SharePoint 2013: Minimal Download Strategy

Problem :

Its been quite a while since SharePoint is in market.It has come a long way since it evolution in 2003. It takes a lot of hard work to convince customers to make a move from their traditional Content Publisher to SharePoint platform and SharePoint has been emerged as one of the market leader in that.

More often SharePoint is been criticized for its performance; it is been always said that SharePoint loads the page slowly and it takes a considerably amount of time to load the heavy sites including the involvement of external database. To overcome this many concepts like caching is been evolved; which still refresh the whole page rather than loading the only part of a page which is been modified; but recent version of SharePoint has introduced a concept of “Minimal Download Strategy”.

It is nothing but a feature which is activated by default on SharePoint Team Sites. Its technique to use single page “_layouts/15/start.aspx” with URL encoded with following # text.

Solution :

Minimal download strategy improved the SharePoint Site performance by improving navigation,fast rendering on client browser. It also reduces the SharePoint page load time, because it loads only a part of a page which is been modified rather than getting a duplicate data from server.

To remove this extra text from URL you need to deactivate this feature at site collection level.To deactivate this feature go to site Settings -> Manage Site Features – > Find Minimal Download Strategy Feature – > Click on Deactivate.

Upon deactivation of this feature you will see text “_layouts/15/start.aspx” is been removed from SharePoint Site URL.

Note: However this is been recommended that MDS should be enables on SharePoint Site for performance improvement.

How to Upload Shortcuts Into SharePoint – 2013

By taking advantage of the Add to SharePoint Sites tool, your company can create shortcuts between SharePoint and various Microsoft Office applications. Using this tool makes it easier to publish or share SharePoint documents to the SharePoint library directly from other Office applications, to insert files from the SharePoint library into Office documents, open SharePoint library documents in Office applications and easily locate SharePoint documents in Windows Explorer.

Step 1 : Launch SharePoint and open the SharePoint site library with which you want to work.

Step 2 : Click the “Library” tab.

Step 3 : Click the “Connect and Export” group.

Step 4 : Click the “Connect to Office” icon in the Connect and Export group to display the Connect to Office drop-down menu.

Step 5 : Click “Add to SharePoint Sites” to add a shortcut to the currently active library in all compatible Microsoft Office applications.

Tips

To remove a SharePoint shortcut, click “Connect to Office” in the Connect and Export group and click “Remove from SharePoint Sites.”
To manage your list of Microsoft Office shortcuts, click “Connect to Office” in the Connect and Export group and click “Manage SharePoint Sites.”

Warning

Information in this article applies to SharePoint 2013. It may vary slightly or significantly with other versions or products.

Ref : Chron

Add, Edit, or Delete a Quick Launch Heading

SharePoint 2010 includes a Quick Launch on the side of site pages which contains links to lists and libraries on the site.

• Login to your SharePoint site as the administrative account
• Select Site Actions > Site Settings

• Select Quick Launch under the Look and Feel column

 

 

 

• Add a New Heading
• Click New Heading

• Enter the URL and a description for the heading

• Click OK
• Edit a Heading
• Click the Edit button next to the heading

• Update the URL and description for the heading

• Click OK
• Delete a Heading
• Click the Edit button next to the heading

• Click Delete
• Click OK

Ref : Hosting

Edit, Move, or Delete a Quick Launch Link (SharePoint 2010)

SharePoint 2010 allows you to add custom links such as documents, sites, calendar events, and internet urls to the Quick Launch.

• Login to your SharePoint site as the administrative account
• Select Site Actions > Site Settings

• Select Quick Launch under the Look and Feel column

• Click the Edit button next to the link that you want to update 

Edit the link

• Make your changes to the link
• Click OK

Move the Link

• Choose the new heading you want the link to appear under
• Click OK

Delete the Link

• Click Delete
• Click OK

Ref : Hosting

Read-only lock on a SharePoint site collection, or Why can’t I edit anymore ?

For some reason, long-time users were unable to edit list items.  I figured we had a permissions issue, so I popped in to look at the Site Settings — and found that I couldn’t.  A quick trip to Central Administration showed that I was still listed as a Site Collection Administrator, but I had no power at all on the site collection in question.

A quick glance at the logs told me that the server had recently shut down unexpectedly (this is a Hyper-V virtual machine).  Apparently, in the confusion, somehow SharePoint decided to lock the site collection as Read Only.  This can be remedied in one of two ways:

1)  In Central Administration, go to Application Management->SharePoint Site Management->Site collection quotas and locks.  Once you have arrived, select the correct application and site collection, and you will have the opportunity to view and set the lock status of the collection (it most likely will be set to “Read-only”, and you’ll want to move that radio button to “Not locked”).

2)  Fire up stsadm and issue the following command:

stsadm -o setsitelock -url http://myportalsitecollection -lock none

Enabling InfoPath Forms Services 2007

I know most of the companies are using SharePoint 2010 and majority have migrated to it or planning to, but there are still a lot of clients still using and happy with the working of SharePoint 2007. Just like mine :).

So recently got a chance to configure the Info-Path on my clients site, the below are the steps to enable the Info-Path Forms Services.

It is quite simple to enable Info-Path Forms Services 2007 on your Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal 2007. Follow the steps below to use browser-enabled forms:

Central administration

1. Go to the Central Administration
2. Click on Application Management
3. Click on Configure Info-Path Form Services under the Info-Path Forms Services section.

(http://myserver/_admin/ipfsConfig.aspx)

4. Make sure that browser-enabled form templates are allowed
(Check all check boxes in User Browser-Enabled Form Templates)

5. You can specify other options if necessary. Click on OK to apply the changes.
6. You can close the Central Administration Website.

List Configuration

I created a new Document Library on my site called ‘Info-Path Forms’. This document does not open Info-Path forms in your browser directly. You must configure this list in this way:

1. Open the List which contains browser-enabled Info-Path Forms
2. Click on Settings and select Document Library Settings

3. Select Advanced Settings Under ‘General Settings’
4. Configure the Browser-enabled Documents section and select ‘Display as a Web page’

5. Click on OK to confirm the changes

Publishing Info-Path Templates

Use the Publish Wizard to deploy the form on your Sharepoint Portal Server.
Define the location, promote the fields and publish!
(In this example you must update an existing Document Library)

Use following URL structure to deploy

http://myserver/SiteDirectory/mySite/myList/Forms/AllItems.aspx

Testing the deployed form

Create a new document in your ‘Info-Path Forms’ list. The form will be automatically open in your browser.

Tips

You can manage the toolbars at the top/bottom in Info-Path 2007.
(menu Tools > Form Options > Browser > ‘Show toolbar at top/bottom of form’)

Reference : Very Helpful Post

How to Create a Custom SharePoint Master Page

The first step in customizing your SharePoint site is to create a custom master page.  The following steps will help you do just that (please note there are differences indicated between SP 2007 and SP 2010).

1. Open SharePoint Designer (SPD) and connect to the root level of your site’s site collection.
2. In SPD, open the “_catalogs” folder, then open the “masterpage” folder.
3. Identify the out-of-the-box (OOTB) most like your ultimate design.
   1. (SP 2007) If your SharePoint’s site design is to be fixed-width and centered on the page, select BlueBand.master and copy it.
   2. (SP 2007) If your SharePoint’s site design is to be a liquid layout that fills the page regardless of the user’s screen resolution, select default.master and copy it.
   3. (SP 2010 beta) You want v4.master.
4. In SPD, right-click on the master page you want to duplicate and select “Copy,” then paste it back into the same folder.
5. Rename the new file something project-specific.  For instance, if this master page is to be used on the sales portal, you might rename the new master page SalesPortal.master.
6. Publish and approve the new master page.
7. In your browser, navigate to your site’s Site Settings page.  Under the “Look-and-Feel” column click “Master page.”
8. Select your new master page as the site master page (the need to set the system master page will vary by project).  Save the settings change.

Your site is now using the new master page you created.  From here you modify the master page to your liking, including adding custom CSS and custom JavaScript and jQuery.

Change the Welcome Page / Homepage in SharePoint 2010 Programmatically

When exporting and importing sites throughout SharePoint 2010 that are upgraded sites from SharePoint 2007, you probably noticed that the homepage for the imported site is defaulted to SharePoint 2010′s wiki-style page at /SitePages/Home.aspx. However, until you start using these new pages you may want to revert or keep the homepage as the default.aspx page.

To do this manually, you need to go to Site Actions > Site Settings > Look and Feel > Welcome Page.

However, this Welcome Page link is only available for those sites where the Publishing feature is activated at the Site Collection and Site level.

This could be pretty tedious if you have to do this for every site in the web application. So, if you need to do this fast for multiple sites and don’t have direct access to the Welcome Page link, what do you do? <pausing for dramatic effect> You use Power-Shell!

Below is a script I created that will prompt to enter in the Web Application and Welcome Page and then loop through each site in the Web Application and set the Welcome Page. Save this as a .ps1 file and run it from the SharePoint 2010 Management Shell:

$webapp = Read-Host "Enter Web Application"

$welcomepage = Read-Host "Enter Welcome Page"

$webs = Get-SPSite -WebApplication

$webapp -Limit All | Get-SPWeb -Limit All

foreach ($web in $webs){

$rootFolder = $web.RootFolder

$rootFolder.WelcomePage = $welcomepage

Write-Host "Setting"$web.Title"homepage to"$welcomepage    $rootFolder.Update()

$web.Dispose()

}

Now, navigate back to a site and see that the homepage is now set to the given page!