Creating a custom Master Page for your MOSS 2007 portals and sites

28 Sep 2006

When I first started discovering Master pages I didn’t know where to start and what would be needed in order for a basic and as minimalistic master page as possible to work.

I gathered information to be able to make myself a minimal masterpage which would be the startingpoint of my upcoming customizations and changes.

At first nothing worked, and since there’s no good list of what elements and contentplaceholders are needed for a masterpage to work it had to do with a lot of “trial-and-error” until I finally had a completely working basic master page.

With the help of google and some other sites around the web I noted which placeholders showed up on every master page.

Below you will see the code for a very very basic master page, in which you can insert your own custom html-tags and assign a css-theme later to make your customizations a reality.

With this small template, you can make all your existing static designs work as a master page if you just put a little time and effort into it.

######### Page file starts here ############

<%@ Master language=”C#” %>
http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd“>
<%@ Import Namespace=”Microsoft.SharePoint” %>
<%@ Register Tagprefix=”SPSWC” Namespace=”Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.WebControls” Assembly=”Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c” %>
<%@ Register Tagprefix=”SharePoint” Namespace=”Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls” Assembly=”Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c” %>
<%@ Register Tagprefix=”WebPartPages” Namespace=”Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages” Assembly=”Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c” %>
<%@ Register Tagprefix=”PublishingWebControls” Namespace=”Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.WebControls” Assembly=”Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c” %>
<%@ Register Tagprefix=”PublishingNavigation” Namespace=”Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Navigation” Assembly=”Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c” %>
<%@ Register TagPrefix=”wssuc” TagName=”Welcome” src=”~/_controltemplates/Welcome.ascx” %>
<%@ Register TagPrefix=”wssuc” TagName=”DesignModeConsole” src=”~/_controltemplates/DesignModeConsole.ascx” %>
<%@ Register TagPrefix=”PublishingVariations” TagName=”VariationsLabelMenu” src=”~/_controltemplates/VariationsLabelMenu.ascx” %>
<%@ Register Tagprefix=”PublishingConsole” TagName=”Console” src=”~/_controltemplates/PublishingConsole.ascx” %>
<%@ Register TagPrefix=”PublishingSiteAction” TagName=”SiteActionMenu” src=”~/_controltemplates/PublishingActionMenu.ascx” %>