SharePoint and Office 2010 RTM available for download

If you have a subscription to either MSDN or Technet then RTM SharePoint Server and Office Professional Plus 2010 RTM became available late yesterday for download. Since SharePoint Foundation 2010 and SharePoint Designer (SPD) 2010 are available for free they weren’t posted on either MSDN or Technet.  Instead they can be downloaded directly from the Microsoft Download Center.  Just check out the links below:

SharePoint Designer 2010 (32 bit) – http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=d88a1505-849b-4587-b854-a7054ee28d66 

SharePoint Designer 2010 (64 bit) – http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=566d3f55-77a5-4298-bb9c-f55f096b125d

Remember that your installation of Designer must match the installation of any other office products.  If you’ve installed Office X64 then you can only install SPD X64.  If you’ve installed the 32 bit version of Office then you can only install the 32 bit version of Designer.  You can install both SPD 2007 and 2010 on the same box, but since SPD 2007 only comes as a 32 bit app you can only install the 32 bit version of SPD 2010 with it.

SharePoint Foundation 2010 – http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=49c79a8a-4612-4e7d-a0b4-3bb429b46595

ECM & Image Capture in SharePoint 2010 Webinar

Please join Chris Riley and me for the webinar entitled Enterprise Content Management &
Image Capture in SharePoint 2010
, where we will review the essential information you need to know to get the most out of SharePoint 2010 as a comprehensive enterprise content and document management solution.

The webinar will include live demonstrations and discussion of the following points:

  • The new features and capabilities in SharePoint 2010 that make it a true ECM platform
  • 2010’s Managed Metadata Service and other improvements for content findability
  • SharePoint’s enhanced Records Management capabilities that will transform how your organization manages content
  • Going from paper to digital with capture tools that integrate with SharePoint
  • Managing and controlling document capture and workflows in SharePoint
  • Assessing your existing ECM platform to identify platform migration opportunities
  • Best Practices for supporting mixed ECM environments, content migration and preserving your investment in existing ECM platforms, etc.
  • Avoiding common pitfalls

Whether you are new to SharePoint or upgrading from a previous version, you will gain a thorough understanding of how to utilize the ECM features in SharePoint 2010, in conjunction with document capture technologies, to create a comprehensive ECM solution with SharePoint 2010 as the foundation.

Sign-Up for the Seminar here:

http://www.sharesquared.com/resources/Pages/ECMImageCaptureWebinar.aspx

ShareSquared

SharePoint 2010 Readiness: Preparation, Strategies & Best Practices

Please join Gary LaPointe and me for the webinar entitled SharePoint 2010 Readiness; Preparation, Strategies & Best Practices, where we will review the essential considerations and steps required to best prepare your organization for the deployment of the new version of SharePoint. .

The webinar will include live demonstrations and discussion of the following points:

  • Who should upgrade, why & when
  • An overview of the major differences between SharePoint 2007 & 2010
  • How to assess your existing SharePoint deployment and identify upgrade risks and opportunities
  • Specific tasks that need to be done to plan and prepare for SharePoint 2010
  • Best Practices for supporting parallel environments, migration, preserving the investment in your existing SharePoint deployment, etc.
  • Avoiding common pitfalls

Whether you are new to SharePoint or considering an upgrade from a previous version (2003 or 2007), you will gain a thorough understanding of how to tactically and strategically deploy SharePoint 2010 and take advantage of this ground-breaking enterprise platform.

Sign-Up for the Seminar here:

http://www.sharesquared.com/resources/Pages/SharePoint2010ReadinessWebinar.aspx

ShareSquared

Editing a SharePoint Master Page in Visual Studio 2010

I’ll be the first to agree that the best tool for editing a SharePoint master page is SharePoint Designer (SPD).  SPD is able to display both a code and “WYSIWYG” view of the master even if objects on the page are referenced using virtual directories, relative addresses, or addresses that contain dynamic placeholders.  Because Visual Studio can’t open a SharePoint site in place it is unable to provide the same level of editing support. But the problem is that a master page edited in SPD is “customized” and can only be used for that one site (or a single site collection if publishing features have been enabled.) So it has become a best practice to create a custom master in a separate SPD development environment, export it to the file system, and then deploy it in production as an “uncustomized” master page using a feature in a solution. (I documented how to deploy an SPD 2007 master page as a feature in a previous blog here.)

Editing master pages in SPD 2010 continues to be the best practice, but it can be cumbersome for small changes to Enterprise master pages already deployed via a Feature. Sometimes its just not practical to upload the master to a Development site master page gallery, edit it in SPD 2010, and then download the edited copy to be packaged in Visual Studio 2010 and re-deployed to an Enterprise. In those cases it would be nice to make a quick edit in VS 2010. But VS 2010 is unable to interpret the master page in the context of a live site and defaults to the standard code view editor when opening a master page.  This leads to two specific limitations that make even simple edits more difficult.  As you can see from the screen shots below there is no support for expansion/contraction of code sections and Intellisense support is greyed out.

NoExpansion

NoIntellisense

This makes it even more difficult to edit master pages in a code only view. To avoid these limitations you will need to tell VS 2010 which editor to use when opening the master page.  To do this Right-Click on the Master page to be edited in the Solution Explorer and select Open With… from the context menu.  A dialog will open showing all the different Editors that are available.  Highlight the Master Page Editor (Default) entry and click OK to open the Master page using the Master Page Editor in place of the Source Code (Text) Editor.  (Note: Although the Master Page Editor is set as the default just clicking on the master page in Solution Explorer will actually use the Source Code (Text) Editor.  The screenshot below shows the master page after it has been manually loaded into the Master Page Editor using the Open With… menu.  Notice the presence of both Expansion/Contraction Outlining and Intellisense.

MasterPageEditor

A similar problem exists when opening .aspx pages that are not stored in the _Layouts virtual directory.  You can enable full code editing of these pages by using OpenWith… and choosing Web Form Editor (default).

Slides from SharePoint Saturday Kansas City: Customizing the Ribbon UI

SharePoint Saturday Kansas CityIt’s been a week since I was in Kansas City doing a presentation on how to customize the new SharePoint 2010 ribbon.  It was a busy week, so I’m just now getting a chance to make the slides and Visual Studio project that I used for the talk available for download.  I’m hoping to transfer the talk into a series of Blog posts over the next few weeks, so if you missed the original talk stay tuned.  Here are links to the downloads:

Customizing the Ribbon presentation slides

Visual Studio 2010 demonstration Project