PixelMill Blog

Free Webinar! - SharePoint for Web Site Builders

A live one-hour session where you will receive valuable insights for using Windows SharePoint Services as a differentiator for current and prospective clients. Use the power of SharePoint and SharePoint Designer to create successful solutions for you and your clients.

This Webinar will cover:

• Introduction to Windows SharePoint Services


• Options for using SharePoint as a Web Site Management tool


• Connecting Live, Dynamic Content from SharePoint to your Web site


• Formatting SharePoint Data Views and Web Parts using SharePoint Designer


• Using a Hosted SharePoint solution to your benefit

Date: November 15, 2007
Time: 10:00am - 11:00am Pacific Time

Toll Free conference call access for U.S. and Canada callers. International toll number available.

PixelMill Introduces "PixelMill Skins^TM" for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

(Davis, Calif.) - October 31, 2007 - Leveraging the entry of the latest version of SharePoint, PixelMill today introduced a new catalog of Web Themes and Template "Skins" specifically designed for Windows® SharePoint® Services 3.0 to give its users the ability to transform the "out-of-the-box" SharePoint site design into a variety of customizable designs.

Advances in SharePoint Services 3.0, which includes a number of design enhancements that make building Themes and Templates much more cost effective and easier to implement for users, prompted PixelMill to develop its first phase series of Skins for business users. Its years of experience designing with SharePoint and providing custom design services for business enabled PixelMill to readily adapt to evolutions in SharePoint. PixelMill's design contributions to more than 60,000 Web sites and its adaption to back-end solutions allowed it to quickly introduce to the design and developer market enterprise and small business solutions that offer increased flexibility and choices in implementing the look and functionality of SharePoint products and services.

PixelMill's online Skins catalog introduction (http://www.pixelmill.com/products/website-templates/vivid-office.aspx) arrives at a time when hosting solutions for SharePoint now provide significant collaboration capabilities and flexible, cost effective packages giving small to mid-size businesses a solution they can grow with for internal team and external partner collaboration, and even maintenance of their own public-facing web site. Anticipating SharePoint's increasing relevance, PixelMill has already begun developing new solutions that will move beyond "skinning" SharePoint sites to providing Web site designs that use SharePoint as a content management tool.

"We're investing in efforts that give small businesses the ability to use dynamic content in Web sites that anyone on the team can update," said PixelMill CEO Jason Reckers. "With our new Skins, we're enabling companies today to create and deliver world-class Web presence using multimedia and e-commerce components supported by simple, easy to use and powerful back-end solutions such as SharePoint."

PixelMill began its work with SharePoint in 2003. At that time, PixelMill, through its Vivid Office brand, packaged and developed a number of complementary products, design templates, and instructional guides featured in the Microsoft® Right Tools Toolkit and on www.sharepointcustomization.com. PixelMill experts also developed effective strategies to help users implement these designs into their Windows® SharePoint® Services Web sites.

Supporting its entry into Skins for SharePoint, PixelMill's online seminar series featured at PixelMill EDU, helps designers and developers transition from FrontPage to SharePoint Designer. PixelMill's educational series is designed to help customers learn how to effectively work with SharePoint Designer for both static Web sites as well as easy integration with SharePoint. The series also puts focus on users converting from FrontPage to SharePoint Designer since previous versions of SharePoint used FrontPage to edit design, Web Parts, and data view integration tools. PixelMill EDU is available at http://www.pixelmill.com/services/seminars-webinars.aspx.

PixelMill, established in 1998, serves as the Web's central source of solutions for web site builders offering an extensive array of high quality templates, images, video, audio, add-ons, platform-specific solutions, training, and custom services for developers' Web design needs. PixelMill's extensive digital library features high quality, guaranteed royalty free and free of copyright concerns, templates and tools with more than 2,000 Web, Microsoft® Expression® Web, SharePoint Designer, Adobe® Dreamweaver®, FrontPage®, and HTML templates, more than 1,800 PowerPoint® templates, over 9,000 stock images, and over 4,500 royalty free music tracks.

Media Contact: Chris Doyle, 916.847.0261 cdoyle@pixelmill.com

View PDF >>

Adding Content to your Expression Web or SharePoint Designer site.

When moving content from one website to another or adding content from any other source (Word, Outlook, etc.)use notepad so you don't add any extra unwanted code or formatting to your site.

Watch this short video showing how to properly move your content over to your new site.

Closing SharePoint Web Parts through the Browser - Be Cautious of Permissions

Recently I was working on a redesign of a school site. (www.laurensacademy.com) I decided this was another great opportunity to sink my teeth into some fun SharePoint stuff.

Once the site was finished, I kept noticing that a login box would keep popping up. I had set the site permissions to be anonymous, so why am I getting this login? I checked and rechecked my permissions and never found anything wrong. Finally I called Tech Support at FWHN (our preferred SharePoint Hosting provider). It so happened that I had closed a web part through the browser. This particular web part had non-anonymous permissions tied to it and required a login. Even though it was no longer showing in the browser, SharePoint was still looking for the login.

To fix the page I had to open SharePoint Designer and remove the web part from the page. Plus, the 3rd party web part I used had added some code at the top of the page that was a bear to remove. So, be prepared to look for extra code being added to the header of the page when using a 3rd party web part. Lesson learned. If you change a permission based page to an anonymous (or to permissions lower than the previous level) page be sure to remove any web parts that may require permissions higher than you intend. Also, another hint, play with web parts on a separate page!

Flash Online Image Galleries

Are you looking for an attractive way to display your photography on your site?

We've recently released three Flash-based image galleries that will give you an easy-to-deploy, unique solution for displaying your gallery of photography and images within your web site.

The ImageViewerPlus series (Standard, XL, and XL2 with PayPal Integration) are resizeable online image galleries for showcasing and viewing images in a professional and intuitive interface. The gallery is designed for displaying larger images at a maximum width of 650 pixels and a maximum height of 488 pixels. The entire gallery is designed at a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels (800 x 600 in Standard version).

PSD files are included for changing the main background design or adding additional elements. All configuration is done by editing a user friendly XML file. This would include options for the following: background image, sound file definition, gallery button labels and large image definitions. Gallery navigation buttons are automatically generated from the information contained in the XML file.

They have support for unlimited categories/galleries. Scroll feature is built in for scrolling menu buttons up or down when there are more buttons than the display area allows. Left and right scroll arrows are provided for moving the thumbnails left or right when there are more thumbnails than the display area allows. A larger thumbnail expands out on mouse over. After clicking on a thumbnail, the larger image is displayed along with a description window in the lower right corner that can be opened or closed.

A slide show option is available for each gallery, along with buttons for displaying Next and Previous images. Images are displayed with a very smooth dissolve transition. The master background image can be defined within the XML file and edited with the included PSD file. Includes a sound on/off button. The MP3 file can be defined within the XML file. Two additional message screens are included for displaying additional information. These can be edited within the included FLA file.

HTML and java script files are included for calling ImageViewerPlus XL in a pop up window or full screen viewing. ImageViewerPlus can be viewed from the web or your local computer. Optimized for 1024 x 768 resolution (800x600 in standard version). FLA source files included.

Requires Flash MX (or higher) to edit some design elements, but is not required for out-of-the-box use. ReadMe file for editing the XML file and adding galleries included.

Learn More...

ImageViewerPlus XL - $165

ImageViewerPlus XL2 w/ PayPal Integration - $195

ImageViewerPlus v1.0(standard) - $125

Want a different music track for your image viewer? Visit PixelMill's Royalty Free Music collection.

Webinar: Managing CSS in Expression Web

PixelMill is happy to announce our first in a long series of Webinars and Seminars for Expression Web and SharePoint Designer 2007.

One of the most anticipated features in Expression Web and SharePoint Designer 2007 is the integrated CSS editor use interface. In the session, Corrie Haffly, our resident expert will guide you through managing CSS in these new editors. The title says Expression Web, but the same techniques will also work in SharePoint Designer. Space is limited, so don't miss this opportunity.

Managing CSS in Expression Web
Expression Web comes with great new tools for managing and using CSS. Using Expression Web Beta, Corrie Haffly gives an overview of the new tools and some practical tips on how to use them.
Thurs., Dec 7, 2006
10:00 AM - 10:45 PM PST