SharePoint Master Page: Customizing it to brand your site

SharePoint Master Page: Customizing it to brand your site

Master pages provide the look and feel for all of the pages in your site. By changing the styles or content of the master page, you can quickly change the appearance of an entire site.

You can create and modify a copy of the existing primary master page (v4.master) and then apply the new or modified master page to all of the pages in your site that are attached to the primary master.

There are 2 applications of a Master Page: Site Master Page and System Master Page.

You can use SharePoint Designer 2010 to design your master page.

Master pages define your page layout. Master pages define the common layout and interface for SharePoint pages. The primary master page displays the persistent elements that you see when you navigate from page to page on a site, such as a company logo, title, navigation menu, search box, and the colors or graphics associated with the business or organization. Other typical persistent elements include a sign-in link, the Site Actions menu, and the Ribbon commands in the same place on every subsite. These elements are all stored in the primary master page.

The individual pages on a SharePoint site – the home page, a wiki page, a list view – are all handled as content pages on the site. When these pages are viewed in a browser, they are combined with the master page to produce a single, continuous web page. The master page displays the persistent elements and layout, while the content pages display the unique, page-specific content.

When you open your site in SharePoint Designer, and then click Master Pages in the Navigation pane. Click v4.master to see summary information in the Master Page Gallery. Click Edit File in the ribbon to open the master page. This opens the master page in the SharePoint Designer 2010 full-screen page editor. Here, you can edit the page in Design view, Split view, or Code view. With design-time support, you can see what the master page looks like as you customize it.

A number of features make it easier to create and customize master pages in SharePoint Designer 2010 than it has been in the past:

The navigation menu includes a Master Pages category that takes you directly to the Master Page Gallery on your site.

When editing master pages, you can use page editing tools to insert and manage layers, or position DIV tags; and you can quickly locate those layers and other elements using the Skewer Click option, which navigates through overlapping layers for you.

When you create a new site and Web Part Pages, they’re automatically associated with the primary master page, so you don’t have to manually associate them each time.

To use a custom primary master page in your SharePoint 2010 sites, you can:

Customize a copy of the default primary master page (v4.master), or Create a new custom master page from scratch, and make it the primary master page for your site.

To customize a copy of the default primary master page.

When you customize a copy of v4.master, you’re using the existing SharePoint look and feel, with its features, brand, and design elements, and customizing it to meet your needs. While it can be challenging as you try to understand how everything works in the v4.master page, this approach is useful for minimal branding or customization efforts, like changing the header of your SharePoint pages.

When you create a blank custom master page or use the Starter Master Page as the basis of your page, you’re creating the whole design from scratch. While this approach can be challenging because you need to know how to implement a design in SharePoint, it’s also more flexible when you know the design you’re trying to create and you’re working off existing plans and prototypes. The mostly empty page acts like a canvas for you to first build your design and then add the required SharePoint components.

DEFAULT MASTER PAGES IN SHAREPOINT 2010

The v4.master page is the default primary master page in SharePoint 2010. It provides the SharePoint 2010 look and feel, interface, and functionality, including the ribbon – a new interface with menus, buttons, and commands similar to Microsoft Office applications. The primary master page is used for both content pages and application pages in SharePoint 2010.