Site Templates in SharePoint 2010

For the SharePoint 2007 mock-up, we created a top level site — a Team Site w/out Office SharePoint Publishing Service activated in Site Features.  We customized the CSS to brand the site and set up the layout of the index page using Content Editor Web Parts that we customized with CSS so the headers, borders, etc were branded also.

The project required that there be 15 or so sub sites (division sites) created under the top level site that were branded the same with the same index page layout.  To achieve this, we created a Custom Template from the top level site and used it to create the sub sites.  When you create a custom template, a “Custom” tab appears when you’re creating a new site that allows you to use that template for the new site.

This method worked very well, but I now realize that we should have created either a Publishing Site or a Team Site and activated the Publishing and Publishing Workflow features given someone outside of IT will need to update the site and there will be approvals, etc involved.

Now, I’m recreating the same mock-up in SharePoint 2010 and have realized this after doing lots of research that says neither SharePoint 2007 nor 2010 supports creating custom templates from a Publishing Site or any other kind of site with the Publishing feature activated.

If you use SharePoint 2010 via the browser and navigate to Sites Actions > Site Actions > you won’t see Save Site As Template as a choice as in the image below that is a Team Site w/out the Publishing  feature turned on.

*Note: if I go into Manage Site Features on this same site and activate the Publishing feature, the Save Site As Template option is gone when I return to the Site Settings page.

However, if you’re using SharePoint Designer 2010 and you open the site, there’s a button in the Ribbon Save As Template, which is available for all sites even if the Save Site As Template link isn’t available via the console on the browser.

I’ve tested it a few ways:  I created a template from a) Publishing Site, b) a Team Site with the Publishing feature activated, and a c) Team Site (no Publishing feature activated).

The results:

a)  and b)  With a Publishing Site and a Team Site with Publishing activated, I can create a template and activate it in the Solutions Gallery (for info on how to do this see this post on another blog) and make a new site from it.  When you have custom templates, a new tab appears when you create a new site.  (Please ignore my gibberish template names!)

When I create a site using one of the template in a) or b), I get a site, but there’s a link/tab in the top nav and quick launch called Error, which seems innocuous enough…until I try to delete it.

When I go to Site Actions > Navigation, I get this Unexpected Error page and can’t do anything about it.  So despite being able to create a template from a Publishing Site or a Team Site with Publishing activated, the reason it’s not supported is b/c of errors like this, which all the blogs that mention this say.

with option c) Team Site w/ Publishing not Activated, all is well.

So the question remains:  how do I create a custom template for a site/from a site that also has Publishing capabilities??? From what I’ve read so far, you have to do it via Site Definition, which I need to read more on.