Monthly Archives: August 2008

Reusable Content List

So I am working on the project plan for the first release of our new intranet, working on the IA and such, and saw the need to have content in more than one place. I saw that there was a list called Reusable Content so I looked it up and it acts much like how library items work in Dreamweaver. Instead of adding the copy to multiple locations directly, you add the reusable content into the list, and then when you go to add the content in the specific locations, you tell the page to use source from the reusable content list. I think that this is very cool. You update the page once and it updates across the board wherever it is used. You can also use the list to just store a link or a paragraph-anything that may be repeated. Here is a really good overview: http://blog.funknstyle.com/?p=577

Search Area Makeover

I thought that the search area on the top of each page was a bit bland and I set out to style it. The whole search area is enclosed in an id, WebPartWPQ1. I added this id to my theme css and gave the area some padding and margins, and I added a background. To change the color of the background of the magnifying glass, I copied the td.ms-sbgo class from core and changed the background color. Is nice, yes?

Search area with makeover

Search area with makeover

Hiding avatar graphics in discussion boards

On my intranet, we want to limit what the end user can do as much as possible, not because we are mean.. but because they can barely use their computers at all, and life is hard enough, you know what I mean? So because of this, we don’t have My Sites activated, so users can’t upload images of themselves. Well, when you use a discussion board, blank avatars for people’s image show up. I think that looks tacky, and I don’t want users emailing me asking to see their lovely mug, so I set out to hide it.

Add these styles to your theme style sheet, or alt stylehseet:

/* hides person graphic from discussion board */
td.ms-disc-bordered img {
display: none;
}

/* adds right padding to post by link */
td.ms-disc-bordered a {
padding-right: 5px;
}

I added the padding because once the image is hidden, the posted by link has no padding and is right against the border.

Hooray! no blank avatar image!

Blank avatar image is gone!

Blank avatar image is gone!