This chapter introduces you to the key concepts covered in this book. These topics provide a general understanding of... more

This chapter introduces you to the key concepts covered in this book. These topics provide a general understanding of the components that constitute theme building in Community Server. The topics that are covered in this chapter include:

• Themes in Community Server 2007

• Types of themes

• Rendering diagrams

• SiteUrls.config and URL rewriting

• Chameleon

• Dynamic configuration

• Content scrubbing

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This chapter explains how to set up your development environment to work correctly with Community Server.... more

This chapter explains how to set up your development environment to work correctly with Community Server. This will result in your being able to eventually create controls and custom themes that can be used inside of a Community Server site. Additionally, you will be able to use this same environment to create custom modules and tasks that can also be used to customize Community Server. By the end of this chapter, you should be familiar with the following topics:

• Required Software

• Downloading Community Server

• Setting up a Development Environment

• Previewing Themes

This book assumes that you have some experience with Community Server. If you have no experience with Community Server and are interested in learning more about getting started with it, you should consult both Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of the Wrox book Professional Community Server. This will provide you with basic information on what Community Server is as well as steps for troubleshooting potential installation issues.

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In this chapter, you will learn how Community Server uses URL rewriting to manage its handling of web pages.... more

In this chapter, you will learn how Community Server uses URL rewriting to manage its handling of web pages. This chapter shows that there are numerous advantages to using URL rewriting in a platform like Community Server. By the end of this chapter you should feel comfortable with the following areas:

• SiteUrls.config File

• Location Element of the SiteUrls.config

• URLs and Transformers

• Navigation and Links

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In the previous chapter, you learned about some of the basics of URL rewriting, including how all of the various rewriting... more

In the previous chapter, you learned about some of the basics of URL rewriting, including how all of the various rewriting pieces come together to accomplish the process of rewriting. In this chapter, you will take this knowledge of rewriting and learn how to apply it in situations where you need to add new pages to your site that must be located in the SiteUrls.config file. By the end of this chapter, you should be knowledgeable in the following areas:

• Modifying SiteUrls.config through overrides

• Adding a Simple URL

• Adding a URL with query strings

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Chameleon is the declarative theme definition language used by Community Server. It consists of a set of standard ASP.NET... more

Chameleon is the declarative theme definition language used by Community Server. It consists of a set of standard ASP.NET server controls that can be used together to fully define the content and markup of pages rendered by Community Server.

This chapter introduces the basic types of Chameleon controls and explains how they can be used, both individually and in concert, to implement custom themes. This chapter introduces and explains:

• Implicit data binding

• Chameleon control types

• Common properties and behaviors of each control type

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In the previous chapter, you learned about the many different Chameleon controls. In this chapter,... more

In the previous chapter, you learned about the many different Chameleon controls. In this chapter, you will take that knowledge and apply it by creating an actual blog theme. To help ease into developing an entire site theme, it is helpful to start small with a blog theme. During this process, you will learn about the various files that are required to create a blog theme. Additionally, this chapter presents an example of a blog theme that you can create. By the end of the chapter, you should be comfortable enough to create a blog theme on your own.

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In the previous chapter, you learned how to create blog themes. You can apply many of the same principles that you learned... more

In the previous chapter, you learned how to create blog themes. You can apply many of the same principles that you learned in the previous chapter to create a site theme. By the end of this chapter, you will be able to create and extend a site theme for Community Server 2007 and later. Furthermore, you will be familiar with the following areas of a site theme:

• Site theme files

• Extending existing themes

• Creating a site master page

• Creating theme pages

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In the previous two chapters, you learned how to create a new blog and site theme. With this knowledge,... more

In the previous two chapters, you learned how to create a new blog and site theme. With this knowledge, you should now feel comfortable with the files that are involved in creating a theme in either situation. In this chapter, you will expand this knowledge and learn about some advanced options you can add to your theme. By the end of this chapter, you will be more knowledgeable in the following areas:

• Interaction with ASP.NET AJAX

• Interaction with external scripts

• Interaction with Silverlight

• Packaging your theme for distribution

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Community Server includes support for defining configuration options for each site and blog theme,... more

Community Server includes support for defining configuration options for each site and blog theme, to allow theme developers to quickly and easily support exposing theme configuration options to end users. Dynamic configuration options can be used within a theme to hide content, change interface styles, select images or other files, or perform any other behavior based on data entered by a user.

Dynamic configuration options are defined within each theme’s theme.config file. Community Server has built-in support for rendering dynamically generated configuration forms supporting many common data types and allows custom data, custom configuration controls, and custom rules to be defined to further extend and tailor the configuration options and form for each theme.

This chapter outlines the support for dynamic configuration options in Community Server, providing the information required to define and utilize user-configurable options in custom themes.

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You have already learned about some of the many options that are available to you whenever you are creating a theme configuration... more

You have already learned about some of the many options that are available to you whenever you are creating a theme configuration file. Now that you are familiar with these options on a basic level, this chapter teaches you how to actually apply them. After reading this chapter, you will be familiar with several examples on how dynamic configuration options can be used. In addition, you will also be knowledgeable in the following areas:

• Adding a simple configuration option

• Previewing configuration changes

• Adding a CSS previewable configuration option

• Adding a conditional rendering option

• Defining a custom rule

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User-entered HTML can adversely affect the rendering of custom themes within Community Server. To ensure that user-entered... more

User-entered HTML can adversely affect the rendering of custom themes within Community Server. To ensure that user-entered HTML is formatted properly and does not contain undesirable markup, Community Server includes two components: the HtmlScrubber and the HtmlNestingCorrectionModule.

Use of these components in a Community Server installation prevents markup-related issues such as use of undesirable tags, cross-site scripting, and breaks in formatting. This chapter includes a discussion of each of these components and provides documentation for their configuration.

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Chameleon supports external, custom controls. These custom controls take advantage of Chameleon's well-defined base class... more

Chameleon supports external, custom controls. These custom controls take advantage of Chameleon's well-defined base class structure to implement new features with a minimum amount of code, and participate in and extend implicit data binding.

This chapter takes you a step beyond Chapter 5 and provides the necessary information and instructions to create custom Chameleon controls. This chapter identifies the base classes for each of the Chameleon control types, defines the abstract and protected members of each base class, and provides a sample implementation of each control type.

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As discussed in Chapter 9, Community Server supports extending the dynamically generated theme configuration form using... more

As discussed in Chapter 9, Community Server supports extending the dynamically generated theme configuration form using custom property controls and property rules.

Custom controls can be used to customize the user interface of a single configuration property, whereas custom rules can be used to automate configuration data when it is changed. This chapter outlines the support for these extensions, identifies and explains the code requirements, and provides a sample implementation of both a property control and a property rule.

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In the previous chapter, you learned how to customize a theme using the theme configuration file.... more

In the previous chapter, you learned how to customize a theme using the theme configuration file. You will expand your knowledge of customizing a theme in this chapter by learning how to create a custom editor. The editor is a central component in a Community Server site, as it is what enables a user to create a post. After reading this chapter, you will be familiar with the following areas:

• Editor overview

• Existing editors

• Installing an editor

• Custom editor example

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In the previous chapter, you learned how to create a custom editor that you can use with Community Server.... more

In the previous chapter, you learned how to create a custom editor that you can use with Community Server. In this chapter, you will learn about another area of Community Server that you can customize called a browseable list. This is not a well-known feature, but one that is extremely powerful. By the end of this chapter, you should feel comfortable with the following topics regarding a browseable list:

• Browseable list overview

• Existing browseable lists

• Installing a browseable list

• Custom browseable list example

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This reference contains:

• Node Structure: the nodes and child nodes in a SiteUrls.config file.

This reference contains:

• Node Structure: the nodes and child nodes in a SiteUrls.config file.

• Node Attributes: The attributes in locations node can contain.

• SiteUrls.config Examples

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This appendix includes a list of controls that exist in the CommunityServer.Controls assembly and also lists the properties... more

This appendix includes a list of controls that exist in the CommunityServer.Controls assembly and also lists the properties of the related Community Server API objects.

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This appendix includes a list of controls that exist in the CommunityServer.Blogs assembly and also lists the properties... more

This appendix includes a list of controls that exist in the CommunityServer.Blogs assembly and also lists the properties of the related Community Server API objects.

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This appendix includes a list of controls that exist in the CommunityServer.Discussions assembly and also lists the properties... more

This appendix includes a list of controls that exist in the CommunityServer.Discussions assembly and also lists the properties of the related Community Server API objects.

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This appendix includes a list of controls that exist in the CommunityServer.Files assembly and also lists the properties... more

This appendix includes a list of controls that exist in the CommunityServer.Files assembly and also lists the properties of the related Community Server API objects.

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This appendix includes a list of controls that exist in the CommunityServer.Galleries assembly and also lists the properties... more

This appendix includes a list of controls that exist in the CommunityServer.Galleries assembly and also lists the properties of the related Community Server API objects.

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For theme.config this shows:

• Node Structure

• Possible Node Attributes

• Deafult theme.config.

For theme.config this shows:

• Node Structure

• Possible Node Attributes

• Deafult theme.config. example

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