RTM’d today: Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 Inside Out
We’re very pleased to announce that Errin O’Connor, Penelope Coventry, Troy Lanphier, Johnathan Lightfoot, Thomas Resing, and Michael Doyle’s new book, Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 Inside Out , has shipped to the printer!
Dive in to Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 -- and learn how to connect and empower people through a unified communications infrastructure. This in-depth reference packs hundreds of timesaving solutions, troubleshooting tips, and workarounds in a supremely organized format. It's all muscle and no fluff. Discover how the experts tackle SharePoint Foundation 2010 -- and challenge yourself to new levels of mastery! You’ll learn how to build communities that empower people to work together in new ways; simplify information sharing, make team collaboration more efficient; create sites for employees, partners, and customers to collaborate securely; direct the entire content lifecycle from creation to disposition; use SharePoint Search to find people and information anywhere; customize site appearance with cascading style sheets; and use SharePoint Foundation with other products, including Excel Services, and Microsoft Visual Studio Team System.
The book will be available via online retailers around September 27. In the meantime, here’s more information about the book:
Contents at a Glance
Chapter 1: Introducing Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010
Chapter 2: Administration for the Business User
Chapter 3: End-User Features and Experiences
Chapter 4: Creating Sites and Workspaces with the Browser
Chapter 5: Designing Lists and Libraries
Chapter 6: Creating and Formatting Web Pages
Chapter 7: Adding, Editing, Connecting, and Managing Web Parts on the Page
Chapter 8: Managing Site Content
Chapter 9: Working with External Content
Chapter 10: Using and Creating Workflows
Chapter 11: Integrating SharePoint with Microsoft Office
Chapter 12: Taking Lists and Libraries Offline
Chapter 13: Managing Site Settings
Chapter 14: Creating, Managing, and Designing Sites with SharePoint Designer 2010
Chapter 15: Customizing the User Interface
Chapter 16: Developing SharePoint Solutions Using Visual Studio 2010
Introduction
Welcome to Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 Inside Out. Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 is provided as a free download and provides a powerful collection of services that can be used to build powerful web solutions. It forms the basis for a number of other SharePoint products, such as, SharePoint Server 2010 and Office 365 – which incorporates Microsoft’s SharePoint 2010 cloud based solution, called SharePoint Online.
SharePoint Foundation helps teams stay connected and productive by providing an infrastructure that allows easy access to the people, documents, and information they need. With SharePoint Foundation, teams can create Web sites to share information and foster collaboration with other users. You can access content stored within a SharePoint site from a Web browser and through desktop applications, such as Microsoft Office.
Who This Book Is For
This book offers a comprehensive look at the features most people will use in SharePoint Foundation 2010 and serves as an excellent reference for users who need to understand how to accomplish what they need to do. In addition, this book goes a step or two further, and provides useful information to advanced users and IT professionals who need to understand the bigger picture.
Assumptions About You
This Inside Out book is designed for readers who have some experience with SharePoint Foundation 2010 and are pretty comfortable finding their way around the product. You will need access to an installation of SharePoint Foundation 2010 or have the ability to install it on a server or in a virtual environment.
This book touches only briefly on some of the basic topics that you’ll find covered in more detail elsewhere (like in Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Plain & Simple, Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 Step by Step and Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2010 Step by Step). We focus on techniques and topics that are likely to appeal to readers who have already mastered the many basics of this SharePoint 2010. Whether you are a business analyst, site owner, a server administrator or a developer, you will find something in this book for you.
How This Book Is Organized
This book gives you a comprehensive look at the various features you will use. This book is structured in a logical approach to all aspects of using and managing SharePoint Foundation 2010, starting with an introduction of the features that are included. The early chapters concentrate on what you can achieve using the browser, whilst later ones detail features from power-end user, administrator and developer perspectives.
Chapter 1, Introducing Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010, introduce SharePoint Foundation 2010 as the entry level component of the SharePoint family of technologies, meaning that this software will get organizations started using SharePoint. The chapter examines the capabilities, features and functions of SharePoint Foundation 2010.
Chapter 2, Administration for the Business User, breaks down the administration of SharePoint into two categories: Business User Administration and Information Technology Professional Administration. The chapter provides you with the tools to set up your SharePoint sites that are serviced on the back end either by your organization’s IT Group or an external hosting company or both.
Chapter 3, End-User Features and Experiences, explains how organizations can take advantage of the powerful, built-in features of Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010. The items discussed in this chapter are ones end-users will utilize on a daily basis. These items will increase collaboration with other SharePoint users and also increase productivity on day-to-day tasks and activities.
Chapter 4, Creating Sites and Workspaces with the Browser, helps you to set up a site/workspace. There are several methods in which a user can accomplish this, but the most straightforward and intuitive way is via the browser. The browser is a tool in which all computer users are aware of. With the familiarity of the browser and intentional ease of use design, the user can start creating sites in no time at all.
Chapter 5, Designing Lists and Libraries, shows you how to use a browser to create, modify, and display lists and libraries. Lists and libraries can be used as repositories of almost anything you want to store within the SharePoint environment. With the help of new form dialogs, and the introduction of the ribbon, the experience of reading, editing and creating content has been greatly enhanced in SharePoint Foundation 2010. Lists and libraries are a powerful solution for organizations that currently create content in many different types of applications that are subsequently saved in various locations.
Chapter 6, Creating and Formatting Web Pages, steps you through creating a Wiki Page library, named Site Pages, where the web pages are stored and where new pages are stored when created. These pages have been enhanced and are easy to change. Web Part pages are still used in SharePoint Foundation and are the default type of page on sites such as Group Work Sites, Meeting Workspaces, and Blog sites. Web Part pages can also be used on Team sites, but on such sites are usually used for list views, list item edit forms and list item display forms.
Chapter 7, Adding, Editing, Connecting, and Managing Web Parts on the Page, shows you how to add a web part to a SharePoint site. A web part is a key component of any SharePoint installation, and is present in all versions, from SharePoint Foundation to SharePoint Server (Standard or Enterprise). Its core function is to represent customizable content on a web page. It is only intended to receive Input and display content.
Chapter 8, Managing Site Content, provide tools and strategies for architecting a great site. Using the strategies, you discover ways to present information that is up to date and relevant in your sites.
Chapter 9, Working with External Content, shows you how to use the Data Source gallery and the Business Connectivity Services (BCS), as well as the differences between the two methods. You examine the architecture of the BCS including the security options. You also look at managing the data connections and how to expose the data from the external systems on web pages and in lists and libraries. The chapter ends showing you how to use Visual Studio 2010 with BCS.
Chapter 10, Using and Creating Workflows, details how to use the out-of-the-box workflows in the browser. It looks at extending them using Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2010, and how Visual Studio can help your organization use SharePoint Foundation 2010 with its business processes.
Chapter 11, Integrating SharePoint with Microsoft Office, examines the differences in Office 2010 versions as they relate to SharePoint Foundation 2010. The SharePoint 2010 platform has many strengths; one of the greatest is its integration with the Microsoft Office desktop client. Office applications installed on the client desktop interface directly with not only SharePoint sites and workspaces, but also the entities within these sites, such as Document Libraries, Content, and Workflows. The chapter also makes reference to other, non-PC Office versions that provide a measure of interaction with the SharePoint 2010 platform.
Chapter 12, Taking Lists and Libraries Offline, shows you how there are several ways to take content offline in SharePoint 2010. The reason for this is simple: some people only need to take a document or two offline while others need to interact with an entire list, folder or library.
Chapter 13, Managing Site Settings, explains how you can be both Site Owner and Site Collection Administrator. You learn about Site Settings within a Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 Site/Site Collection.
Chapter 14, Creating, Managing, and Designing Sites with SharePoint Designer 2010, details a number of techniques that are useful when working with Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2010 and SharePoint Foundation 2010 sites. You can now develop solutions in non-Production environments and transfer them to the production environment. SharePoint Designer’s focus is not on adding static images and text to web pages, but on using it as an alternative tool for site collection. Site owners who administrator and manage sites are able to go beyond what the browser provides.
Chapter 15, Customizing the User Interface, shows you that building a SharePoint 2010 solution is more than a collection of lists, libraries, pages and workflows. Each of these components should be combined to provide users with a holistic solution, where the components work together and not as discrete entities. SharePoint 2010 provides components that you can use to improve the users experience (UX). These improvements all help in an improved UX. In your solutions you can extend many of these improvements, specifically by displaying links, relevant text and commands.
Chapter 16, Developing SharePoint Solutions Using Visual Studio 2010, introduce you to the development of SharePoint artifacts and solution-development programming. The chapter assumes you already have some experience with .NET programming and with Web-based programming in general. Developing solutions for SharePoint helps you become a valuable asset to your organization.