Accessibility and Markup
The XHTML and cascading style
sheet (CSS) have been simplified in SharePoint 2010 to reduce rendering
time, and they are not WCAG 2.0 AA-compliant to meet accessibility
requirements. Browser support for SharePoint 2010 has been expanded to
include Firefox 3, Safari 3, and Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.
Changes to the Content
Query Web Part enable you to present cross-list views of content that
are filtered on managed metadata fields.Content authors have browser-based control
over the fields/columns that appear in results presented by the Web
Part, and page designers can create page layouts that contain
cross-list views that respond to other content on the page. All of
these features are available without the need to learn the complexities
of XML or XSL.
Ratings provide a new way for your users to express themselves by
giving them the ability to rate content from any list or library. Use
dynamic Web Parts that are based on the ratings metadata to filter,
sort, and query content, which can add a whole new dynamic dimension to
your content.
Page libraries now support folders,
providing greater scalability and making it easier to organize
libraries that store large numbers of pages. Using the Content
Organizer, you can create rules that allow for the automatic movement
of content to a folder based on the supplied metadata.
The new page
authoring experience includes the addition of the familiar
context-based Ribbon interface, making it easier access the controls
you need without having to hunt between pages or menus to find the
function you need. The Ribbon fully integrates the page
authoring experience with the publishing approval workflow process and
content deployment functions. A full-featured HTML editor provides a
cross-browser rich-text editor for editing Web page content in Internet
Explorer 8, Firefox 3, and Safari 3.
The entire themes engine has been rebuilt for SharePoint 2010 to
provide a more powerful and flexible style-driven interface that is
fully customizable from the browser. This allows site administrators
and designers to manipulate the user experience from a Web-based user
interface even if they have little or no CSS knowledge. The themes
library comes filled with many out-of-the-box options so that you can
quickly and easily customize a theme to meet your organization’s
specific design requirements.
As the prevalence of rich media continues to grow, the information
worker must store and access such content far more often. Whether the
media files are images, video, or audio, there is a greater need than
ever to store and manage this content in an intelligent way. In prior
versions of SharePoint, you could store images easily enough, but audio
and video made high demands on the architecture, and many organizations
elected to block most common audio and video file types. Even if this
were not the case, file upload limits often made it impractical to
store such content within the system. SharePoint 2010 introduces new
features and capabilities that have been designed and built
specifically for storing, managing, using, and accessing rich media
files.
A new Asset Library feature allows branded images, video, and other
reusable content fragments from Microsoft Office applications to be
quickly and easily stored and managed. Enterprise-managed metadata
greatly enhances users’ ability to find digital assets within these new
libraries. Asset libraries are based on the standard SharePoint
document library, so you get all the same metadata-driven navigation
features in addition to new thumbnail-centric views, preview on hover,
and video playback. The following sections cover the new and enhanced
features available within SharePoint 2010 for digital asset management, including
New content types have been added to the system to support the
storage and playback of audio and video assets. These new content types
can be found in a new Digital Asset Content Types group within the Site
Content Types gallery. Table 17 lists the new content types with explanations of what each type can do.
Table 17. New Digital Asset Content Types
|
CONTENT TYPE |
EXPLANATION |
|---|
|
Rich Media Asset |
Upload an asset. This is the base content type for digital assets
within the system. Each of the three following content types is derived
from this content type. This content type includes fields for Preview,
Thumbnail Preview, and Keywords. |
|
Audio |
Upload an audio file. Based on the Asset content type. Includes all
of the fields from the Asset content type in addition to Author,
Comments, Preview Image URL, Copyright, and Length (seconds). |
|
Image |
Upload an image. Based on the Asset content type. Includes all of
the fields from the Asset content type in addition to Picture Size,
Comments, Author, Date Picture Taken, and Copyright. |
|
Video |
Upload a video file. Based on the Asset content type. Includes all
of the fields from the Asset content type in addition to Author,
Comments, Preview Image URL, Copyright, Length (seconds), Frame Width,
and Frame Length. |
As always, you can create your own content types based on the
supplied content types to meet your specific needs. For example, you
can add new custom columns or field controls to a custom content type.
Video Streaming Infrastructure
SharePoint 2010 includes updates to the disk-cache management
features that support the publication and streaming of digital video
assets. These enhancements greatly reduce the performance strain on the
Web front-end servers while streaming video, allowing you to store more
video within SharePoint and making that video available immediately.
Enhancements to the user interface enable the seamless playback of
audio and video files in Web pages. A new multimedia player that is
based on Microsoft Silverlight technology and an updated page model
allow designers to apply skin to the player in order to provide a
completely branded experience for the end user. The media player
supports many popular video formats, including WMV and MP4. Because the
new media player leverages Silverlight, as support for additional media
formats and codecs become available, SharePoint will be able to take
full advantage of those updates. The digital asset library provides a
preview mode for audio and video files, and a new asset picker makes it
quick and easy to find just the right rich media element for your
purpose.
The asset library provides the following significant optimizations for digital assets.
Figure 29 shows an asset library in action, with images and a hover preview.
SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Content Management features
support multiple approaches to managing data, documents, Web, and
digital content. A new capability for standardizing the way
unstructured information is stored within the system allows you to
mitigate risk and improve compliance. An easy-to-use interface with an
intuitive design gives users incentives to capture metadata, making
information more discoverable. New Web content management capabilities
allow you to manage your Web sites and Web content more efficiently.
In-place records management and the Content Organizer provide you with
maximum flexibility to manage high-value record content. Finally, the
architectural improvements relating to document storage and video
streaming allow you to scale libraries to millions of documents and
provide users with almost instant video response.
