Understanding the SharePoint Designer 2010 Interface

You can launch SPD from multiple locations, from Windows the Start menu or directly from the site itself, provided you have the necessary permissions. To launch SPD directly from the website, go to Site Actions and click Edit in SharePoint Designer, as shown in Figure 19.1.

Figure 19.1. Edit in SharePoint Designer

If you are launching SPD directly to edit a site, click Open Site and select the site you want to open. As you have already created the “splearn” site, open that site.

Once you open the site, the first thing you will notice is the three sections of SharePoint designer. They are

• Navigation pane

• Gallery and Summary pane

• Ribbon pane

Figure 19.2 highlights each section.

Figure 19.2. Sections of SharePoint Designer

The Navigation pane shows the various components that make up your site, such as lists and libraries, workflows, various content types, and so on. Click any of the components and the summary pane for that selection is highlighted. If you click Lists and Libraries, the Summary pane refreshes and highlights all the lists and libraries that are part of the site. Further selection of a particular list shows the various settings for that list in the Gallery pane. As you navigate through various site objects from the Navigation pane, you can see that the ribbon gets updated based on your selection. The ribbon is similar to the ones used in Microsoft Office. The ribbon control highlights the most commonly used commands based on your selection in the Navigation pane.