What This Book Covers

In Chapter 1, we will learn what SharePoint is and why we should choose SharePoint Designer for developing SharePoint sites. Then, we will learn how to install SharePoint Designer and connect to an existing SharePoint site.

In Chapter 2, we will learn what SharePoint Designer does and how to get the most out of the interface. We will learn how to arrange the IDE's task panes , and about the benefits of switching between Design view and Code view. We will also get familiar with the features discretely tucked away on the Status bar to ensure that our pages conform to agreed standards and will render correctly in the browsers visitors use.

In Chapter 3, we will learn how to create a new site, add pages to that site, add text and graphics to our page, and preview the site in our web browser. We will also learn how to create tables and will learn about the benefits of layout tables. We will learn to organize our files and publish our site. We will also learn about the methods we can use to create a consistent style for our site.

In Chapter 4, we will learn to create new pages that follow a consistent theme and allow other users to contribute towards our site while still keeping our styles protected.

In Chapter 5, we will see that SharePoint Designer is more than just a tool to allow us to design pretty pages. When used properly, it becomes an integral part of a company's business processes.

In Chapter 6, we will collect data in our SharePoint site and examine the many methods that SharePoint has for allowing us to display that data.

In Chapter 7, we will discover how easy it is to interrogate a whole range of data sources and display information from them in our SharePoint site in an attractive and useful manner.

In Chapter 8, we will learn what Web Parts are and how they can be added to our site. We will also learn about the benefits of grouping our Web Parts within Web Part Zones.

In Chapter 9, we will learn about what ASP.NET controls are and which ones are available to us. We will also see how to implement simple controls, menu controls, calendar controls, validation controls, and login controls into our pages.

In Chapter 10, we will witness the power of the ready-made tools that SharePoint makes available to us. We will learn how to use OWA Web Parts to display our Exchange information in our SharePoint site and will learn about the configuration changes that are required to do so successfully and how to troubleshoot any error messages that we may come across.

In Chapter 11, we will learn to use the search capabilities that SharePoint provides for us. We will also see how to add search forms and results lists to our pages.