1.3. Exploring Hidden Metadata and Raw Webs

Files and folders inside the root folder of a SharePoint Designer Web site are collectively called the hidden metadata of the Web site. The metadata inside the root folder keeps track of whether the Web site is a disk-based Web site or a server-based Web site. It also stores information about the list of subsites that the root site might contain. The metadata is a vital resource for performing a number of site management operations, such as hyperlink recalculation and creating the navigation structure.

If you decide to move away from using the FPSE features of SharePoint Designer, you might not need this metadata and can configure SharePoint Designer to not create the hidden metadata. A SharePoint Designer Web site that doesn't have metadata in it is called a raw Web. To convert your Web site to a raw Web, follow these steps:

  1. In SharePoint Designer, open the Web site you created earlier in this chapter by choosing File Open Site. The Open Site dialog box opens, with the Web Sites pane selected in the left Navigation pane. The Web Sites pane shows the list of Web sites that you've created.

  2. Choose your Web site and then click Open.

  3. Choose Site Site Settings. The Site Setting dialog box opens.

  4. Deselect the Manage the Web site using hidden metadata files check box. As indicated in the explanation text next to this check box, SharePoint Designer adds hidden metadata files to your root folder to enable and maintain certain features.

  5. Click OK. A dialog box asks you for confirmation. The warning message indicates that if you elect to not use hidden metadata, you lose the navigation of your Web site and many FrontPage Web components stop being updated.

  6. Click Yes if you want to continue.

After you deselect this option, the root folder of your Web site no longer has any _vti folders in it. This means that SharePoint Designer now has no ability to track FrontPage Web components and features. These features are thus disabled from the SharePoint Designer user interface when this option is deselected. For example, if you choose Insert Web Component and then open the Insert Web Component dialog box, most of the features are disabled when you deselect the hidden metadata usage check box. Also, the Recalculate Hyperlinks menu option is no longer available in the Site menu.

NOTE

For more on Recalculate Hyperlinks, see Chapter 23.

If you later need to use the SharePoint Designer features that rely on the hidden metadata files, you can click the Manage the Web site using hidden metadata files check box again. SharePoint Designer then adds new hidden metadata to your Web site and starts using it for maintaining cross-page dependencies and other FrontPage Web components.

Any metadata that's removed by deselecting the hidden metadata check box is completely lost and isn't recoverable. When you click the check box again, new metadata is created, and you have to rebuild the components.


The ability to remove hidden metadata has long been asked for by Web site developers who don't use FrontPage-based components and want to see cleaner Web site content directories. Because SharePoint Designer now offers the capability to use ASP.NET 2.0 controls and features extensively, most of the FrontPage legacy functionality can be obtained by newer, advanced ASP.NET 2.0 controls. Raw Webs provide these advantages for Web site developers:

  • Developers now have a mechanism to ensure that they don't inadvertently use any FrontPage legacy features.

  • Because SharePoint Designer now offers the capability of live editing using FTP and WebDAV, developers can choose not to use FPSE as a remote-authoring mechanism.

  • They don't have to manage the hidden metadata when moving Web content from one location to another.

1.3.1. Creating basic Web pages

Continuing with efforts to understand the basics involved in Web content development, I take you through some steps that you generally follow in SharePoint Designer when creating Web pages. I want you to become familiar with the SharePoint Designer terminology in this chapter so that you don't feel uncomfortable when you delve into more complicated Web site designing concepts.

Follow these steps to create simple Web pages using various templates that SharePoint Designer offers:

  1. In SharePoint Designer, open the disk-based Web site you created earlier in this chapter. Ensure that the Manage the Web site using hidden metadata files check box is selected.

  2. Choose File New to open the New dialog box.

  3. Click HTML under the Page tab to create a blank HTML Web page and then click OK. The Design view of the newly created HTML page is shown.

  4. Choose File Save or press Ctrl+S to save the page. The Save As dialog box opens, with your currently opened Web site listed in the Save dropdown menu.

  5. Using the File name text field, type a name for your Web page and then click Save. HTML pages have the extension .htm or .html. You can save the Web page by using either extension.

  6. Choose File New to open the New dialog box. You can now create a new CSS from the existing templates in SharePoint Designer.

    NOTE

    For more on Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), see Chapter 12.

  7. Click Style Sheets and then click the Downtown style sheet template. A new CSS based on the Downtown template opens. This template appears in the Code view.

  8. Press Ctrl+S to open the Save As dialog box and then save the style sheet with the name of your choice. Style sheets have the extension .css, so make sure that you keep this extension when saving a style sheet. Because you're saving these files into the Web site's root folder, the newly created Web page and the style sheet are listed in the Folder List task pane.

  9. Using the Folder List task pane, double-click the Web page you created in the previous steps to open it in SharePoint Designer.

  10. Choose Format CSS Styles Attach Style Sheet to open the Attach Style Sheet dialog box. You use this dialog box to attach to the Web page the style sheet you previously created.

  11. Click Browse next to the URL text field to open the Select Style Sheet dialog box, click the style sheet file you created in the previous steps, and then click Open. Ensure that the Current Page radio button is selected so that the style sheet applies only to the current page.

  12. Click OK to apply the style sheet to the Web page.

The look and feel of the Web page changes after the application of the style sheet. The Web page now has a new background, and if you type some text on the Web page, the color of the text is white. The SharePoint Designer Design view renders the Web page in the Design view by combining the formatting implemented in the style sheet attached to it.

The New dialog box that you worked with in the previous exercise is the interface that consolidates the creation of all Web content within SharePoint Designer. This is different from FrontPage 2003 and the previous versions where page and Web content creation were scattered around in different task panes. Having a single interface for creating all SharePoint and non-SharePoint content is advantageous because it eliminates the need to search around the user interface for developing content.

The New dialog box can be used to create HTML and ASPX Web pages, JavaScript files, CSS, master pages and dynamic Web templates (DWTs), XML, and TXT files. Also, it offers the Web Site tab, which can be used to create Web sites (SharePoint and non-SharePoint) based on templates.

NOTE

If you open a SharePoint site in SharePoint Designer, the New dialog box also shows a tab called SharePoint Content. This tab can be used to create SharePoint-based content, such as lists, document libraries, workflows, and page layouts. Also, for SharePoint sites, the Web Site tab lists a number of templates that you can choose from for your new SharePoint sites.

Apart from using the New dialog box, you can also use the Folder List task pane to create new Web pages and content. If you right-click in the empty area inside the Folder List task pane, a popup menu appears that has the New menu option that allows for the creation of Web pages and CSS. You can use this menu to create new folders and subsites.

Follow these steps to use the existing frame templates that SharePoint Designer provides to create a set of Web pages:

NOTE

For more on frames, see Chapter 5.

  1. In SharePoint Designer, open your Web site and then choose File New to open the New dialog box.

  2. In the Page tab, click Frames Pages and then click the Header, Footer and Contents template. As indicated in the description text, the template creates header and footer frames for navigation.

  3. Click OK. This creates a frameset page, as shown in Figure 1.2, that's displayed in the Design view in SharePoint Designer.

  4. Save this page inside the root folder of your Web site.

  5. Click the New Page button on all the four frames inside the frameset page. This creates new pages that fill up the frames present in the frameset page. Remember the order in which you clicked the New Page buttons. This is required to name the pages in the next step to keep track of which page is displayed in which frame.

    Figure 1.2. A frameset page in the SharePoint Designer Design view

  6. Press Ctrl+S, and you're asked to save all the HTML pages inside the frames one after the other in the order they were created. Because there are four frames, you have four new Web pages in the root after you save the frames pages. You can name the page for the left frame as Left.htm, the top frame as Top.htm, etc.

Your frameset page is now ready for the content that you want to put on the frames pages. For example, you could use the top frame page for a banner picture, and the left frame could be used to create hyperlinks that switch pages in the Contents frame of the frameset.

Right now, I want to divert your attention to the newly created pages from the previous exercise. The Folder List task pane lists these newly created Web pages in the root folder of your Web site. If you right-click on a Web page in the Folder List task pane, a popup menu opens with these options:

  • Open: Opens the Web page in the SharePoint Designer Design view (or Code view)

  • Open With: Allows you to choose the program that you want to open the Web page in

  • Open in New Window: Opens the Web page in a new instance of SharePoint Designer

  • Set as Default Master Page: If you've selected a master page, you can use this option to set the selected master page as the default master page for the Web site. If you don't have a master page selected, this option is grayed out.

    NOTE

    For more on master pages, see Chapter 13.

  • New From Existing Page: Creates a new page based on the selected page

  • Preview in Browser: Opens the Web page in the default browser for previewing

  • Cut, Copy and Paste menu options: Allows for moving Web pages from one folder location to another inside the Web site

  • Set as Home Page: Sets the Web page as the default home page for the Web site

  • Rename: Allows you to rename the Web page

  • Delete: Deletes the Web page after requesting confirmation from the user

  • Publish Selected Files: Opens the publishing page that can be used to publish the Web page to a new location. Web page publishing is discussed later in this chapter.

  • Don't Publish: Marks the Web page so that it's not included when a publishing operation is performed on the Web site

  • Properties: Opens the Properties dialog box, which can be used to view general properties of the Web page and choose categories (if hidden metadata is allowed) for the Web page

Options in this popup menu might change depending on the type of selection you make in the Folder List task pane and the type of Web site that you have open in SharePoint Designer. For example, if you have document checking enabled on a Web site (discussed later in this chapter), the Check Out menu option becomes available.

Right-click on the Web page after opening it in the Design view and then choose Page Properties from the popup menu. This opens the Page Properties dialog box, as shown in Figure 1.3, which can be used to set up a number of properties for the Web page. These properties include the title, background sound, background picture, etc.

The Page Properties dialog box has the following tabs that allow for setting a number of properties for a Web page. Most of these settings provide a user interface for applying HTML tags and attributes or style elements that define the look and feel of the Web page:

  • General: Allows the user to set the <Title> tag, the <Base> tag, keywords, and description meta tags for the Web page. It also allows you to set the default target frame and background sound for a Web page.

  • Formatting: Provides the interface to set the background picture or configure the background picture as a watermark on a Web page. This also allows for setting the background color, text color, and colors for hyperlinks.

  • Advanced: Used to set margins for a Web page. This is done by applying the margin styles to the <Body> tag of the Web page.

  • Custom: Allows for creating HTML meta tags, such as Refresh, Keywords, and Description, that define the behavior of the Web page or provide directions to the Web browser

  • Language: Provides the interface to set the Content-Type and Content-Language meta tags for the Web page. These meta tags define the page's language and HTML encoding.

  • Workgroup: Allows the Web site designer to create categories of Web pages and assign Web pages to those categories. These categories can then be used to create a categorized table of contents. This feature requires the hidden metadata to be enabled.

Figure 1.3. The Page Properties dialog box

Follow these steps to use the Page Properties dialog box to set some properties for the Web page that define the way the Web page looks and behaves:

  1. Choose File New to open the New dialog box and then create a new HTML Web page. The new page opens in the Design view.

  2. Right-click on the Web page and then choose Page Properties from the popup menu. The Page Properties dialog box opens.

  3. In the General tab, type the title for the Web page in the Title text field.

  4. Click the Formatting tab, and in the Colors section, choose a background color for the Web page by using the Background dropdown menu.

  5. Click the Custom tab. In the next steps, you use this tab to create a new system variable (an HTML meta tag) that refreshes the page every 5 seconds when viewed in a browser.

  6. Click the Add button next to the System variables list.

  7. In the Name text field, type Refresh, and in the Value text field, type 5 (for a refresh every 5 seconds).

  8. Click OK. Your choices have been saved for this HTML page.

  9. Save the Web page. You can now browse to the page by either right-clicking on it in the Folder List task pane and then choosing Preview in Browser from the popup menu or pressing F12.

The title you set for the Web page shows in the title bar of the Web browser. The background color of the Web page changes to the one you set. Also, the browser reloads the Web page every 5 seconds because of the Refresh meta tag that you created in the previous steps. The SharePoint Designer interface allows you to set the basic properties for a Web page without having much understanding of the code involved in the back end. Obviously, SharePoint Designer offers many other ways to manage these properties for Web pages, and I discuss those options throughout the rest of this book.

1.3.2. Working with simple Web sites

A Web site is basically a collection of resources that help realize the goals of an organization on the Internet. The resources for Web content are Web pages, pictures, supporting files (style sheets, JavaScript files, etc.) and programs (.exe, .dll, etc.) that contain logic and perform business operations. A Web site is accessible on the Internet through a Web server. The role of the Web server is to be a host for Web site content and process Web page requests made by Web browsers. A single Web server can host a large number of Web sites.

Now that you know how to create a simple Web site and add Web pages and style sheets to it, it's time to learn how to open and delete Web sites, create subsites, and establish general settings for Web sites inside SharePoint Designer.

Creating subsites within a Web site by using SharePoint Designer essentially involves the same steps you would follow to create a new Web site. That is, choosing File New Web Site allows you to pick the template you want to use for the subsite. However, just before you click OK, you need to click the Add to current web site check box. It's important to note that subsites inherit the server configuration of the parent Web site. This means that subsites inside SharePoint sites are always SharePoint subsites. Similarly, subsites inside FPSE parent sites are always FPSE subsites.

To open a Web site in SharePoint Designer, simply choose File Open Site. The Open Site dialog box opens, with a number of panes that allow you to look for the Web site that you want to open. The Web Sites pane in the left Navigation pane shows the list of all Web sites that you've created or opened on the machine that has SharePoint Designer installed.

The Current Site pane, as the name suggests, is only available if you already have a site open in SharePoint Designer before you open the Open Site dialog box. It shows the list of folders and files for the Web site that's currently open and can be used to open subsites within the site. The My SharePoint Sites pane lists the SharePoint sites that you created or opened by using SharePoint Designer.

If you've previously opened the Web site in SharePoint Designer, try to see if you can find it in the recently opened list of Web sites by choosing File Recent Sites.

NOTE

SharePoint Designer also maintains a list of recently opened sites and Web pages in the Windows registry at C:My ComputerHKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice12.0SharePoint Designer. SharePoint Designer uses this registry hive for saving user settings, including recently opened sites and Web pages, the default save location for Web sites, and the state of various SharePoint Designer user interface components.

If the Web site that you want to open doesn't already exist in the aforementioned lists, you can simply type the complete URL of the Web site in the Site Name text field. SharePoint Designer tries to establish a connection to the remote Web server and, if it finds the Web server hosting the Web site and can successfully authenticate to it, then opens the Web site for remote authoring.

NOTE

For more on remote authoring, see Chapter 3.

While choosing File Open Site takes you to the Open Site dialog box, which allows you to open Web sites, choosing File Open brings you to the Open File dialog box, which is used to open files and documents inside Web sites. If your page or document resides inside a Web site, SharePoint Designer opens the Web site itself. You can choose File Close Site to close the Web site.

SharePoint Designer supports live editing and remote authoring for a number of Web server types. You can work directly on a Web site in SharePoint Designer if the Web server hosting the Web site supports one of these remote-authoring technologies:

  • FTP

  • WebDAV

  • FPSE

  • SharePoint

Depending on the remote-authoring technology that your Web server supports, some of the features of SharePoint Designer are disabled. SharePoint Designer offers its full capability for SharePoint sites. The SharePoint Designer features that rely on SharePoint aren't available for FPSE sites. Similarly, the features and components that rely on FPSE aren't available on FTP or WebDAV sites.

After you open a Web site in SharePoint Designer, you can use the Site Settings dialog box to determine the type of Web server that hosts the Web site. As with many other dialog boxes in SharePoint Designer, many of the options in this dialog box might be disabled depending on the Web site that you open. To open the Site Settings dialog box, as shown in Figure 1.4, choose Site Site Settings.

Within the Site Settings dialog box are several tabs:

  • General: This tab is used to display the version information about the Web server and version information about the FPSE or SharePoint installed on the Web server. You can use this tab to disable the use of hidden metadata for non-SharePoint and non-FPSE sites. Also, you can enable lightweight document check-in and check-out using this tab.

  • Preview: You can use this tab to specify if you want to use the Microsoft ASP.NET Development Server to preview ASP.NET Web pages on your machine. SharePoint Designer installs the Microsoft ASP.NET Development Server during its setup. This option is useful if you don't have a Web server machine (ASP.NET pages need a Web server for processing) and would like to see a browser-based preview of the ASP.NET pages you create with SharePoint Designer.

    NOTE

    For more on ASP.NET, see Chapter 10.

  • Parameters: Allows you to create FPSE-based parameters for your Web site. These parameters can be used later by FrontPage components, such as substitution components. This tab isn't useful for Web sites that don't allow hidden metadata.

  • Advanced: Allows you to set the default validation script language for FrontPage validation components. Also, it provides a check box to show hidden files and folders (certain metadata files) inside the Web site. Also, this tab isn't useful for Web sites that have hidden metadata disabled.

  • Language: Allows you to set the default page encoding for the Web site. For Web sites with hidden metadata, this tab allows you to set the language of the server messages.

  • Navigation: Allows you to customize the text labels on FrontPage link bar components. This tab isn't available for Web sites with disabled hidden metadata.

    NOTE

    For more on FrontPage components, see Chapter 9.

  • Database: This tab is for backward-compatibility with Web sites that have Database Results Wizard pages in them.

Figure 1.4. The Site Settings dialog box

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