Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer - Application Templates and Master Pages
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Office SharePoint Designer comes equipped with pre-built Microsoft SharePoint Services Application templates. If you want to change some information on these templates, Microsoft enables you to do this function. Microsoft split the Application Templates into two groups ―site admin and server admin. The developers did this so as to make it easy for you to seamlessly incorporate the platform within your company. The site admin templates are tailored templates that are designed for SharePoint administrators to easily install into the template gallery. You don’t need to have any server administration rights.
Server admin templates include site definitions. Site definitions allow you to have stronger incorporation and improved functions within the Windows SharePoint services platform. Unlike site admin templates, you will need to have server administrator rights in order to install server admin templates. Server admin templates are available in several languages, including Dutch, Spanish, French, Italian, and others.
There are 40 application templates packages that are available in English you can download. But if you’re looking for individual site admin templates, Microsoft gives you a lot of selections from which to choose. Some of the packaged site admin templates that you can download include Board of Directors, Competitive Analysis Site, Integrated Marketing Campaign, and many others. You can also download individual server admin templates including: Call Center, Project Tracking Workspace, Knowledge Base, and several others.
Probably the most crucial feature you’ll be using quite often is Master Pages. Using the Master Pages feature enables you to produce a single template as the foundation for creating numerous pages. This will save you time, instead of having to create pages from scratch. Office SharePoint Designer contains four sample master page sets. These were developed by using Master Page editing tools and new CSS functions. The sample master pages enable you to employ a pre-built layout, along with styles, to SharePoint websites. These master pages also support the 40 new Application Templates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.
You can use these Master Pages to establish a foundation for customizing and giving your website that unique look and feel. If you want to access these master pages, just go to Microsoft’s website and download them. The master pages are: Reverse, Horizon, Clarity, and Block. They also come in different colors, including red, purple, blue, orange, and green.
Microsoft has a detailed and very useful section on how to use these master templates. There are two ways you can manually employ the master page after creating your site―using Microsoft Office SharePoint Server's installations web interface or via an editor that is compatible with SharePoint. You can use the SharePoint site administration to either look at existing master pages or upload new ones.
If you use either the Office SharePoint Server installations or the Office SharePoint Designer method to apply to the master page, you can do several functions, such as developing a content page, changing your site’s definitions to use the master page, and inserting files into your website. Then you can make the master page the default for your website.
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