Wanting to integrate aspects of SharePoint into an existing website – rather than integrating applications into a SharePoint site. Is this actually possible using the SharePoint API's and Web Services?
Is it even possible (without many months of work) to make SharePoint leaner (JavaScript and CSS included) – i.e. less bandwidth hungry. Sharepoint site always seem to be over 400KB – even for a simple site (thanks to loading lots of assets (JS, CSS etc) that are not relevant on every page). Sites can take 40 seconds to load… on a broadband connection.
Are there any MasterPage templates around that use semantic markup rather than tables? Asking as all SharePoint sites I have seen look like SharePoint sites… would like to change it so they don't.
Being a bit vague as my initial impressions of SharePoint don't do it any favours (when it comes to the web development side)… found this Microsoft.SharePoint Namespace and it is a lot to read through from a development standpoint.
Best Answer
1) It is possible to use SharePoint in a custom web app. They do have to be on the same machine, but you can do a lot by referencing the SharePoint dll. With the object model you can integrate certain aspects of SP into your app like document libraries for instance.
2) Using a custom MasterPages is very powerful. You can lean your SP site up by removing un-necessary controls. It's possible to get very tricky with the look of SP. Below is an example of a site I was involved with that's completely based on SP:
http://www.cableone.net/Pages/default.aspx