SharePoint 2013 Branding using JavaScript

SharePoint 2013 Branding is the procedure of changing the appearance and impression of the SharePoint 2013 user interface using custom master pages, style sheets, images, JavaScript and jQuery. An excellent branding will lead you to improved content presentation, superior navigation, better appearance, additional browser support, allows responsive web design and increases user adoption. Additionally hiding fields is necessary to stop a spectator from viewing them and to let an administrator view across the world. It would be advantageous to have the JavaScript code and selectively apply it to a page. Nonetheless, till now everyone is restricted, no matter who they are. 

Moreover, SharePoint designer is the medium for serious SharePoint customisation. However, if we can apply this JavaScript within the SharePoint publishing feature framework, then SharePoint Designer is not essential. You can run it through the browser, which will eventually help to curb the expense which is needed for SharePoint Designer licensing, user training, governance training and customization. Lastly, one of the major problem is security. Any authentication reasoning depending on customer’s end, leads the JavaScript to manipulation which will be out of control. In such scenarios, JavaScript can be deactivated, or it can be played by debugging proxies such as fiddler.

If you want to opt for a long-lasting branding especially production, it is better to go for Visual Studio in order to generate a wsp package. In this way, you will have an installed package that can be reinstalled and used in test and dev. environment. It will also be easy for you to ensure that the package works before shifting to production. Additionally, you can use Java for modifying the objects. If you want to find the objects, you can use F12 – Developer Toolbar that is built into IE. Alternatively, you can use suiteBarLeft, suiteBarRight, suiteBrandingBox, DeltaSuiteLinks, suiteBarRight and RibbonContainer-TabRowRight which are part of the 2013 default objects.

Lastly, you need to activate both the site collection and site level to access. You can make some modifications to a team site's master page to revamp the appearance and texture of the site, there are numerous limitations to take into account. At the end of the day, everything depend on your requirements and the purpose of your site collection. If you would want to permit your users to modify the page layouts for their sites, including the ability for people to manage approval of these pages, you need to activate the publishing feature. All of these have different assets to be configured.