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.

1. Site Actions
2. Site Settings
3. Sites and workspaces
4. Create
5. Under Template Selection, choose Publishing Tab/Publishing Site w/ Workflow

When the site is initially created, on the “home page”, there is no Quick Launch.

To “add” the Quick Launch, I did the following:

1. Site Actions
2. Edit Page
3. From the Ribbon, I chose Page Layout/Blank Web Part Page
4. Save

You’ll see the Quick Launch appear!

The OOTB (out of the box) Master Pages that come with SharePoint 2010 are liquid (stretch the entire width of the screen).  While liquid layouts are nice, depending on the amount of content you have and the size of the screens your end users have, they’re not always the best option.  For example, my screen is 25″ wide or so and with liquid layout and the amount of info on the home page, it looks bad.  My task is the replicate the Intranet Portal Page and a dozen or so secondary level pages identically, which means I must customize my Master Page so it’s fixed width.

Here are two resources for fixing the width of your master pages:

• http://styledpoint.com/blog/fixed-width-centered-sharepoint-2010-site/ The following code should be put in your custom CSS.  This will center the page and make it 950px wide.  If you want it wider, change the width.  I want mine left aligned, so I deleted margin-left and margin-right and added margin: 0px which does the trick.  ** I also had to add !important to body {overflow: auto !important;} to get the vertical scroll bars to work for some reason. I like this solution b/c the scroll bar is on the outside of the browser window.  The only issue is on a few Admin pages like All Master Pages where the content is too wide and won’t “fix” to your width.  See images A and B below.   A) Page whose content fits in the fixed width.  Scroll bar on the outside of browser window.  Looks great.  B) Page whose content doesn’t fit in the fixed width.  Content stretches past fixed ribbon/nav at top.  Doesn’t look so great, but better than having fixed scroll bars on the left and bottom, which solution #2 creates.  See image D.

• http://www.elumenotion.com/Blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=107 This solution fixes the scroll bar at your set width and not at the outside of the browser window for those with wider screens.  I think this looks funny.  See images C and D below.  C)  It’s not so bad when the contents of the page fit horizontally in the set width, although having the vertical scroll inside the browser window is strange.   D)  On the All Master Pages template, for example, the content is too tall for my screen AND too wide.  This is where you’ll get a vertical scroll bar AND a horizontal scroll bar.  I don’t like this.  Given this page is only seen by a few people and presumably not used often, perhaps using solution #1 and letting the content spill over is fine??

Image A — fixed width with scroll bars on the outside of browser window on a page where the content fits horizontally.

Image B — fixed width with scroll bars on the outside of browser window on a page where the content doesn’t fit horizontally.

Image C — fixed width with scroll bars on the inside of browser window on a page where the content fits horizontally.

Image D — fixed width with scroll bars on the inside of browser window on a page where the content doesn’t fit horizontally.

Even if you’re going to use an OOTB Master Page, download the appropriate Starter Master Page from Drisgill for the comments and notes.  He comments it out very well so you know what every item in the code is for and if you can delete it or not.  He also has additional instructions in the comments, which are helpful, even if you’re using v4.master, for example, which is an OOTB Master Page.

In SharePoint 2007 getting your CSS to load last AFTER core.css was one of the major challenges we had to struggle with. This is critical because of the way CSS cascades, generally speaking if everything else is the same about two CSS rules, the last one loaded takes precedence. Well, I have some good news for everyone, in SharePoint 2010, we don’t have to struggle with this any more, now Microsoft has provided us with a property in <SharePoint:CssRegistration> called “After”. You simply tell the CssRegistration tag which CSS file you want to load you custom CSS AFTER, like this:  http://www.sharepointdevwiki.com/display/sp2010/CSS+Extensibility

<!– loads the ootb core CSS –>

<SharePoint:CssLink runat=”server” Version=”4″/>

<!—loads our custom CSS AFTER corev4.css –>

<SharePoint:CssRegistration name=”custom.css” After=”corev4.css” runat=”server”/>

Pretty cool, eh? What if you have more than one CSS to load after corev4.css? Well you can list more than one CssRegistration with the After=”corev4.css” but they actually get added beneath corev4.css in reverse order. So if you wanted the CSS to go in this order corev4.css, custom1.css, custom2.css you would list them like this:

<!– loads the ootb core CSS –>

<SharePoint:CssLink runat=”server” Version=”4″/>

<!—loads our custom CSS AFTER corev4.css –>

<SharePoint:CssRegistration name=”custom2.css” After=”corev4.css” runat=”server”/>

<SharePoint:CssRegistration name=”custom1.css” After=”corev4.css” runat=”server”/>

Personally, I’m pumped to not have to deal with this anymore!

I put my custom CSS file in the root and in order for it to be read I had to add /at the beginning in order for it to work. So instead of looking like this: <SharePoint:CssRegistration name=”custom2.css” After=”corev4.css” runat=”server”/>, mine looks like: <SharePoint:CssRegistration name=”/../custom2.css” After=”corev4.css” runat=”server”/>

To read Randy’s full post and see the comments, click here. His blog is full of very useful info that I’ll be referring to lots.

As I wasn’t 100% clear on the matter, here’s a brief description detailing the difference between a Team Site and a Publishing Site taken from:  http://www.sharepoint-videos.com/publishing-sites-vs-team-sites-2/

Publishing sites are usually used to publish content on a large Intranet or an Internet site. There are plenty of consumers for this type of site and only a few contributors. On the other hand, a Team site has many contributors who collaborate effectively with each other on documents, announcements, and other artificats. This video shows the differences between the two types of sites.

If you start with a Team Site however, you can activate Publishing Feature on the site, which lets you then create Publishing Sites from a Team Site.  If you don’t activate the Publishing Feature, you will not see the “Publishing” tab when you go to Site Actions > Site Settings > Sites and Workspaces > Create to create a new site/sub site.

To activate Publishing and Publishing Workflow:

1)  Active “Publishing:  go to Site Actions > Site Settings > Site Actions > Manage Site Features and activate the “SharePoint Server Publishing” feature. 

2)  Activate “Publishing Workflow”:  go to Site Actions > Site Collection Administration > Site Collection Features > and activate the “Publishing Approval Workflow” feature.