Professional SharePoint® 2007 Web Content Management Development: Building Publishing Sites with Office SharePoint Server 2007

7.6. Summary

This chapter explained how the plumbing works within SharePoint in the construction of a page when a request is received for a page within a Publishing site. The construction process is a bit different from a standard SharePoint request due to the addition of page layouts. Also covered in this chapter was master pages and how Microsoft leverages the master page model within SharePoint. Some of the more significant differences with master pages within a SharePoint site are that master pages are stored (customized or uncustomized) in the Master Page Gallery, rather than the file system, and content pages do not explicitly set the master page. Instead, dynamic tokens are used to tell SharePoint which master page to use from one of two options set at the SharePoint site level.

In order to provide a template page creation and rendering approach for facilitating content-centric sites on SharePoint, Microsoft added the concept of page layouts to MOSS 2007. Page layouts are used to define the rendering of a specific type of page, defined using SharePoint content types. SharePoint content types define the schema, special business rules, and workflow, while the page layout or multiple page layouts are, when combined with master pages, used to define the rending and look and feel of a page.

For both master pages and page layouts, two approaches were covered with respect to creating these assets within a SharePoint site. The first option for both, creating master pages and page ...