Comments on: PowerShell for developers

By: Waldek Mastykarz

Waldek Mastykarz — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:33:59 +0000

@Eric: I've heard about that approach as well unfortunately a little too late. Still, it's definitely something I will keep in mind while working with themes. Thanks for the tip

By: Eric Bartels

Eric Bartels — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:35:06 +0000

We avoided this issue by referencing our custom theme-css-files (stored inside e.g. layouts/Customer.Theme/default.css) from inside the css-file inside the _themes-folder.

Because the css-file (of the theme) just @imports the css from the layouts-folder changes are very very easy.

By: Waldek Mastykarz

Waldek Mastykarz — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:20:09 +0000

@Sherman: Thanks, I will definitely have a look at PowerShell Plus

By: Sherman Woo

Sherman Woo — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 16:48:11 +0000

Idera has a cool IDE called PowerShell Plus. I've only briefly touched it (only 1 week trial). I've seen a demo of it and it's cool, tho you still have to know what you're doing (just like in VS, of course).

I really need to get my PoSH spice, er, I mean skills, together.

By: Waldek Mastykarz

Waldek Mastykarz — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 10:48:09 +0000

@Zlatan: absolutely. I was more of a Console-Application guy, having more than 80 of them in every VPC doing anything from retrieving properties to querying things. PowerShell is so much easier. Now I only need a good Win client with intellisense for all assemblies and I'll never touch Console Apps again

By: Zlatan

Zlatan — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 09:15:11 +0000

Just did a talk at TechEd on this topic and one before for the local community, both with Nicolas Blank (Exchange MVP).
Most SharePoint Devs are fast adopting this as essential part of their SDLC.
Powershell – Don't leave home without it

By: Jeremy Thake

Jeremy Thake — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 08:25:38 +0000

Just came across my first client who has leveraged Site Themes and for each Sub -site the _themes directory is there so if they change branding for all sites, have to update EACH _themes sub site. Obviously your script would resolve this.
I agree, 12 Hive = WSP = Visual Studio really, so making changes isn't Content Author centric. But running PoSH scripts isn't either Fully understand that approach for that scenario though.

By: Waldek Mastykarz

Waldek Mastykarz — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 08:09:07 +0000

@Jeremy: For a couple of reasons, like time (easier to modify a few CSS than to provide a whole new branding which would do the same) and support (WSS doesn't support Master Pages out of the box. Of course you can get it done but then the customer wouldn't be able to change it himself, etc, etc)

By: Jeremy Thake

Jeremy Thake — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 07:59:54 +0000

As always….LEGEND.

To "push some buttons"…if this is a limitations of Site Themes, why not do branding via Master pages, Page Layouts and Style sheets in 12 hive file system? And block unghosting

By: Waldek Mastykarz

Waldek Mastykarz — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 07:06:32 +0000

@Jeremy: Wanted to check if anybody would be interested in it first I will publish it later today and ping you once it's available on-line.