How to prevent SharePoint Designer 2010 users from changing a SharePoint Server 2010 site

One of the new features in the SharePoint 2010 is administrative ability to lock down the usage of SharePoint Designer usage in the SharePoint farm environment using the browser interface. In MOSS 2007, there were multiple ways to prevent the SharePoint Designer 2007 to update the SharePoint Site by setting the site template property DisableWebDesignFeatures=wdfopensite either directly by modifying the Onet.XML on 12-Hive (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940958) or programmatically changing site template property (preferred method).

In SharePoint 2010, locking down SharePoint Designer 2010 usage has been improved to govern the SharePoint Designer 2010 usage/policies in the organization. Here is the high level overview of the configuring SharePoint 2010 Designer usage in the SharePoint farm. 

• Two levels of Setting
  • Granular level control of Site Designer Usage at the Web Application or Site Collection Level
  • Accessing SharePoint sites using the SharePoint Designer 2010 is enabled by default.
  • Web Application Level
    • Manage SharePoint Designer Usage policies at the Web Application Level
    • Two Places to manage
      • Managed at the Central Administration ->  General Application Settings -> SharePoint Designer
      • Managed at the Central Administration -> Application Management -> Manage Web Applications -> Select Web Application -> Select SharePoint Designer from the General Settings on the Ribbon Bar
    • Four Settings
      • Allow SharePoint Designer to be used in this Web Application  – Specify whether to allow users to edit sites in this Web Application using SharePoint Designer.  Please note that this option will still show the “Edit in SharePoint Designer” in the Site Actions menu but it won’t allow the editing in the SharePoint Designer.
      • Allow Site Collection Administrators to Detach Pages from the Site Template  – Specify whether to allow site administrators to detach pages from the original site definition using SharePoint Designer. 
      • Allow Site Collection Administrators to Customize Master Pages and Layout Pages  – Specify whether to allow site administrators to customize Master Pages and Layout Pages using SharePoint Designer. 
      • Allow Site Collection Administrators to see the URL Structure of their Web Site  – Specify whether to allow site administrators to manage the URL structure of their Web site using SharePoint Designer. 
  • Site Collection Level
    • Manage SharePoint Designer Usage policies at the Site Collection Level
    • Managed at the Site Collection Administration section on the Site Settings Page
    • Site Collections can further delegate the SharePoint Designer Permission to the Site Users.
    • Four Settings
      • Allow Site Owners and Designers to use SharePoint Designer in this Site Collection  – Specify whether to allow Site Owners and Designers to edit the sites in this Site Collection using SharePoint Designer. Site Collection Administrators will always be able to edit sites. 
      • Allow Site Owners and Designers to Detach Pages from the Site Definition  – Specify whether to allow Site Owners and Designers to detach pages from the original Site Definition using SharePoint Designer. Site Collection Administrators will always be able to perform this operation. 
      • Allow Site Owners and Designers to Customize Master Pages and Page Layouts  – Specify whether to allow Site Owners and Designers to customize Master Pages and Page Layouts using SharePoint Designer. Site Collection Administrators will always be able to perform this operation.
      • Allow Site Owners and Designers to See the Hidden URL structure of their Web Site  – Specify whether to allow Site Owners and Designers to view and manage the hidden URL structure of their Web site using SharePoint Designer. Site Collection Administrators will always be able to perform this operation.

 

Creating Custom List Item Menu using SharePoint Designer 2010

Recently I have been spending lots of time building custom no-code SharePoint 2010 solutions using InfoPath 2010, SharePoint Designer 2010, and browser customizations. As I had been enjoying the SPD 2010, I been surprised by how easily many tricky tasks can be accomplished in no time. I must recommend every SharePoint Developers to master the SharePoint Designer 2010 to avoid many custom time-consuming coding tasks which wasn’t possible in the MOSS 2007 and SPD 2007.

One of those tasks is creating a new LIM (List Item Menu) on the SharePoint ECB (Edit Control Block) menu. ECBs are list items specific context menu which are available in list views and list view web parts. With SPD 2010, creating the new list item menu on the SharePoint list and library are never easier than before. To create the custom list item menu using the SharePoint Designer 2010, follow these steps.

• Open the Site using the SharePoint Designer 2010
• Select the Lists and Libraries from the Navigation and select the list where you would like to create the list action menu. e.g.Projects
• From the Ribbon bar, select the Custom Actions Tab -> Cutom Action Button -> ”List Item Menu” to create the custom list action item.

• On the Create Custom Action window, specify the LIM name and LIM URL (Navigate to Form within List, Initiate the Workflow Associated with List, or Navigate to the Custom URL). Additionally you can also specify the button image, security mask, and sequence number as advanced configuration. 
  • Specify the URL in any of the following formats. I would suggest to use the URL formats with {SiteUrl} token to maintain the validity of the URLs during the import and export of the site collection.
    • /SitePages/Business Case Document.aspx?ItemId={ItemId}
    • /SitePages/Business Case Document.aspx?ItemURL={SiteUrl}/SitePages/Business Case Document.aspx&ItemId={ItemId}
    • ~site/SitePages/Business Case Document.aspx?ItemId={ItemId}
    • {SiteUrl}/SitePages/Business Case Document.aspx?ItemId={ItemId}
  • One limitation of this method is it doesn’t allow end-user to configure the Navigate to URL in the Popup or New browser window.

• Click OK to create the Custom LIM action. SPD Lists settings page should show the newly created LIM menu.

• Verify that new LIM is created on the Lists interface on the browser window.

Configure ECB Menu on Any Column on SharePoint 2010 List or Library using SharePoint Designer 2010

In MOSS 2007 or SharePoint 2010, every list and document library has a ECB menu associated with the Title column.

In SharePoint 2010, you can configure ECB menu and link to the view item page with any columns with little customizations using the SharePoint Desinger 2010. Try following steps to add the ECB column on additional columns in addition to Title column.

• Open the SharePoint List or Document library and open the SharePoint View you want to add the ECB Menu on the additional column.
• From the SharePoint Browser Interface, select the “Modify in SharePoint Designer (Advanced)” from the Ribbon Bar

• This will open the SharePoint List View in the SPD for further modification. Highlight the field you want to add the ECB Menu and look out for the little floating icon with “>”. Click on this icon and it will open the small popup window with “Show List Item Menu” option.

 

• Check on ‘Show List Item Menu” checkbox and save the page to configure the ECB menu on the additional column.

Download the free copy of the SharePoint Designer 2010

Couple weeks ago, Microsoft has released the SharePoint Designer 2010 RTM along with SharePoint 2010 RTM and Office 2010 RTM and it is available to download as a free copy. If you have a power users community and would like to allow the end-users to create the quick mash-ups on the SharePoint environment, SharePoint Designer is the way to go. Power users can quickly generate the sharepoint views, workflows, and manage the SharePoint environment using the SharePoint Designer 2010. 

Download the free copy of the SharePoint Designer 2010 RTM from the following links. 

For the 32-bit OS,
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=d88a1505-849b-4587-b854-a7054ee28d66 

For the 64-bit OS,
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=566D3F55-77A5-4298-BB9C-F55F096B125D&displaylang=en 

Enjoy..

How to hide “Revert to Template” Status on the SPD Customized Pages

I have been recently involved in the no-code customization of SharePoint 2010 using the SharePoint Designer 2010 mash-ups. One of the side effects of the customized wiki pages through the SharePoint Designer 2010 is yellow status bar with the message – “The current page has been customized from its template. Revert to Template”. Additionally this message contains a link to revert the customized page to the site definition on the browser.

We have noticed that even end-users with least privileges can click on the “Revert to Template” link and it would reset the page to the site definition. We have spent some time trying to hide the “Revert to Template” message gracefully for the SPD customized pages but couldn’t find the best option to disable the yellow status gracefully for the SPD customized pages. One option is to hide the status bar from the master page as shown later in this blog. Hiding status bar would suppress all other messages like “file being checked out by different user” or “file being edited by different user”. To hide the “Revert to Template” option, one can disable the status bar by customizing the v4.master (best practice is to create the custom master page by copying the v4.master page) by commenting out the following code.

<div id=”s4-statusbarcontainer”>
    <div id=”pageStatusBar”>
    </div>
</div>

Our biggest concern here is to understand the motivation behind the showing “Revert to Template” option. Why Microsoft needs to show the option to the end user to allow them to revert back to the template and undone the developer changed customization? Also, does anyone knows, what “Revert to Template” does? It seems like sometimes “Revert to Template” keeps the customization and sometimes it clears the customizations.