Sharepoint: How to remove default core.css reference? - asp.net

I don't have a real need to omit the default core.css reference from my HTML pages but I would like to know so I can feel comfortable that I have full control. Thanks

There are many ways to achieve this.
The problem is, once you remove the core.css file you are talking about 6 thousand lines of places that will not appear with a presentation anymore. What I do when we are limited to theme-only visual customization I create a theme that will address any new CSS needs and also replace the elements in the core.css file (themes are loaded AFTER this file, so if you have duplicated declarations in both files, the theme's one will prevail, without using the !important mini-hacks).
Keep in mind that SharePoint in editing mode just doesn't work without this file, you have to use different approaches when you are, for example, talking about an internet-facing site with 100% anonymous users vs an intranet-like portal with everyone creating and editing content on the go.
With all the warnings given, you can go to your masterpage and remove the core.css tag making it invisible:
<SharePoint:CssLink runat="server" Visible="false"/>
Depending on your type of sharepoint site (WSS vs MOSS + Publishing Features) the masterpages may work differently based on configuration, by default (WSS or MOSS without Publishing Features or any change on the matter) your masterpage will open on all the link that do not contain /_layouts/ in the url.
Examples:
/Default.aspx => Masterpage
/DocumentLibrary/Forms/Allitems.aspx => MasterPage
/_layouts/viewlsts.aspx (Show all site content) => no custom
masterpage
This is Microsoft's way to stop you from breaking even more (system pages) with the masterpages, but you can be extreme and use HttpModules or editing the 12/Template/Layouts/LCID folder (affecting the entire web front-end)
Usual scenarios:
Anonymous sites with no core.css when the user is anonymous and normal load when credentials are given (loading speed)
Themes used to let users create their mini-sites and use the branded templates or other sharepoint themes
Masterpages to customize what most of the users usually see, forcing your branding throught the child webs (new websites in non-MOSS Publishing wont inherit the masterpage)
Everything-under-the-masterpage with HttpModules or /12/ modifications (very rinky and complicated)

Note: It's not recommended to customize files from the Site Definition when you can avoid doing so.
When using Mickel's advice, make a copy of the Default.master, rename it to something like Custom.master and apply changes to that file. Then right click your custom master page and select "Set as default master page."
This is all done from within SharePoint Designer btw

Simply add your own custom CSS style sheet via Central Admin - this will be applied last, after Core.css so you can override anything you wish. You do not want to remove it! :-)

Related

How do I tie a Drupal template to a webform with multiple environments?

Disclaimer: I inherited a Drupal 7.44 site with no experience in Drupal at all.
The business is trying to make a new webform and they want it to look exactly like an existing one. After looking around I found that the webform has a template tied to it. From the docs it seems I'm supposed to create more template files with the format webform-form-[nid].tpl.php where [nid] is the webform node id.
We have multiple environments that all changes must go through - dev, test, and finally prod. Wouldn't the node id be different in every environment for newly created webforms? Also, if I want to apply the same template to multiple webforms, do I really need to make multiple identical template files?
I also found some CSS styling for the existing webform and it looks like .webform-client-form-25 button.webform-submit and such. That 25 is the node id. I have little CSS experience, but this feels really bad. I don't want to copy blocks of CSS, changing node ids over and over. What's the proper way to assign generic, reusable CSS classes to webforms? I saw "Custom classes" under "Manage Display" when editing the form, but it didn't seem to change the actual HTML of the form. Was I on the right track though, should I just read some docs about it?
You are absolutely right, these detailed selectors do not make sense for reusable layouts.
Each webform HTML form gets a default class of .webform-client-form (that's generic) and an id including the webform's nid #webform-client-form-<nid>.
So, you could change #webform-client-form-25 to the class mentioned above. Please be aware, that this will affect all webforms then.
To set layout settings to several, but not all webforms, you need to give these webforms some class to distinguish them from the rest. Sadly, the Webform module itself doesn't provide an option to do that, but you can add a form alter hook in your theme's template.php:
function mytheme_form_alter(&$form, &$form_state, $form_id) {
$affected_forms = array('webform_client_form_25', 'webform_client_form_37', [...]);
if (in_array($form_id, $affected_forms)) {
$form['#attributes']['class'][] = 'my-custom-class';
}
}
With .my-custom-class you can then define CSS just for the group of webform forms listed in $affected_forms.
As for the template files, Webform itself states:
This file may be renamed "webform-form-[nid].tpl.php" to target a specific webform on your site. Or you can leave it "webform-form.tpl.php" to affect all webforms on your site.
So, again, it doesn't provide an option out-of-the-box, but you can create theme suggestions in your template.php by extending $vars['theme_hook_suggestions'] in a page preprocess function.

Understanding a url that references a CSS file in a SharePoint master page

For SharePoint, this is the entry you could put into your master page to link to a CSS file.
<SharePoint:CssRegistration
name="<% $SPUrl:~sitecollection/_catalogs/masterpage/dir/file.css %>"
runat="server"
after="SharepointCssFile"/>
Could someone please break down the pieces of this url? I don't understand the following parts of it and how they work together:
<% - I do know this means less than
$SPUrl:~sitecollection/ - Is this some kind of variable? What's ~ for?
%> - I do know this means greater than
CssRegistration is just one of the many ways of referencing CSS files in
SharePoint.
lower than (<) and greater than (>) obvious, and ~ refers to the root of the current web application.
CssRegistration is particularly interesting because you can use After to make sure your CSS is loaded after another CSS such as core.css
The real relevant parameter is name, which in this tag can be used with SPURL, which in turn can be used with sitecollection or site, to refer to the current sitecollection root, or just the current site/web.
Note that SPURL is only available on SharePoint Server, not Foundation.
To support Foundation you can use ProjectProperty, which takes Url or SiteUrl.
So to wrap up, SPUrl is a token available in SharePoint that we can use to specify a resource from a specific location, relative to the current page, web, site and others.

Sharepoint MasterPages/Templates customization

I am pretty new to Sharepoint.
I need to customize some Sharepoint Masterpages (the background color, the font type and a few other css requeriments).
Considering I have available the following files: v4.master, default.master and two more pages which are content pages of default.master, plus the COREv4.css file.
I know I should create a copy of one of those master pages (I am not sure which tho) and customize it changing the CSS linked to it). The following questions come in regards of this:
1) The custom CSS file should be a modified copy of the COREv4.CSS or just another CSS file with the desired styles?
2) How do I create/link the customized CSS file for the modified page via Site Settings?. How/Where should I save the new file?.
3) As for the copy of v4.master, How do I load it to "replace" the original one for the site?.
4) The system is built upon Sharepoint 2010. That ensures that the page to have the modified CSS would be a v4.master copy only?.
Thank you for the insight as always.
**Update**
Hi,
I managed to solve the problem getting a general idea with the pdf manual provided, your suggestions and some extra steps I will describe briefly:
1) To place my custom css file I put it in the folder: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\3082\STYLES
2) I opened the site to be customized with Sharepoint Designer 2010.
3) I clicked on the option Main Pages/Master Pages, and selected the page to be v4.master page, copied and pasted it. Then I renamed it right clicking on it, selecting "Rename" and typed the new name, after doing that I right clicked one more and selected "Set page as main default page".
4) To edit the contents of the page I right clicked once more and selected the option "Edit content in advanced mode", right before the head tag ended I copied and pasted:
<SharePoint:CssRegistration name="customname.css" runat="server" After="core4.css"/>
Note that "customname.css" is my css file. Then I clicked on the floppy disk icon on the upper left side of the screen to save.
5) After doing that I used Chrome HTML/CSS Analyzer, inspecting the original (and now copied) master page to browse on the zones that needed customization in order to identify the class names/ids/element types that managed the styles to be changed. Once identified I only added to them the properties that required change, EG:
//Webparts Alternate Highlighted Rows
div#ctl00_MSO_ContentDiv table.ms-viewlsts tbody
tr.ms-alternatingstrong{ background-color:#F7FAF4 }
table.ms-listviewtable.ms-basictable tbody
tr.ms-alternatingstrong.ms-itmhover{ background-color:#F7FAF4 }
I mostly did this by myself by trial and error with Chrome Analyzer but I also helped the task using the Chart found here (http://sharepointexperience.com/csschart/csschart.html), tho at some point going thru it turned a bit tricky and I decided to do it by myself as I mentioned. In the process I repeatedly added more styles to the custom file and then overwrote it on the server location to refresh the page/pages to see how it was looking, this till the end of the process.
Thanks for your help, I hope this serves as a guide for anyone that needs it. If you have questions let me know.
You can create a new master page from the scratch or modify the existing one.
Please have a look at this link it may help you to get answers of your questions
http://www.rdacorp.com/wp-content/uploads/ASP-NET-Master-Pages-and-SharePoint.pdf
It's not advised to modify files of SharePoint.
Better to create new master page file, specify all CSS and script you want inside and install this with feature.
What version of SharePoint do you have? SharePoint 2010 Server or Foundation? Cause with server version you can brand your master page in a cool way:
see this link
Microsoft has a good introductory article on how you can/should do this.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-designer-help/customize-a-master-page-to-brand-your-site-HA102449505.aspx

the same asp.net web application with different look

I recently created a simple asp.net webapplication and hosted in a server in my company. I need the same application for several clients, and I have to change just labels and images according to the client. Something like: "www.mycompany.com/mywebapp/client1", "www.mycompany.com/mywebapp/client2", "www.mycompany.com/mywebapp/client3"
But logic and database is the same. How could I do this? Thanks.
If it's a .Net web application or a .Net website, you would use MasterPages and user controls. This would allow you to have functionality restricted to the user controls and all style/layout considerations handled in the master pages.
If you choose to use MVC you would be using layout pages for a similar purpose and partial views in place of usercontrols.
In the case in the question, each subfolder would have its own master page:
mywebapp/client1/client1.master
mywebapp/client2/client2.master
mywebapp/client3/client3.master
and the pages inside would simply have the master page definitions and inclusion of the user controls. Your user controls would then sit in a public common folder such as:
mywebapp/sharedcontrols/login.ascx
mywebapp/sharedcontrols/clientinfodisplay.ascx
We did this slightly differently. In our case the DNS names are client1.mycompany.com
All of the DNS names are pointed at the exact same "web site" under IIS. In our master page we detect the subdomain (ie: client1) and look up the internal client id for it.
Also, we have a "skins" directory which holds the custom css and images for the client. For example /Skins/34/custom.css or /Skins/34/logo.png
Back in the master page we inject the appropriate CSS file which contains the overrides necessary to meet that customers look/feel.
For example, in our default css file we might have a definition like:
#customerLogo { background-image: url('/images/default.png');
then in the customer specific css file we'll have something like:
#customerLogo { background-image: url('/skins/34/logo.png') !important;
This allows our custom file to override the default css class definitions. Further, it allows us to override just the particular elements that need it instead of having to have a full css file per client.

How do I use Google Analytics with Sitecore 6?

I know that I need to add the tracking code snippet at the bottom of all my pages, but is there a central location to do this?
Or do I need to add this tracking code to all of my templates?
I guess that I could wrap the snippet in a user control, or external .js file, and reference it on each page, but is there a global footer somewhere? The site I'm working on has about 30-40 layouts, and adding it to each one would be a pain!
Thanks in advance!
Actually, the role of a Sitecore layout is exactly this; to act as a global file that all individual page templates "derive" from.
Normally you'd stick the analytics code into the master layout, and use Sitecore sublayout/placeholder techniques to construct the various page templates you need. You would not normally need more than perhaps one or two layouts for any device you are serving content to. And I guess for most sites, the only device in use is regular web content delivery.
That being said, what you could do, is have all the layouts inherit their codebase from a common base class (inheriting from Page), and inject the google code centrally from here. Would still require you to go through all layout files however.
I have not tried the module, I think that is codebehind version. I have made this in XSLT, its pretty fast and easy to make. I have footer.xslt where I put the code that simply checks if page you are standing on uses template that I want to index and does not belong to page names that I want to exclude. Then I have an item with a custom template for Google Analytics with following memo fields.
IncludeTemplates -field contains list of templates that I want to include for analytics :
ExcludeItemsNames -field for excluding pages by item name
contains($includeTemplates, concat('|',./#template,'|')) and not(contains($excludeItemNames, concat('|',./#template,'|')))
Remember #key and #template is always in small letters
If you run many domains don't forget to add pageTracker._setDomainName("www.example.com"); in analytics script so you can separate sub-domains etc. if they use same footer.xslt
Normally we consider the actual Google code as content. Within Sitecore we normally have a settings folder, something like /sitecore/content/settings. This exists outside the root of the site. Beneath this have a settings item with a plain multi-line text field, I think the field type is memo or something similar.
Afterwards create an XSLT that renders out the content of this settings item. Something like (assuming the field is called value in the setting item):
<xsl:value-of select="sc:fld('Value','/sitecore/content/settings/footerJavaScript')" />
You may or may not need to set the disable-output-escaping attribute.
Then on the aspx page that your pages use as the template add a control that looks at the xslt rendering:
<sc:XslFile runat="server" Path="/xsl/footerJavaScript" />
The reason that we normally keep the javascript as content is this allows the client to change the analytics code without having to contact us.

Resources