lists that are located on different sites. But it is new to seek sharping list relationbetween master-sites and sub-sites.
I am not sure if this relation can be seen as cross-site, if positive then take a look at Sharepoint Cross-site Lookup. Otherwise for me your requirements is an "involved question" .
You can also use data view webparts to serve up list data from other sites.
If you want to be able to have a lookup column, looking in another list at a higher level site. you can at the higher level site create a site column (under site settings) that is a lookup field to the socalled masterlist. Then on the list in a subsite, you can add a site column, then choose the site column you created earlier.