New SharePoint 2010 Websites Launched

​We're pleased to announce the launch of a new website which we developed and now host on the SharePoint 2010 platform. Coba-IT and Coba Education are sister companies who wanted a joint web platform to help streamline their web content management processes and boost their social presence. We have implemented a HTML 5 web design with a modern feel and the client is very happy with the result (as are we!).

Take a look:

• http://www.coba-it.com
• http://www.cobaeducation.com

So what's in the box?

• Home page with a jquery driven slider
• Drop down navigation menu, driven by site information architecture
• Social links
• Footer Links listings
• Several content areas and web part zones
• FBA authentication
• Single Master Page for both sites
• Multiple CSS files
• List driven functionality
• Content Manager Wiki
• External Data driven Jobs pages
• Anonymous mode performance tweaks
• SEO Friendly Shortened URLs

You Want Details?

Single Site Collection

I'll dig a little deeper into some of the features in these websites. I guess the most interesting aspect is that both of these websites are actually running off the same SharePoint site collection and are using the exact same master page. We've implemented a configuration list that detects the url of the current site and renders the appropriate information for the current domain. We are already in the planning stages for a third site that can feasibly use the same master page again. Of course we have also implemented a separate stylesheet for each site in order to brand appropriately. The path to the CSS file is again stored in the configuration list and injected into the page dynamically.

FBA

FBA has implemented and will be utilised in the future to allow IT consultants, teachers and schools to register and have access to their personalised areas for Timesheets, Booking History's and Teacher details. This has been built on top of the very useful SharePoint 2010 FBA codeplex project.

List Driven CQWP Pages 

We have a couple of list driven pages (the News and Meet the Staff pages). Due to the stylistic requirements for these pages we wanted to remove the chance of content editors either inputting custom styles or struggling to maintain consistency within the pages. To do this we used 2 custom lists, one for each page, and then used the Content Query Web Part to render out the content in the required format. Users just need to maintain the lists via the provided forms and the pages are updated automatically.

Performance Tweaks

Where possible we always like to improve the performance for internet facing websites. This includes minifying and combining JavaScript and CSS files, configuring all Caching settings and also sticking to clean HTML. We have struggled a bit with the out-of-the-box content editor and may look at alternatives in the future.