| From an end user perspective, the SharePoint Portal Server features are enabled through extended client capabilities. Once installed, Microsoft Office, Windows Explorer, and Internet Explorer allow specific SharePoint Portal Server features to be exposed through these familiar tools. Windows Explorer Extensions Within Windows Explorer, extended SharePoint Portal Server capabilities expose document libraries as a Web folder. The interface (see Figure 2.7) provides a traditional view to document folders and an enhanced context level view to metadata (profile) details. All SharePoint Portal Server documents have extended property pages that includes metadata, security settings, version history, and so on. Additional right-click functionality allows documents to be easily checked in and checked out. Logical category-based views allow Coordinators to organize in a nontraditional logical manner. Figure 2.7. SharePoint Portal Server extends the familiar Windows Explorer interface to include key metadata associated with documents. Clicking on the document from within Windows Explorer exposes all metadata associated with the document.  Office 2000 Extensions With SharePoint Portal Server, COM (Component Object Model) add-ins are utilized to allow enhanced menu extensions from within Office 2000 to enable the document management process. This allows documents to be checked in, checked out, and submitted for publication without having to leave the Microsoft Office application. (See Figure 2.8.) End users can navigate and save directly to the core document management library from traditional Open/Save dialog boxes. Additional collaboration within the Office 2000 toolbar exists that enables integrated document level collaboration. Figure 2.8. SharePoint Portal Server document management features such as check-in, check-out , and publish are tightly integrated into the Microsoft Office menu once the office extensions are installed.  NOTE Office 2000 client extensions are enabled by installing a separate client extensions installation script. The client extensions are natively present in Office XP.
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