Using a custom master page in a site definition

Toby Statham

Summary

Using a site definition in a SharePoint solution for a custom master page in SharePoint 2007

Method

UPDATE

Don't use the SharePoint Solution Generator, so far we have not been able to upgrade the site definitions through a solution without it killing existing sites based on the site definition.

I have seen many different ways of doing this, but I found the following method seemed to work for me, using the "SharePoint Extensions for Visual Studio 2005" and the "SharePoint Solutions Generator"

Open the Visual Studio Project

  • Use the "SharePoint Solution Generator" to create a site definition project.
  • Open the project and add your custom master page to the "Site Definition" folder

Edit the onet.xml file

  • Open up "onet.xml"
  • Add the following node to the "ListTemplates" section

  <ListTemplate
  	Name=”mplib”
  	DisplayName=”$Resources:MasterPageGallery;”
  	Description=”$Resources:global_onet_mplib_desc;”
  	SetupPath=”global\lists\mplib”
  	Type=”116”
  	BaseType=”1”
  	Path=”GLOBAL”
  	Hidden=”TRUE”
  	HiddenList=”TRUE”
  	NoCrawl=”TRUE”
  	Unique=”TRUE”
  	Catalog=”TRUE”
  	OnQuickLaunch=”FALSE”
  	SecurityBits=”11”
  	AllowDeletion=”FALSE”
  	AllowEveryoneViewItems=”TRUE”
  	Image=”/_layouts/images/itdl.gif”
  	AlwaysIncludeContent=”TRUE”
  	DocumentTemplate=”100”
  />

Edit the Configuration node

  • Add the "MasterUrl" attribute to the "Configuration" node with a value of "_catalogs/masterpage/project.master", where project.master is the name of your custom master page. This means all the pages using the "~masterurl/default.master" token will use the URL defined to point to your custom master page

  <Configuration
    ID=”0” 
    Name=”Default” 
    MasterUrl=”_catalogs/masterpage/project.master“
  >

Add the Module Node

  • Add a "Module" node to the Modules section of the configuration called "MasterPage" that will reference the module definition in the "Modules" section of the onet file
<Module Name=”MasterPage” />
  • Add a module definition to the "Modules" section of the onet file. This will copy the custom master page file into the master page library when the site is provisioned.

  <Module 
    Name=”MasterPage” 
    List=”116” 
    Url=”_catalogs/masterpage” 
    RootWebOnly=”FALSE“>
    <File 
        Url=”project.master” 
        Type=”GhostableInLibrary” 
        IgnoreIfAlreadyExists=”TRUE” 
    />
</Module>

Save and deploy the project

  • Save the onet file and then deploy the project into your environment using the deploy option in "SharePoint Extensions for VS 2005"
  • When you create a new site from your site definition it should now use your new master page.

Below is a screen grab of the onet.xml file with all the changes highlighted

 

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