anyone dealt with MS Sharepoint??

[Guest]

I have a probable client interested in a new website. He mentioned that they use MS Sharepoint, and I've looked at the relevant MS web pages.

How much does this affect my ability to do a website in Dreamweaver? They have a very simple website with minimal content, so I don't know why they need such a high-end system. But I don't want to argue against using it until I understand what their rationale might be.

Any thoughts?

[meichmann]

My company is presently converting our website over to SharePoint. I am actually doing the transfer. I can tell you that dreamweaver cannot "talk" to the SharePoint server, so in order for you to create sites for SharePoint, you need Microsoft SharePoint Designer. SharePoint Designer used to be called "Frontpage". It's the only program that will talk to the SharePoint server and it's site collections.

It's a shame that Dreamweaver can't be used for SharePoint design since it's such a well rounded package.

[Newsgroup_User]

> How much does this affect my ability to do a website in Dreamweaver? They
> have
> a very simple website with minimal content, so I don't know why they need
> such
> a high-end system. But I don't want to argue against using it until I
> understand what their rationale might be.
>
> Any thoughts?

I'm a .gov sharepoint admin.

If they have 'a very simple web site' then Sharepoint is not the solution,
as it's a 'very complicated bloated content mangement system'

Microsoft is marketing the hell out of Sharepoint and a lot of organizations
are getting it without realizing what they're going ot use it for.

As for Dreamweaver, it won't be of any use with Sharepoint. You'll have to
work in SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio.

-Darrel

[Newsgroup_User]

> My company is presently converting our website over to SharePoint. I am
> actually doing the transfer.

My sincere sympathies. ;o)

-Darrel

[meichmann]

quote:

---

Originally posted by: Newsgroup User
> My company is presently converting our website over to SharePoint. I am
> actually doing the transfer.

My sincere sympathies. ;o)

-Darrel

Tell me about it. Personally, I can't stand the SharePoint technology, but the higher ups are forcing us to use it.

---

[Newsgroup_User]

> Tell me about it. Personally, I can't stand the SharePoint technology,
> but
> the higher ups are forcing us to use it.

If we developers were the ones that decided who to write checks to,
Microsoft would have been out of business a decade ago. ;o)

-Darrel

[Guest]

Thanks very much.

So what do you see as the main advantages of SP from a client's perspective? Collaboration? And am I right in assuming it's mostly for large organizations with dynamic content?

If it's anything like FP, I'm not too encouraged about designing in it.

Also, what would happen if you designed in DW, and then attempted to import the HTML into SP? Would SP corrupt or not understand the HTML? I'm wondering if designing the basic page in DW but cleaning up in SP is a possibility.

[Newsgroup_User]

> So what do you see as the main advantages of SP from a client's
> perspective?
> Collaboration?

It's mainly used as and it's main benefit is, indeed, team collaboration. It
allows teams to whip up mini-web sites to share documents and meeting
information and the like.

This feature set is part of the 'free' WSS3 package that comes with
Microsoft Server. It's a pretty nice product.

MOSS is the very very expensive, very bloated 'add on' to WSS3 that adds a
bunch of 'enterprise' features.

IMHO, only 1 in 5 organizations that purchase MOSS will actually use it to
the extent where there's a real ROI.

MOSS is 75% marketing, 25% useful code. ;o)

> Also, what would happen if you designed in DW, and then attempted to
> import
> the HTML into SP? Would SP corrupt or not understand the HTML? I'm
> wondering if
> designing the basic page in DW but cleaning up in SP is a possibility.

As a CMS, MOSS has a VERY rigid template system. You can't just 'import'
your own HTML. You have to modify asp.net masterpages via sharepoint
designer. On top of that, the built in functionality of things like menus
and text editing, and image libraries, etc is very rigid and somewhat
limited. Don't even begin to try and use advanced CSS with it ;o)

As with most big CMS products, you can make it do anything you want given
the time, knowledge, and willingness to add a lot of custom back end code.

But...personally, I don't find it to be a good CMS at all.

If you MUST use MOSS, I've been recommending that people look at the default
templates, pick one, and then swap out the logo and colors and call it done.

-Darrel

[Guest]

This is incredibly helpful. Thanks to all.

Would you mind taking a look at the site and seeing if there's any obvious reason they might want to to stick with SP? If possible, I'd like to talk them out of it.

Their old site was probably created at least 8 years ago, so maybe SP was a hotter item then.

http://its.uvm.edu

Also, what about Expression Web? Looks like that can talk to SP, but I don't know how complete a solution it would give me.

BTW, if I used any of this MS garbage, I'd be using it on a Mac in Bootcamp/Win XP.

[Newsgroup_User]

> Would you mind taking a look at the site and seeing if there's any obvious
> reason they might want to to stick with SP? If possible, I'd like to talk
> them
> out of it.
> http://its.uvm.edu

Ha! Yea, that site has the mark of SharePoint all over it.

The only argument I guess is that what they have is currently already in
sharepoint.

> Also, what about Expression Web? Looks like that can talk to SP, but I
> don't
> know how complete a solution it would give me.

FrontPage was upgraded to two separate products. The upgrade path is this:

How to upgrade from FrontPage
--> Do you work with Sharepoint?
YES --> Upgrade to SharePoint Designer
NO --> Upgrade to Expression Web

> BTW, if I used any of this MS garbage, I'd be using it on a Mac in
> Bootcamp/Win XP.

Well, that shouldn't matter other t han the fact that you're doing to want a
test server to work on first before migrating anything built in SharePoint.
It wouldn't have to be a test server, it could be a test site on their
existing sharepoint server.

If you want to run sharepoint locally, though, you probably won't want to
run bootcamp. It needs at least 4gb of Ram to be useful.

-Darrel

[Guest]

Darrell, can you tell me what you see in the site that says "sharepoint" to you?

OK, I'm trying to come up with some good arguments for my meeting. My ideas are:

SP is overkill for your technical requirements.
If you want a complete redesign and reorg, you don't want my hands to be tied by the software.
You won't get your money's worth unless I use the tool that lets me deliver what I think is best for meeting your goals and your clients' needs.
I can give you Contribute if you want a simple way to have people add, review, and approve changes, or you can have someone maintain it who has basic HTML or DW skills.

Of course, I could be surprised and find that they're not totally wedded to SP. But sometimes clients want things their way, no matter what.

[meichmann]

Well, the first thing is the address: http://132.198.174.45:82/Pages/default.aspx

The /Pages/default.aspx is the homepage SharePoint generates. the :82 is a port, which usually means there is more than one site collection on that server.

The next thing is the navigation tabs going across the top of the body below the header graphic. That's a standard bar in SharePoint.

Also, click on the blue "?" on the right side of the page. when you click on it a window pops up that says "SharePoint Server 2007 Help and How-to". I would say thats a dead giveaway :P

[Newsgroup_User]

> Darrell, can you tell me what you see in the site that says "sharepoint"
> to you?

The goofy tab+drop down menu at the top is your standard MOSS navigation
bar.

The navigation on the left is what Sharepoint calls 'QuickLaunch Menu' and
is the default way to navigate content in a site.

Then on some pages, like this one:

http://132.198.174.45:82/Pages/Contact_US.aspx

You'll see the 'Content Editor Web Part' title...which says that that is a
content editor web part (For some silly reason, they didn't bother to hide
the name of it from the page.)

And then if you really want to get scared, look at the source. In addition
to tables inside tables inside tables you see lovely class names such as
this:
ms-topNavFlyOuts zz1_TopNavigationMenu_7
> SP is overkill for your technical requirements.
> If you want a complete redesign and reorg, you don't want my hands to be
> tied
> by the software.
> You won't get your money's worth unless I use the tool that lets me
> deliver
> what I think is best for meeting your goals and your clients' needs.
> I can give you Contribute if you want a simple way to have people add,
> review,
> and approve changes, or you can have someone maintain it who has basic
> HTML or
> DW skills.
>
> Of course, I could be surprised and find that they're not totally wedded
> to
> SP. But sometimes clients want things their way, no matter what.

Yea.

I think those are the main arguments. For me, I'd say:

- SharePoint is overkill from an administration and User Interface
standpoint for web content management
- It's a very inflexible templating system. If you're OK with slightly
modified default templates, that will work, otherwise be prepared to make a
lot of compromises in the UI, graphic design, and overall interaction of the
site.
- The code SharePoint produces isn't up to modern standards. It still
relies on massive amounts of tables, it's CSS support is unintuitive and not
terribly userful for a developer, and a lot of it was built without much
consideration for things like accessibility standards.

-Darrel

[Newsgroup_User]

"powerdogvt" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:g01us1$eth$1@forums.macromedia.com...
> Darrell, can you tell me what you see in the site that says "sharepoint"
> to you?

all one has to do is view the source. this is at the very top of the
codepage:

<HTML xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" __expr-val-dir="ltr"
dir="ltr">
<HEAD><meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft SharePoint" /><meta
name="progid" content="SharePoint.WebPartPage.Document" />

[Guest]

This is almost as good as taking you guys to the meeting with me. Thanks! I think I've got my ammo ready.