Customer Reviews

Practical SharePoint 2010 Branding and Customization

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Practical sharepoint 2010 branding and customization book by erik swenson delivers exactly what it claims, The book is broken up into simple easy to understandable categories with clear simple language , If your curious about customizing the look and feel of a sharepoint portal , this is the book for you, also if you don't know where to begin with a client projects the book contains all the relevent client questionares in order for you to scope out the project and determine level of effort. If you have an understanding of HTML/CSS this book will get you going in the right direction for sharepoint projects it also helps you to avoid the pitfalls of a branding sharepoint project. I've learned a great deal from the book and i am already applying the benefits to my client projects. Bottom line is that if your looking for a book to help with your next sharepoint branding project (s) this book is written in simple clear understandable language and uses live examples so you can learn the correct way to customize the look and feel / functionality of your next sharepoint project. I would recommend this for anyone who is interested in knowing what is involved with customization / branding / look and feel of a sharepoint portal. It even contains information about setting up your demo environment. Get This BOOK!

As a SharePoint consultant for several years the one thing I've really noticed is the incredible range of skills often needed on a project. As anyone working with SharePoint understands the threads of project activity mean nothing if those threads can't be knitted together. A huge strength of Erik's book is offering up a solid model for working through the muddy waters of SharePoint customization and branding. If I were just starting out as a new SharePoint consultant I would look toward the first part of his book to acquaint you with the overall processes and considerations any project needs to make. For those wanting to dig deeper into the nuts and bolts of SharePoint customizations this book will provide you the tools to deliver and feel greatly satisfied doing so.

There aren't many books out there on this subject, but you'll find this is one of the better ones. It is targeted to people who want to change the look and feel of a stock SharePoint 2010 site and implement a custom brand. It differs from other books in that it covers the entire process in great detail, including the documents, interviews and planning you need to do in order to make this a successful endeavor. The author does a good job in guiding the reader through the process of branding a SharePoint 2010 site. He's also included demonstrations and walkthroughs on using various tools in the arsenal of a Web designer's toolbox such as Photoshop, the Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar, Firebug, HttpWatch and even includes a CSS reference. I definitely recommended this as a good resource for those who are looking for SharePoint 2010 branding information!

I'm always a bit frustrated by the lack of actual practical information that comes with Microsoft products. This book is super helpful for people trying to customize the front end of SharePoint. It would be great to see more books like this on the various aspects of customizing SharePoint.

This is by far one of the top books on SharePoint Branding. This book contains what you would expect in a book that teaches you to make "SharePoint not look like SharePoint" - overviews, examples, and how-to's. But there's much more to branding SharePoint than monkey-see, monkey-do and Erik makes sure you get the big picture.

One of my favorite parts of the book is actually in the first chapter and available as part of the free download. Erik lists several gems of wisdom that you "Need to Know" in the first few pages. You should post them on your wall, they come from experience.

One reviewer points out that Erik's popular blog offers the same tips found in the book. Even though that is partly true, this book brings you more than just a snippet of code or helpful example. You're provided the tools, context, process and domain understanding to master how to brand SharePoint. You may have heard of the Chinese Proverb, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." This book offers you many "snippets" that will feed you for a day but also teaches you the skills and domain knowledge to master branding SharePoint for a lifetime.

Erik has written a great book. It is not your average technical book. The book provides real world examples of how to manage a branding and customization project from the grounds up. As a SharePoint developer I found the testing section very refreshing. I feel as though clients and managers as a whole don't grasp this concept for Branding and Designers. They think that testing only pertains to front end development work. The Building and Design section bridges the gap between SharePoint developers and designers on how to deploy a solution in the correct fashion by creating .wsp files. Too many times I have seen the manual deployment where there is always a mistake or a file missed in the deployment part of the project. Multiply this scenario times the number of front end servers and the solution presented by Erik is the only scenario that works time and time again. Finally the CSS Reference Guide is very well thought out and mapped out very well for anyone reading the book.

The referencial sections were very well written. I was a little disappointed by some of the code examples, though. As a long-time reader of Erik's blog, I found much of his content re-submitted here. I was hoping that there would be more original examples.

Overall it is an okay book with good PhotoShop examples, but it is missing the Source Code??? Spent 15 minutes looking all over the [...] site looking for it and they are no where to be found???