Site Settings in SharePoint 2013: Part 4

Part 3

Welcome to the 4th part of Site Settings. Here we will be discussing the Look & Feel structure of SharePoint 2013 configuration. So let's go for it.



Design Manager

The first new feature is Design Manager in SharePoint 2013. Unlike SharePoint Designer it is something different. Here we can Import a HTML file that will be converted into a SharePoint master page or CSS files, JavaScript files, Images and other supporting files.

Then we can Manage Device Channels, Upload Design Files, Edit Master Pages, Edit Display Templates, Edit Page Layouts, Publish and Apply Design and lastly you can create Design Packages that include a master page or CSS files, JavaScript files, Images and other supporting files.



Master Page

As per our screen below we can see Site Master pages that you can inherit, specify one as a default or reset them all back to their default Master page.

Then we have System Master Page that are nothing but pages used for Administrative pages and views of a Document Library that you want to be inherited from the master page you want that you can inherit, specify one as the default or reset them all back to their default Master page.

Then we have beautiful Themes of SharePoint 2013 that can be used to Inherit from parent sites or reset them back to the site default definitions.

Lastly we have Alternate CSS URLs where you can either specify your CSS Files, use it as a default one or inherit from the Parent Site.



Title, Description and Logo

Then we can see from our screen we have default options for your Site Name, Description and Logo for the site.



Page Layouts and Site Template

Since we can see sub-site Templates on our screen below, where we have an option to inherit site templates from the parent site or they can choose any of the following site templates in the list.

The same logic goes on for Page Layouts and you can also choose an option from the following New Page Default Settings so when a new page is created that will be a default page layout.



Welcome Page

This part of site settings allows you to provide the URL of the page that you want it to be as a welcome page of the site whereas in other versions we used to go to that page and made them as make page as Home Page.



Device Channels

It is another new feature in SP 2013 that enables you to store certain site content, style your content and change the image even while maintaining the same URL across a pool of multiple devices such as iPad, Desktop or in Mobile.

Isn't it an important one? It is.

Here you need to, as in the following screenshot, create a new item and I'll quote from the column reference:

”Specify one or more user agent substrings (for example: Windows Phone OS), placing each substring on its own line. When the user agent string of a visiting device contains any of the specified substrings, the channel will force site pages to display using that channel's optimizations, like a different Master Page or Device Channel Panel. You can also trigger this special rendering by using query strings, cookies or custom code, in which case the substrings don't matter.”

In easy words you can differentiate your site between Desktop, iPad and Cellular.



Tree View

It is just a renamed feature of the quick launch in previous versions. Here we have Enable Quick Launch and Enable Tree View functionality to be applied on the navigation of the site.



Change the Look

My favourite feature Change the look, you can change the layout, theme or background by the following default themes. You can even create your own and upload them here. It is like a customization on clicks.



So once you select a template just click on it, you will see the Try it Out option that will allow you to have a preview of it as well as put it as a default theme.



Import Design Package

If you have many sites and you want everyone to be configured the same as one of your sites then you import the design package from that site and upload it to your site so without wasting a lot of time and effort you can configure other sites by uploading a common Design package.



Navigation

For the navigation there is no change in the functionality compared to the other versions of SharePoint so Microsoft is still on its old panel of navigation.



Image Renditions

A new functionality in 2013 is for pre-configuring the height and width of the Display Template Picture or Display template Video even if it differs in its size uploaded by the user. Thereby providing you more control on your site.



So here it is, the 4th part of Site Settings. See you again with other parts.

Until then keep learning.

Cheers.