How to Edit Customized Banner Links

Question

I inherited this site from a different team and am now being asked to make several changes. I need to edit the links on the top thin blue banner (see screenshot) which is obviously a customization, but I cannot find where to edit these.

Answer 1

You'll need to find out where they're stored and where they're referencing from. I believe you'll be running a custom master page right now, so I'll give you a couple examples on possible situations.

To find the master page, you'll want to go to your root site collection and either edit it in SharePoint Designer and navigate to the master page, or go to the library via the site itself. To find out the master page in use, use the following PowerShell Script:

Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell

$web = Get-SPWeb <rootSiteUrl> # without the /SitePages/page.aspx or similar
$web | Select *MasterUrl

Check out the two links you should get (MasterUrl and CustomMasterUrl)

Hard Coded Links

The easiest way would've been to hard code them and added something similar to <a href="www.bmo.com">BMO</a> for each of the links somewhere inside the #s4-ribbonrow container. Change them as you need.

Internal/External JavaScript File

Another way would be to add a link to an external JavaScript file with a script tag similar to <script type="text/Javascript" src="/siteAssets/Custom/links.js"></script>. If you can find the file, you should be able to edit it and change the JavaScript as necessary. This could be done by creating new <a> tags elements or directly changing the HTML with a string. Again, these could be hard coded into the JavaScript File. Alternatively, the JavaScript could be found on the MasterPage itself, rather than in a script reference in another library.

Library References inside JavaScript

Along with the JavaScript, there could be a CSOM or similar query that checks a SharePoint List. In this case, you'll need to find the library the JavaScript is referencing and change the List items accordingly.

Embedded JavaScript

A real shot in the dark would be some JavaScript put into a Script Editor on every single page that the links show up. This is extremely unlikely, but plausible. I'd remove the script editor and implement the external JavaScript reference from earlier.

There's probably more options out there, but these seem the most likely to me (bar the last...) ranging from Solutions to server side code, to Page templates that could be edited, as well... It really all depends on what kind of administrators the previous team were. Good luck!