Technical Writer ◇ Web Developer
EDWARD McHAM
TECHNICAL WRITER ◇ WEB DEVELOPER
REVISITING SHAREPOINT
5 December 2022 ◇ 15:04 CST
There’s a lot of overlap in my nearly 30-year career path, beginning with technical writing in 1995 and transitioning to web development in 2006. After returning to the U. S. from Germany in 2021, I drew up a series of skill sets from both disciplines I’m building on.
In this blog post, I’ll talk how I used SharePoint Designer to create custom master pages, web parts, lists, and forms.
In my first project, I discovered SharePoint 2007 page layouts consisted of endless levels of nested tables. So, I used copious amounts of jQuery to apply CSS styling to web parts and UI elements. It was like running a drain snake through miles of plumbing!
In the second project, SharePoint 2010 (thankfully!) ditched the table-based layout for DIVs. This made custom branding more like stacking LEGO blocks than navigating a Russian matroyshka of tables.
Our team applied a modern HTML / CSS wireframe to a SharePoint 2010 intranet called Connect. I helped create content types and forms that allowed coworkers to write company news articles. I applied custom CSS that turned the SP 2010 Web Part menu into a floating, movable dialog box instead of being pushed off screen to the right. Theming web parts and UI elements was so much easier in SP 2010 than 2007 because of the DIV-based layouts.
Another of my goals was to develop the very first responsive SP 2010 theme, but sadly, the contract ended before I could get started. (However, it seems I wasn’t the only one to get this idea!)
Fast forward to the present. I’m now taking a SharePoint Online course. It appears SharePoint now has Modern and Classic Views. I’m planning to test how responsive and user-friendly the Modern view is, as well as familiarize myself with Power apps.
