Key Points of SharePoint Designer 2010

Key Points: 

1.  SharePoint Designer is “the preferred” tool to design powerful no-code solutions and applications in SharePoint 2010.

2.    Use SharePoint Designer to produce solutions that are easily maintainable and supportable.

3.    SharePoint Designer is not a tool for general use by all those who visit or have access to a SharePoint site. The browser should be used to complete tasks such as adding static content (text, images, or hyperlinks) to Web pages, uploading documents, or creating and modifying list items.

4.    SharePoint Designer 2010 can be used only with SharePoint Foundation 2010 or SharePoint Server 2010 sites. These are server-based products and need to be installed prior to using SharePoint Designer 2010.

5.    SharePoint Designer 2010 cannot be used to customize non-SharePoint Web sites, nor can you use it to customize sites based on previous versions of SharePoint, such as Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Use Expression Web for non-SharePoint sites and SharePoint Designer 2007 with sites created in previous versions of SharePoint.

6.    SharePoint Designer can remember the last site you worked on and open it when you start the program. This is not the default configuration, but you can select this setting on the General tab of the Application Options dialog box. The Application Options dialog box can be opened by clicking Options in Backstage view.

7.  SharePoint Designer uses the security settings of your browser to decide whether to prompt for credentials.

8.    The SharePoint Designer shell consists of Backstage view and On Stage view. On Stage view consists of a number of elements, including the Quick Access Toolbar, ribbon, breadcrumb, Navigation pane, mini-gallery, workspace, task panes, and status bar. Web pages initially created in a SharePoint site point to files on a file system, known as uncustomized pages; however, when pages are customized by using SharePoint Designer, they are stored in the SQL Server databases, where they are known as customized pages.

9.    In SharePoint Designer 2010, uncustomized (site definition) pages can only be customized (unghosted) when a page is in advanced edit mode.

10. A SharePoint Web application consists of one or more site collections that contain one or more Web sites.

11. When a Web application is created, by default each site collection within that Web application can be modified using SharePoint Designer only by users who are members of the Site Owners and Designers site groups. However, these users cannot customize site definition pages, nor can they see the hidden URL structure of a SharePoint site.

 Source: Step by Step SharePoint Designer 2010 by Penelope Coventry