Web Standard Templates for MS SharePoint

Update: The author of the blog post referenced below has updated the blog with an important post titled  SharePoint 2007 - Pointedly Unskinnable. It’s a big reversal of the original point that Sharepoint could be skinned with web standard templates. 

The author says, for example:

Well, it turns out SharePoint 2007 isn’t nearly as customizable as I (and others) were led to believe. Not even close in some cases. Given the amount of exposure my original article garnered, I feel obligated to share what I’ve learned since. 

Go check out the new post now. It’s a big deal.

Here is the original Dashboard Spy post about the first post on Skinning MS SharePoint with Standards.

>>>>>>

A Dashboard Spy reader contacted me with some questions about using MicroSoft SharePoint Server for dashboarding. I pointed her to several SharePoint Dashboard videos on the dashboard screenshot blog - Dashboards By Example.  After we jointly studied a couple more dashboards done in SharePoint, our discussion turned to how compliant Sharepoint was in terms of web standards.  Also, we covered the topic of how easy was it to customize the look and feel of Sharepoint. The lastest version has made ui customization much easier. I remember struggling with even simple tasks like putting in custom banners.

I shared a great resource on customizing the look of SharePoint with that Dashboard Spy reader and I’d like to share it with you as well.

Take a look at this post called Skinning MS SharePoint with Standards. It has a very nice list of resources concerning the topic of web standards and Microsoft SharePoint.

Here’s a quick peek at the before and after screenshots from the post.

This is the out-of-the-box styling:

 

 And this is the look that was achieved after customization.

Definitely check out the post as well as the blog. It’s got some great content.

Tags: Sharepoint Dashboards