Site Settings Part 4 ( Look and Feel )

Welcome to the 4^th part of Site Settings. Here, we will be discussing about the look & feel structure ofSharePoint 2013 configuration. So let’s go for it.

Design Manager

The first new feature is Design Manager in SharePoint 2013. Unlike SharePoint Designer, it is something different. Here, we can import HTML file that will be converted into a SharePoint master page or CSS files, JavaScript files, Images and other supporting files.

Then, we can Manage Device Channels, Upload Design Files, Edit Master Pages, Edit Display Templates, Edit Page Layouts, Publish and Apply Design and lastly you can create Design Packages which includes master page or CSS files, JavaScript files, Images and other supporting files.

Master Page

As per our screen below, we can see Site Master pages which you can inherit, specify one as default or reset them all back to their default Master page.

Then, we have System Master Page which is nothing but pages used for Administrative pages and views of Document Library which you want to be inherited from the master page you want which you can inherit, specify one as default or reset them all back to their default Master page.

Then, we have beautiful Themes of SharePoint 2013 which can be used to Inherit from parent sites or reset it back to the site default definitions.

Lastly, we have Alternate CSS URL where you can either specify your CSS files, use it as a default one or inherit from the Parent Site.

Title, Description and Logo

Then, we can see from our screen that we have default options for your Site Name, Description and Logo for theSite.

Page Layouts and Site Templates

As we can see Sub site Templates on our screen below, where we have an option to inherit site templates from parent site or they can choose any of the following site templates in the list.

The same logic goes on for Page Layouts and you can also choose an option from the below New Page DefaultSettings so when a new page is created, that will be a default page layout.

Welcome Page

This part of site settings allows you to provide the URL of the page which you want to be as a welcome page of the site whereas in other versions, we used to go to that page and make page as Home Page.

Device Channels

It is another new feature in SP 2013 which enables you to store certain site content, style your content, and change image even while maintaining the same URL across a pool of different devices such as I-pad, desktop or in mobile.

Isn’t it an important one? It is.

Here, you have to as per the below screen shot create a new item and, I’ll quote from the column reference” Specify one or more user agent substrings (for example: Windows Phone OS), placing each substring on its own line. When the user agent string of a visiting device contains any of the specified substrings, the channel will force site pages to display using that channel's optimizations, like a different Master Page or Device Channel Panel. You can also trigger this special rendering by using query strings, cookies or custom code, in which case the substrings don't matter.”

In easy words, you can differentiate your site between desktop, IPAD and Cellular.

Tree View

It is just a renamed feature of quick launch in previous versions, Here, we have Enable Quick Launch and Enable Tree View functionality to be applied on the navigation of the site.

Change the Look

My favorite feature is change the look. You can change the layout, theme or background by the following default themes. You can even create your own and upload them here. It is like a customization on clicks.

So once you select a template, just click on it. You will see the Try it Out option which will allow you to have a preview of it as well as put it as a default theme.

Import Design Package

If you have lot of sites and you want everyone to be configured the same as one of your sites, you import the design package from that site and upload it to your site so without wasting lot of effort and time, you can configure other sites by uploading a common Design package.

Navigation

Coming to the navigation, there is no change in the functionality compared to the other versions of SharePointso Microsoft is still on its old panel of navigation.

Image Renditions

A new functionality in 2013 where you can pre configure the height and width of the Display Template Picture or Display template Video even if it differs in its size uploaded by the user by providing you more control on yoursite.

So this was the fourth part of Site Settings. See you again in the other parts.

References : Microsoft & codeproject

Site Settings Part 3 ( Site Administration )

Introduction

Welcome back to the third part of Site Settings in SharePoint 2013. Today, we will cover the most important part of Site Administration. As you see from the screen shot below, let us discuss about them one by one.

Regional Settings

As we are aware from the previous versions of SharePoint Regional settings, we can change the Time Zone, Region and Calendar Configurations.

Language Settings

We don’t need to translate for our site as we can configure it to our own need as we can see in the below screen.

Site Libraries & Lists

Here, we can see all the libraries and lists in the site where when we click on a particular list to customize and it will take you to the list or Document library settings page.

User Alerts

As per the below screen shot, we don’t see any alerts but if you add any alerts in any of the lists, it will come up here so you can globally see them here and delete if you want.

RSS

As we can see from the screen shot, we can Enable RSS Feeds, providing the copyright, Managing Editor, Webmasters and Time to Live values.

Sites & Workspaces

Here, we will be able to see all the sites and workspaces attached to the Site along with their Description, Date of Creation and an option to delete them.

Workflow Settings

Below we can see Workflows. All the workflows along with their current status will be present in the Site settings under Workflow Settings. We can also track the current status of the Workflows which are in progress.

Site Closure & Deletion

Below, we can see option for closing the site now as an App, just a click and the site will close. Then we have an option to delete the site and lastly we can set Site Policy which will delete or close the site automatically.

Site Output Cache

Here, you can specify a cache profile for the caching page output for users and it will also receive the cache output of the authenticated users. As per the screen shot, we can see a configuration output for cache profiles.

Term Store Management

It is a very good feature in its own mane which states Term Store Management.

It helps developer as setting up a search module, making navigation tabs on the site and that too in a hierarchical manner, then we have dictionaries enabling, etc .

In short, it has lot of stuff and soon one of my articles will be based on Term Store Management.

Popularity Trends

As we can see in the screen below, Popularity trends is nothing but an Excel report generation with the documents most modified or downloaded in the site.

Content and Structure

When you come in here in Site settings, you will see the all contents of your site including your sub site’s. I have colored them up so that you don’t see some peculiar test names.

Manage Catalog Connections

When you come up here, you will be able to connect your site to a catalog, Once you click on it, you will see the below icon to connect to a catalog.

All catalogs you will add up will be shown here in the below view:

Content and Structure Logs

As in here, we can see it maintains the logs of all the updates as we will make any changes to the application, to any list, to any document.

Site Variation Settings

This feature is used to create and manage local specific sites in this site collection by getting sync the content to one or sites.

Here, you can create Label and Hierarchies. You can also set up Variation Settings and receive Variation Logs.

Translation Status

This is a new feature in 2013 where you can create a new item as per the below form.

Here, you can export the time schedule for job completion and export by providing the below details.

References :  Microsoft and codeproject

Site Settings Part 2 ( Web Designer Galleries )

in Part 2, we will discuss about the Web Designer Galleries. Here, we can see Site columns, Site content types, Web Parts, List templates, Master pages and page layouts, Themes, Solutions and Composed looks.

We will see how to create a site column and publish it.

As you can see below:

 Site Columns:

Let’s discuss about them one by one so starting with Site Columns as you can see, we can create Site Column from anywhere in the list or the document library where it will come up in the following way in the Site settings under the Site columns.

The difference between the two types is that when you create a column inside your list or library, this column is only available there. Therefore, if you need the same column in another list or library afterwards, you will have to create it once again. The Site Column helps you find an answer by providing a reusable column within your site and sub sites

It will show you the type of the column and the source of it as we can see below:

In Part 8, we will see how to create site columns and how to use those in list or libraries.

Content Types:

A content type defines the metadata, workflow, and behavior for a category of items in a SharePoint list or document library. For example, you can create a content type for information in a contacts list or a task list. A contact content type might include columns such as Name, Email, Telephone Number, and Address. A content type that you define at the site level is independent of any list or document library in the site. You can use the same content type with different lists or document libraries on the SharePoint site. You can also use several content types on the same list or document library.

We can see Site Content Types as you can see we can create Content Type from anywhere in the list or the document library where it will come up in the following way in the Site settings under the Site Content Types.

It will show you the type of the column and the source of it as we can see below:

Then, we have Web Part Gallery, where we can see all our Web Parts placed in here with their Modified By and Modified Date along with their recommendation settings which is required to install them.

In a similar way, we have List Template Gallery, where we can see all our custom lists placed in here with their Modified By and Modified Date along with their product version, Feature ID and Language of the List Templates.

Then we have Master Page Gallery storing all our master pages.

Below, we can see Theme Gallery where we can see our existing themes as well as we can upload new themes in it from here in the Theme Gallery.

Then we have Solutions, which stores all the custom solutions. In here, you can upload a solution, activate or deactivate a solution and even upgrade a solution.

Then, we have something new here as Composed Looks which states the color of the site and most importantly it tells from which Master Page or Theme it is inheriting that feature.

It also has an Image URL if they are inheriting an image and they too have Font Scheme URL if they are inheriting it from a style for the look and feel of the site.

 References : Microsoft and Codeproject

Site Setting in SharePoint 2013 ( Part 1) Permissions

Below, you can see a screen shot on the site settings page in SharePoint 2013. I will divide this page into parts so that I may cover each of them in an easy way for my readers to understand.

we will cover up Users and Permissions.

 Firstly, under site settings, we have People and groups where we have default groups as well as custom groups which are added through site permissions.

So, it’s like a place having all the users and groups at one place.

Then, we have Site Permissions.

First, we have Manage Parent where you can add Users and Groups and assign them to the parent level of permissions.

Then, we have in there as Stop Inheriting Permissions where you can give your site a unique set of permissions or can inherit from the Top level site.

We have Grant permissions where you can provide permissions to users as well as groups as Owners, Approvers, Designers, Full Control, Read, Contribute and View access.

We have Create Groups as we can see we have the following input form to fill in the details as name, about it, the group owner, who can view the membership, who can leave the membership, who can allow users to join or leave the group, Auto accept requests and lastly who should receive an email to approve users to join in the group.

Lastly, we have Site App Permissions which is new in 2013 version. Here, it displays all the app’s permission level with the identifier.

If you are site collection administrator, we can see Site collection administrators columns at the end of app permissions column, where we can add or edit site collection administrator group. 

Reference : Microsoft & Codeproject

How to edit a page that has no "Edit Page" menu option in SharePoint

Once you are at the page you want to add a web part to, add the following to the URL:

To change everyone's view of a particular page, append 

?PageView=Shared&ToolPaneView=2 to the URL.

To change your private view of a particular page, append ?PageView=Personal&ToolPaneView=2 to the URL (this will only work on pages that allow you to have a personal view - to see if you can edit a personal view of a page, go to the page and click on the top right context menu beside the "Welcome, <your name>" link to see if there's a menu option called "Personalise this page").

At the end of the URL, that is after the .aspx, put a '?' then the value below, to use more than one use an '&'

Querystring	Function
Contents=1	This is probably the most useful of querystrings. Using this on any "Web Part Page" will take you to what is called the "Web Part Page Maintenance" page (screenshot below) which allows you to delete web parts from both personal and shared views. This feature is especially useful if you have added a misbehaving web part. In this situation you can find yourself in a "chicken and egg" situation, whereby you can’t access the page to remove the web part because the web part you have added is causing an error on the page. Note: I have actually come across a situation where even this technique couldn’t remove a misbehaving web part, in this situation FrontPage becomes the only option.
Mode=Edit	This flips a "Web Part Page" into edit mode, its the same as clicking on "Edit Page"
Mode=View	This flips a "Web Part Page" into view mode, it’s the same as clicking on "View Page"
PageView=Personal	Displays your Personal view of a "Web Part Page", this is the same as selecting "Personal View" from the "Modify Shared/My Page" dropdown.
PageView=Shared	Displays the Shared view of a web part page, this is the same as selecting “Personal View” from the "Modify Shared/My Page" dropdown.
ToolPaneView=2	Shows the "Add Web Parts" toolpane, allowing you to drag and drop web parts onto a "Web Part Page".
ToolPaneView=3	Shows the "Search" toolpane, letting you search through the web part galleries before adding a web part to the page.

Finally (there is always a finally isn't there?) a couple of things that should be considered:
1. These querystrings *will* respect the underlying SharePoint permissions, so for example, someone without the ability to add web parts will not suddenly be able to by using these querystrings.
2. These will let you add web part to pages that may not have been designed to have web parts added to them, for example the "Sites" page. Be very careful as there are certainly some issues to be discovered, don't try and get too fancy!
3. You use these at your own risk.

If you don't want to start filtering using a Form Web Part then using FilterField / FilterValue pairs is a nice easy route: 

?FilterField1={column name}&FilterValue1={required value}