Disqus - Latest Comments for ggalipeau

Re: Customizing Application Master Pages (MasterPages and SharePoint part 5 of 6)

ggalipeau — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 07:19:49 -0000

That is an interesting question Manu. In the reference I gave to the Microsoft "suggestions" on how to customize the application master page (which I do not support), they say that one way is to modify the file in the 12 hive. In my mind, that should void the warranty because you are not suppose to modify 12 hive files.
So, the approach I am suggesting is to avoid doing that. Thus, I believe this is a safter approach to still stay in the guidelines of your SharePoint warranty. Because, you are not modifying anything out of the box, you are leveraging the code to change the master page.
Anyways, I don't know of any official statement from Microsoft about this, but I think this is the safest approach to modify the application master while still staying in the guidelines of how Micorosoft tells us we can customize SharePoint.

Re: Deploying the Master Page (Master Pages and SharePoint part 4 of 6)

ggalipeau — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 06:29:22 -0000

Hey Bill,
The best place to deploy CSS files is in the Layouts folder of the 12 hive (usually: Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\Template\Layouts). The interesting thing about the layouts folder in the 12 hive is that SharePoint creates and IIS path to that folder with "_layouts". So, you can reference things in that folder by placing "_layouts/{path to css}" in your html.
Another option is to put the css files in the style library/list in the actually SharePoint site. This is a good option if you want to modify css directly in SharePoint.
I usually choose the Layout folder option for the following reasons:
1. It is real easy to deploy
2. It is how SharePoint does it's css files
3. There is some caching going on with that Layouts folder which can give you some performance help (but - this is minimal)

Re: Incorporating a Master Page into a SharePoint site definition (Master Pages and SharePoint part 6 of 6)

ggalipeau — Wed, 27 May 2009 11:11:25 -0000

After further review, I found that you are right CyberJP. The siutation in which that ~SiteCollection will work is very limited. I should have used the more generic approach for this article to cut down on confusion.

Change the Onet.xml configuration section to this:
<Configuration ID="0" Name="Default" CustomMasterUrl="/_catalogs/masterpage/DemoCompany.master" MasterUrl="/_catalogs/masterpage/DemoCompany.master">

I tried doing something fancy with the ~SiteCollection and it only worked for very specific situations. This is much more general and will tell the path to look at the root level site collection for the master page. Sorry.

I've asked the editor of SharePoint Magazine to change the article for me when he has a chance (because he is the only one who can)

Re: Incorporating a Master Page into a SharePoint site definition (Master Pages and SharePoint part 6 of 6)

ggalipeau — Wed, 27 May 2009 11:08:50 -0000

The WSP version shouldn't impact the project.
I am not sure why you are getting that error. There was an issue with the walkthrough, which I have asked the editor of SharePointMagazine to fix. Try fixing the error by changing the Configuration section of the Onet.xml to:
<Configuration ID="0" Name="Default" CustomMasterUrl="/_catalogs/masterpage/DemoCompany.master" MasterUrl="/_catalogs/masterpage/DemoCompany.master">

However, I am not 100% convinced that will fix your particular error because nobody else has reported that specific error message. And, I couldn't reproduce that message either. So, you might have other issues with your solution. Maybe a step was missed or mistyped. I am not sure. Tell me if the fix above helps. If not, maybe I can look at your code for you.

Re: Incorporating a Master Page into a SharePoint site definition (Master Pages and SharePoint part 6 of 6)

ggalipeau — Wed, 27 May 2009 11:03:51 -0000

Barak,
I found the issue with the Walkthrough for certain situations. Change the Onet.xml configuration section to this:
<Configuration ID="0" Name="Default" CustomMasterUrl="/_catalogs/masterpage/DemoCompany.master" MasterUrl="/_catalogs/masterpage/DemoCompany.master">

I tried doing something fancy with the ~SiteCollection and it only worked for very specific situations. This is much more general and will tell the path to look at the root level site collection for the master page. Sorry.

I've asked the editor of SharePoint Magazine to change the article for me when he has a chance (because he is the only one who can)

Re: Incorporating a Master Page into a SharePoint site definition (Master Pages and SharePoint part 6 of 6)

ggalipeau — Wed, 27 May 2009 10:19:14 -0000

Hi Raghu,
Yes, I just followed the steps on a WSS site and it didn't work. Instead of using ~SiteCollection in the Onet.xml, try this instead: <Configuration ID="0" Name="Default" CustomMasterUrl="/_catalogs/masterpage/DemoCompany.master" MasterUrl="/_catalogs/masterpage/DemoCompany.master">

I've asked the editor of SharePoint Magazine to change the article for me when he has a chance (because he is the only one who can)

Re: Deploying the Master Page (Master Pages and SharePoint part 4 of 6)

ggalipeau — Wed, 27 May 2009 07:51:27 -0000

Yes Cait,
If you edit it in SharePoint Designer it will get UnGhosted. But, if you just deploy it this way with a feature, then it will stay Ghosted. So, SharePoint Designer editing is what makes a file UnGhosted.
I think the best way to go for doing A LOT of customizations to master pages is either the route dicussed in this series (i.e.: packaging up a site definition - keep reading this series of articles to get to that) or using feature receivers (I didn't cover feature receivers in this series of articles because it was getting long). You make the decision of feature receivers vs custom site definitions based on whether you want to utilize the out of the box site definitions, of if you need completely custom ones to do other stuff like changing the zone configuration or the default lists and webparts.
Either way you will utilize a WSP package to do your deploy.
The packing up in a WSP to deploy is the best reason to use solutions over SharePoint Designer. The Unghosting aspect is a secondary reason. So, yes, I do recommend against SharePoint Designer for deployment reasons. However, I do use SharePont Designer to "design" my pages on a test site. Then, after I have finished designing them, I move them into this solution methodology so I can deploy to multiple environments.
Hope that makes sense,
Greg

Re: Deploying the Master Page (Master Pages and SharePoint part 4 of 6)

ggalipeau — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 08:07:36 -0000

Hi Bill,
As the author of this article, I would like to mention it is a blog. And the blog prgram is what caused those #8220 in the view source. There is not much I can do about that, this blog takes articles from multiple different authors, so I have no control over the program. I would suggest you contact to owner of this site rather than leaving a comment for one of the participants.
As for the mistake in the previous article. I just have to appologize. It was a key stroke mistake. It had nothing to do with lack of knowledge around "English syntax".
Also, just so you know, this is all community driven, it is not a pay site. I volunteer my time. It has helped a lot of people. And, writing in blog's is very hard to do. I don't know if you have ever used a blog editor before. They change symbols on you sometimes and they make it very hard to proof read. So, please be gentle on people volunteering their time. These kind of comments make people not want to volunteer anymore.

Re: Incorporating a Master Page into a SharePoint site definition (Master Pages and SharePoint part 6 of 6)

ggalipeau — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 09:03:36 -0000

Hi Per,
That is a good approach. Remember, think of Site Definitions as "templates". If you "redeploy" you are just redploying the template. It will not effect the content the users have already started putting into the pages. So, you should have no problem doing this.

Re: Incorporating a Master Page into a SharePoint site definition (Master Pages and SharePoint part 6 of 6)

ggalipeau — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 08:55:46 -0000

I think you posted this same exact question above in the comments. So, here is the same response :)

Depends where the master page lives. If the master page lives within the current site you are on, then it is under the relative path "_catalogs". However, if the master page lives in the master page gallery on a site collection and you are on a subsite, then you have to build a relatvie path that traverses up to the site collection "~SiteCollection/_catalogs".
The reason I put "~SiteCollection/_catalogs" is because I originally got responses that using "_catalogs" didn't work. When I discussed this with the people who made the comments, I realized that they were only deploying the master page to the master page gallery at the site collection (or root site) level. Then when they created subsites and used "_catalogs" it wasn't finding it because it was looking for it at the subsite gallery instead of the the site collection (or root site) gallery.
So, I changed the post at that time to tell people to use "~SiteCollection/_catalogs". This seemed to work for those people and it worked in my test environement.
However, since it didn't work for you, then maybe there are specific situations in which this doesn't work. MOSS vs WSS. Publishing vs Non-Publishing. In SharePoint there can be a lot of reasons.
Regardless, if you are doing the straight "_catalogs" way, then just be careful with sub-sites. You have to make sure the feature that deploys the master page to the master page gallery does it at a "Web" level. That will ensure that the master page goes into the gallery at each sub-web. This post says to do it at a "Site" level. And that will only put the master page at the site collection (or root web).

Re: Incorporating a Master Page into a SharePoint site definition (Master Pages and SharePoint part 6 of 6)

ggalipeau — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 08:54:33 -0000

Depends where the master page lives. If the master page lives within the current site you are on, then it is under the relative path "_catalogs". However, if the master page lives in the master page gallery on a site collection and you are on a subsite, then you have to build a relatvie path that traverses up to the site collection "~SiteCollection/_catalogs".
The reason I put "~SiteCollection/_catalogs" is because I originally got responses that using "_catalogs" didn't work. When I discussed this with the people who made the comments, I realized that they were only deploying the master page to the master page gallery at the site collection (or root site) level. Then when they created subsites and used "_catalogs" it wasn't finding it because it was looking for it at the subsite gallery instead of the the site collection (or root site) gallery.
So, I changed the post at that time to tell people to use "~SiteCollection/_catalogs". This seemed to work for those people and it worked in my test environement.
However, since it didn't work for you, then maybe there are specific situations in which this doesn't work. MOSS vs WSS. Publishing vs Non-Publishing. In SharePoint there can be a lot of reasons.
Regardless, if you are doing the straight "_catalogs" way, then just be careful with sub-sites. You have to make sure the feature that deploys the master page to the master page gallery does it at a "Web" level. That will ensure that the master page goes into the gallery at each sub-web. This post says to do it at a "Site" level. And that will only put the master page at the site collection (or root web).

Re: Customizing Application Master Pages (MasterPages and SharePoint part 5 of 6)

ggalipeau — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 10:00:13 -0000

Hi FArrukh,
I think you could implement the same technique as this article. Build a module that checks for that particular master page and switch it out. I haven't tried it with simple.master, but that should work just fine.

Re: Deploying the Master Page (Master Pages and SharePoint part 4 of 6)

ggalipeau — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 09:57:34 -0000

Hi john,
Sorry it took me so long to reply. I don't get emails sent to me when someone leaves me a comment here. I agree - it is cumbersome. But, there are actually good architectual decisions on why everything was setup this way. If you understand "every" situation in SharePoint, it actually makes sense.
One thing I do is set up all my plumbing in a solution. Then, whenever I go on a project, all I have to do is edit the master page and all the deployment plumbing is there for me. So, the cumbersome part was done a long time ago for me and I can concentrate on my customizations each time.

Re: Deploying the Master Page (Master Pages and SharePoint part 4 of 6)

ggalipeau — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 09:54:36 -0000

Hi Francois,
Sorry it took me so long to reply. I don't get emails sent to me from here when someone leaves a comment. I don't know of an stsadm command to do that. But, you can build your own stsadm commands or you could build a simple winform to do that. Then, all you would have to do is loop through the sites and sub-sites. On each of those objects (SPSite and SPWeb), there is a list property called Features. If the feature is in that list it has been activated for that site.
That will show you the activated features.
If you are just look for all the deployed features, that is easy too. You can loop through the feature list of the farm. Just get a reference to SPFarm and loop through it like this:
foreach (SPFeatureDefinition feature in SPFarm.Local.FeatureDefinitions)
That will tell you every possible feature definition that has been deployed on the farm (whether it is active or not)

Re: Developing a Custom Master Page (Master Pages and SharePoint part 3 of 6)

ggalipeau — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 09:48:59 -0000

Hey Anita,
I do the hidden panel thing all the time, so I don't think that is your issue. Unfortunately, I have never seen this issue before. A good place to ask questions to get maximum value is through the msdn forumns. There is a forumn specifically for designer located here: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/s...

Re: Developing a Custom Master Page (Master Pages and SharePoint part 3 of 6)

ggalipeau — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 09:47:06 -0000

Hi Giles, sorry, haven't seen this one either. Sounds like there are some networking issues with your server that has Designer on it. Try the forum I mentioned to you before, it is a good place to ask questions.l

Re: Developing a Custom Master Page (Master Pages and SharePoint part 3 of 6)

ggalipeau — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 09:46:00 -0000

Hi Giles,
I am sorry, I haven't seen this issue before. You might want to try the msdn forums for designer: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/s...
There are a lot of good people there who have seen many different issues.

Re: Incorporating a Master Page into a SharePoint site definition (Master Pages and SharePoint part 6 of 6)

ggalipeau — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 09:42:40 -0000

I am not really sure Chetan, there could be multiple issues. However, I can help you debug. You are just getting "unexpected error". You need to get a better error message first before you can figure out what is going on. You could sort through your logs for this. Or, you could turn on debugging messages. Please refer to my blog on how to do that: http://greggalipeau.wordpress.com/2008/01/21/de...
That should get you a better message and hopefully you can figure out what the issue is.

Re: Incorporating a Master Page into a SharePoint site definition (Master Pages and SharePoint part 6 of 6)

ggalipeau — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 09:39:07 -0000

Nope, thats not a typo. I explained it a little more clearly in some of the earlier articles. It is basically saying replace the "MasterUrl" with DemoCompany.master. If you don't do that, then SharePoint will replace the "MasterUrl" with default.master. So, you are not actually replacing default.master, you are just telling SharePoint what the "MasterUrl" is (which is how it knows the master page to use).

Re: Incorporating a Master Page into a SharePoint site definition (Master Pages and SharePoint part 6 of 6)

ggalipeau — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 09:36:16 -0000

Sorry it took me sol long to get ack to you Barak. I am not getting emails from this site on when people leave comments, so I thought I just wasn't getting any :)
I am not sure what you problem is. However, one thing that comes to mind is "Are you expecting this to show up on sites that already exist?"
This Site Definition process only works on new sites. For already created sites, you just have to deploy the feature to move the master page to the master page gallery. And, unfortunately, you have to manually choose the master page on the existing site.
I actually built myself a little winform app that recursively loops through the sites and turns this on for me. So, programmatically is anothe choice, as opposed to manually, for already existing sites.
It is unfortunate in the way they designed that. Sorry.
If this is not your situation, then I am not sure why you are having issues. I have worked through this with lots of people and sometimes it comes down to a mistype somewhere or something really small like that.

Re: Developing a Custom Master Page (Master Pages and SharePoint part 3 of 6)

ggalipeau — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 15:00:07 -0000

Hey Bikram,
There are a few ways to do what you are suggesting. What I usually do is create custom site definitions for each kind of site. These site definitions can have references to different master pages. Then, when someone goes and creates a site, they just have to pick the correct site definition from the choice of templates on the create new site page. The last article in this series explains how to create site definitions. This might seem overkill, but you can get a lot of other benefits from using site definitions including turning features on or off depending on the site definition chosen. Anyways, that is what I typically do.
Good luck,
Gregt

Re: Deploying the Master Page (Master Pages and SharePoint part 4 of 6)

ggalipeau — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:47:25 -0000

Hey Mike,
The last article in the series will address it. But, your issue is around the onet.xml file. There is a "<SiteFeatures>" node and a "<WebFeatures>" node in that file. You have to put the feature id of your feature in one of those (depending on if it is a site or web feature.
Hope that helps,
Greg

Re: Customizing Application Master Pages (MasterPages and SharePoint part 5 of 6)

ggalipeau — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:45:45 -0000

Hey David,
It is hard to say without more information. I don't know what line 30 and 32 are in your code. I might be able to help out, but I would need to know the exact error and what line of code it is happening on.

Re: Customizing Application Master Pages (MasterPages and SharePoint part 5 of 6)

ggalipeau — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 11:39:37 -0000

Yes Ricl, you are correct. I don't know why I typed same server. I should have said the SSP shouldn't be on the same web application.

Re: Developing a Custom Master Page (Master Pages and SharePoint part 3 of 6)

ggalipeau — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 07:45:41 -0000

Hi Janajit,
The best way to do this is to create a custom site definition and activate it from there. So, when a new site is created from the site definition it will also activate the correct features. I will be showing this when I do the final article of the series.The basica process is to add the GUID of the feature to the onet.xml file in the site definition.
However, you might want to attach a feature to a non-custom site definition (i.e.: one of the out of the box ones). Or to one you have already deployed and don't want to change. Well, there is a way to do this also. It is called feature stapling. I would suggest searching the internet for feature stapling. There are a lot of good articles on it.
Hope this helps,
Greg