SharePoint University

Currently evaluating a few CMS products to be used as an external site as well as an intranet.  Sharepoint is on the short list.

Biggest feature we are looking at is the ability to edit web pages from the web page itself (in-context editing, I believe is the term).  We know Sharepoint can do it, what Im looking for is a way to make it simple.

Example: SiteCore has the "little green buttons" for things the currently logged in user is allowed to edit.  They click the green button, edit their content, save it and refresh the page and its done.

Can Sharepoint do that too?  I *think* the answer is yes, but only after custom coding it.  Is this true?

Thanks in advance.

 -Chris

Yes, SharePoint can do this, but my quesiton is: why would you want to do it in SharePoint? If you want what SiteCore provides, use SiteCore. No point in getting SharePoint to do the same as SiteCore, or whatever else, just to use SharePoint.

What you want to ask yourself is, do I want SharePoint and its feature set or do I want SiteCore and its feature set (or X with its feature set). Dont train your cat to bark just because you wanted something that could bark. Get a dog.

For example, my top benefits of using SharePoint, as I see it, is incredible flexibility, a broad user base, massive support, access to people who know the product and support for workflows more or less out-of-the-box. When I look at competing products I look for these features and who solves them best. These are the features important to me and when SharePoint is best at providing these features I choose SharePoint. If other features are more important I choose something else.

If little green buttons is your most important feature I would suspect that SiteCore does a much better job at providing those features than SharePoint.

Actually this experiment is mostly for other departments.  One of our largest content contributing departments is going to implement SiteCore, and we were wondering if we could actually sway them towards SharePoint (because we, the web department, are implement Sharepoint for just about the exact reasons you are.  SiteCore is nice, but the community is limited, support is limited, training is limited......at least compared to Microsoft).

The "green button" thing is actually the feature the other department likes best, so if we could (easily) implement it in our SharePoint setup, we might be able to get them to go along with us........which prevents us from having to make SiteCore and SharePoint communicate.  We know it can be done (SiteCore has a SP module that supposedly works in both directions), but any extra config/network work that can be avoided by a little SP programming would be worth it in the long run.  Having everyone on the same platform is also nice......as it is everyone except that one dept. would be on SharePoint, and that dept would be on SiteCore.  Just a little different is all.

I assume the "green button" feature would be developed as a web part?  Havent really gotten into the specifics of developing with SP yet, but that seems like how it would be done.

Thanks again.

-Chris

That seems like a far healthier view on the situation.

I cannot give you a best way of doing this for you. As an architect I am used to considering a broad range of options before I recommend a method of implementing. You are quite possibly correct when suggesting that a web part could do the trick, but I have implemented more or less exactly what you propose by only mocking around with a custom dispform, a method which would probably be faster to implement. You can do this out-of-the-box or get some help from SharePoint designer, which lowers the cost of making a proof of concept for your users.

I wrote a post here a few days ago regarding how to make a custom listform that should get you started:

http://www.sharepointu.com/forums/p/3757/10991.aspx

As I said, I would not recommend any particular solution to your feature request, but showing your users that they can indeed modify things exactly as they wish may sway them towards your point of view.