Summary

In this chapter, we discussed customizing themes, automated emails, document icons, and online help. A theme is a package of CSS files and CSS referenced resources (graphic files). Two types of themes can be applied to SharePoint sites: FrontPage and SharePoint themes. FrontPage themes exist on the FrontPage developer's computer and are copied to the SharePoint site when the developer saves SharePoint site modifications through FrontPage. SharePoint themes exist on the SharePoint server and are applied through the SharePoint web user interface.

SharePoint and FrontPage themes can be added, deleted, or modified. Our emphasis in this chapter was on SharePoint themes. Each SharePoint theme exists within its own folder. The folder contains a series of CSS, CSS referenced graphic files, and an INF file. The INF file contains several control parameters for the theme.

SharePoint enables the customization of alerts and site collection retention warnings. Alert emails are sent to users who request to be alerted about changes to SharePoint content such as additions to document libraries or modification of list items. Alert emails use CAML code to generate their dynamic output, whereas site collection retention warnings use a proprietary syntax. Both emails use XML files as the basis for their generation. Thus, customizing these XML files enables the customization of the emails.

SharePoint provides default document icons for file types originating from or supported by Microsoft. Noticeably absent are icons for file types from other vendorssuch as Adobe Acrobat or Macromedia Flash files. DOCICON.XML defines the mapping of a file extension to a graphics file. Therefore, modifying DOCICON.XML appropriately and copying the referenced graphic files to the SharePoint server enables the customization of SharePoint's document icons.

SharePoint's online help system exists as a collection of HTML files, XML files, and client-side JavaScript. STS.XML and SPSMAP.XML provide a dictionary of keywords that map to HTML files. SharePoint web pages reference help through these keywords. The client-side JavaScript looks up these keywords and directs the user to the appropriate HTML help page.