The third part of my SharePoint 2010 developer learning is about the new ribbon interface. It’s available in SharePoint Foundation 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010 and offers you an easier way to manage sites. It’s also possible to extend the SharePoint 2010 ribbon with custom buttons offering additional functionality.

This is the third part of a series describing my attempt to become a SharePoint 2010 developer using available resources.

Resources

First of all here are the resources I used:

Videos

The first link includes 5 videos and the second link includes 3 videos where the first video is about the new Ribbon presented by Ted Pattison.

• Get Started Developing on SharePoint 2010
• SharePoint 2010 developer –  UI Enhancements

MSDN

• Architecture of the Ribbon
• Customizing the Ribbon

Blog posts

There is also a discussion going on if sandboxed solutions are useful or not… just check the links and the comments:

• Creating a SharePoint 2010 Ribbon extension - part 1
• Creating a SharePoint 2010 Ribbon extension - part 2

• Customizing the ribbon (part 1) – creating tabs, groups and controls
• Adding ribbon items into existing tabs/groups (ribbon customization part 2)
• Ribbon customizations - dropdown controls, Client Object Model and JavaScript Page Components
• Customize the ribbon programmatically from web parts and field controls

• SP 2010: How To - Event Receivers and Custom Error Pages 
• SharePoint 2010 Permissions
• Code to Hide the Ribbon and Site Actions Menu for Anonymous Users
• Some SharePoint 2010 User Interface Terms
• Enabling a Button on the Ribbon Based on Selection
• Showing persistent messages using the SharePoint 2010 Status bar: SharePoint 2010 UI tip #1
• Showing transient messages using the SharePoint 2010 Notification Area – SharePoint 2010 UI tip #2

Using SharePoint 2010 – Ribbon and master pages

The resources above cover a lot of things so you can add almost all kinds of extensions to the ribbon or any other menu. But where is the ribbon located and is there a difference between collaboration and publishing?

SharePoint 2010 collaboration sites

Site templates like the team site now use the v4.master which is located in the \14\TEMPLATE\GLOBAL folder.

As you can see in the picture you need to use the SharePoint:SPRibbon tag to place the ribbon.

What’s interesting here is the SharePoint:SPRibbonPeripheralContent allowing you to place content next to the tabs of the ribbon.

You can use Location="TabRowLeft" or Location="TabRowRight" to place additional content to the left or to the right.

SharePoint 2010 publishing sites

The publishing template uses the nightandday.master located in the \14\TEMPLATE\FEATURES\PublishingLayouts\MasterPages folder.

Here you can also place additional content next to the tabs with the method mentioned above.

SharePoint 2007 master pages

The SharePoint 2007 master pages are also installed with the 2010 version. If you manually upload e.g. the blueband.master to the Master Pages Gallery and use it with your publishing site you will miss of course the ribbon since it is not referenced in the old master pages.

Lessons learned:

• If you create your own v4 master page by making a copy of an existing master page you should always take the new ones in order to have the Ribbon and other things included.
• If you need to upgrade a v3 master page MSDN offers help: Upgrading an Existing Master Page to the SharePoint Foundation Master Page

Summary

Collaboration and publishing templates use the same Ribbon which can be enhanced in a lot of ways.
But the Ribbon is just one small part of a whole enhanced SharePoint 2010 UI: Master pages and page layouts with new controls and placeholders, JavaScript with the SP.UI namespace, XSLT… behind the scenes there are a lot of new things to learn.