- Introduction to SharePoint Designer
- Moving on from In-Browser Customization
- Opening SharePoint Sites in SharePoint Designer
- Exploring the SharePoint Designer Interface
- Accessing Content via the Navigation Pane
- Administering Sites in SharePoint Designer
- More SharePoint Designer Configuration Options
- Summary
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Administering Sites in SharePoint Designer
This section focuses on performing administrative tasks specific to sites, such as site settings and site permissions. Just as with accessing information within sites, there are multiple entry points for performing administrative tasks. We look specifically at administering sites via the navigation tab Home settings page and via ribbon options.
Administer Sites via the Settings Page
The key administrative options are on the settings page, shown in Figure 7.54. They include modifying site information and permissions.
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Figure 7.54 Site Settings page in a site collection root site in SharePoint Designer 2010.
Modifying Site Information
You may change the title and description of the current site, but changing the title does not change the site's URL. To change the title, simply click on the current title, or description, and enter a new title. However, be sure to save your changes or else any changes are lost when you navigate away from the page. Whenever you make changes to properties on a settings page, an * is visible in the currently selected tab immediately above the settings page, as shown in Figure 7.55. The * shown in the SharePointRus tab indicates pending changes and that you must save the current page or setting before the change/s is committed.
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Figure 7.55 Pending changes to site settings indicated by an on the Site tab.
The Total storage used, if at the root site of site collection, represents the storage for the entire site collection.
Changing a Subsite URL in SharePoint Designer 2010
Although you cannot rename the URL in the root site of a site collection, you may change the URL within a subsite of a site collection. Subsites' settings pages include an additional item in the Site Information section, namely Folder, as shown in Figure 7.56. Clicking on the blue, hyperlinked text to the right of Folder enables you to type in a new name to replace the current URL when the change is saved.
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Figure 7.56 Modify a subsite's URL.
Modifying Site Permissions
Permissions involve adding and modifying SharePoint groups, adding permission levels to groups and adding users to groups. We can also access site permission options by selecting the Site Groups tab in the navigation pane.
The Permissions section on the Home tab setting page includes a New button as highlighted in Figure 7.57.
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Figure 7.57 Permissions section on Settings page.
Clicking the New button enables you to add new users to an existing SharePoint group. In Figure 7.58, Craig Hughes is added to the Approvers group. In the Add Permissions dialog, you can change the group or give users direct access via one of the existing site permission levels, such as Design.
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Figure 7.58 Adding a new user to a SharePoint group.
When you add a user to a SharePoint group, a subsequent confirmation dialog is presented, as shown in Figure 7.59.
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Figure 7.59 Confirmation that a user has been added to a SharePoint group.
Setting permissions in SharePoint Designer 2010 closely resembles setting permissions in the Web interface. Indeed, we can also verify that users added to groups via SharePoint Designer then show in the equivalent group in the Web interface, as shown in Figure 7.60.
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Figure 7.60 Verifying the addition of a user to a SharePoint group.
You access additional permission settings, as shown in Figure 7.61, by clicking Permissions in the Permissions section on the settings page.
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Figure 7.61 Additional permission settings in the ribbon.
The Add Users/Groups option has the same effect as clicking the New button on the Permissions section of the Settings page. You can create a New SharePoint group and assign an owner to that group by clicking the Create Group button in the ribbon.
Clicking an existing group under the Permissions tab and to the right of the navigation pane enables you to modify the permission level for that group, as shown in Figure 7.62.
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Figure 7.62 Changing the permission level on an existing SharePoint group.
Right-clicking an existing SharePoint group provides options to edit, delete, or go to the selected group's settings (using the Properties option) page, as shown in Figure 7.63.
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Figure 7.63 Accessing SharePoint group options under the Permissions tab.
Selecting the Properties option provides access to the selected SharePoint group's settings page, as shown in Figure 7.64 where the SharePointRus Members settings are displayed.
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Figure 7.64 SharePoint Group Settings page in SharePoint Designer 2010.
In the group settings page, you add new users or verify details on an existing user, as shown in Figure 7.65, by clicking the user's name in the Members section on the setting page.
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Figure 7.65 Verifying user details.
Permission Inheritance and Disinheritance
As when working with site permissions via the Web interface, when working in a subsite in SharePoint Designer 2010, you have options to inherit or disinherit from the parent site permission set. In Figure 7.66, an additional option, Stop Inheriting, is present in the Permissions section on the site's Home settings page.
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Figure 7.66 Permission inheritance in a subsite.
By clicking the Stop Inheriting button, we effectively break the current inheritance and create unique permissions for the current site, as confirmed in the dialog shown in Figure 7.67.
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Figure 7.67 Dialog served when disinheriting permissions.
To re-inherit permissions from the parent, click the hyperlinked Permissions title on the Permissions tab on the site's settings page. On the Permissions page, click the Inherit Permissions button in the ribbon's Actions group (see Figure 7.68).
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Figure 7.68 Re-inheriting permissions from the parent site.
Administering Sites via the Ribbon
In this section, we look at key administrative options available within the ribbon, as shown in Figure 7.69.
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Figure 7.69 Site administrative options within the ribbon.
Table 7.17 summarizes the administrative options.
Table 7.17. Ribbon Site Administrative Options
|
Option |
Description |
|
Delete Site |
Exhibits the same behavior as in the Web interface and is grayed out if there are subsites present under the current site. You need to delete the subsites first. |
|
Rename |
Enables you to rename the current site. Note: This does not change the URL name. |
|
Reset to Template |
Returns a page that has been customized, (modified and saved in SharePoint Designer) back to its original source site definition template. A warning dialog is displayed. Clicking OK in the dialog then launches the browser at the http://sitename/_layouts/reghost.aspx page, which includes the option to reset a specific page or reset all pages in the current site to the original site definition. |
|
Add Users/Groups |
Shortcut to add users to the site's permission groups. |
|
Preview in Browser |
Enables you to preview an existing page in a browser. Identifies installed browsers, including 32-bit and 64-bit browsers, and screen resolution. For example, if you have both Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3.5 installed the Preview in Browser list includes those browsers as preview options. It also only opens in the specified resolution if a version of that particular browser is not already open. If that browser version is already open it creates a new tab at the same resolution as existing tabs. Internet Explorer 6 is not supported. |
|
Administration Web Page |
Redirects you to the Site Settings page in the browser, for example http://site_name/_layouts/settings.aspx. |
|
Save Site as Template |
Save the current site, optionally with content, as a site template (WSP). Redirects you to the Save Site as Template page in the browser, for example http://site_name/_layouts/savetmpl.aspx. This option is not present in publishing sites (saving publishing sites as templates is not supported in SharePoint Server 2010). |
|
Recycle Bin |
Redirects you to the site's Recycle Bin via the browser, for example http://site_name/_layouts/recyclebin.aspx. |
|
Site Options |
Enables you to manage some of the site settings, such as SharePoint Designer settings, separate from the Web interface. |
Note on Saving Sites as Templates in SharePoint 2010
Chapter 8, "Creating Sites with Site Templates," covers the differences between saving Team sites, or non-publishing sites, and publishing sites as templates. However, I felt it worthwhile to re-emphasize the fact that in SharePoint Server 2010 saving publishing sites as templates is not supported. This was also the case with SharePoint Server 2007; the behavior remains unchanged in SharePoint Server 2010.
Site Options
Site Options provides an alternative way to manage administrative settings, such as accessing SharePoint Designer settings as opposed to configuring those settings via the Web interface. For example, in Figure 7.70, the SharePoint Designer setting, Enable Customizing Master Pages and Layout Pages, has been disabled, or unchecked.
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Figure 7.70 SharePoint Designer Settings page in the Web interface.
By clicking Site Options and accessing the Parameters tab, as shown in Figure 7.71, we are able to access the allowmasterpageediting parameter, which is equivalent to modifying the Enable Customizing Master Pages and Layout Pages settings in the Web interface. Clicking allowmasterpageediting displays the Modify Name and Value dialog. Changing the value from 0 to 1 and saving changes modifies the status of the equivalent setting in the Web interface.
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Figure 7.71 Modifying SharePoint Designer settings via Site Options.