SharePoint Magazine: Customizing Application Master Pages (MasterPages and SharePoint part 5 of 6)
Jamie
· 1 year ago
Excellent article, thanks Greg!
I have seen this question come up many times and there was never a clear direction given by MS. This is by far the most elegant way to customize application.master.
PeterMorath
· 1 year ago
Hi Greg,
Excellent article, as always!
If we had multiple web applications running, could we not check the top-level domain programatically and then use the appropriate customised master page? Would that get around the SSP issue?
ggalipeau
· 12 months ago
I think that would work Peter. I'll have to give it a shot. Good suggestion.
richl
· 12 months ago
I really like this approach but I would like a little more clarification. I'm not sure I understand the issues with the SSP. I think that you might instead be refering to the SSP being installed on the same web application. Http Modules are deployed per web aplication so if you have a separate web application for your SSP you would simply not install the Http Module there. Would this alleviate the issue?
ggalipeau
· 11 months ago
Yes Ricl, you are correct. I don't know why I typed same server. I should have said the SSP shouldn't be on the same web application.
David
· 11 months ago
Thanks for the info, Ive been wanting to change these.
I do have a problem, Im not all that great with Visual Studios, and am using 2008 version
When I try to build the project, I get several errors around line 30 and 32
Unexpected character and several otheres revolving around these lines.
Do you think you can help?
ggalipeau
· 11 months ago
Hey David, It is hard to say without more information. I don't know what line 30 and 32 are in your code. I might be able to help out, but I would need to know the exact error and what line of code it is happening on.
panoone
· 9 months ago
With regards to registering the module at "Step 2 - Register the module" it's worth mentioning which particular box in the farm people should be on. As a newbie I remember tearing my hair out making changes to the config file (there are dozens and they exist in several locations) only discover it was the wrong one. Small wonder my chanegs weren't taking effect. :)
In the case of front-end web applications (as opposed to Central administration) the changes are made on _any_ Web Front End. SharePoint then picks these changes up and will migrate them to other front ens (if they exist). This is also true for registering safe controls or any other customisations you might need to register.
FArrukh
· 9 months ago
Hi Greg, Very good article, as it helps me a lot. I am just trying to replace the simple.master(default master for error.aspx) with my custom master. Do you have any idea that is it possible. If yes then can you please guide me with some thing related to that.
ggalipeau
· 8 months ago
Hi FArrukh, I think you could implement the same technique as this article. Build a module that checks for that particular master page and switch it out. I haven't tried it with simple.master, but that should work just fine.
Deepanshu
· 8 months ago
Hi Greg, Really good article, which I was searching. Just one issue I have faced, when I have used Sharepoint Designer to edit the content of CustomApplication Master.
At the last I have found that this is the issue, and use Visual Studio to edit the master page.
Dhawal Mehta
· 6 months ago
Hi Greg, Thanks for the such a wonderfull article.
We have implemented this for our application, but it is giving us an error for some of the pages -on the people.aspx -it also give us the errors while we are trying to create new column in the lists etc. Appreciate your any suggestions.
Thanks, Dhawal
Oskar Austegard
· 6 months ago
Some issues with search controls on application.master:
Their OnPrerender events register search.js, which overrides the ShoWhideGroups JS function used on ViewEdit pages (that one was fun to debug...)
Excellent Article and your whole series of 6 Part is very nice.... But one concern for current article had you find any work around to apply master pages on applications if one have SSP and SP Server on same webapplication....
Mike
· 4 months ago
I've spent the the past 2 months architecting and preparing for our Moss implementation. To this point, I've relied on a custom theme/css because of this issue alone. This is by far the best solution I've seen for addressing this headache. Thank you for posting this article.
manu
· 3 months ago
Hi Greg, Will such customization void warranty on MOSS?
Regards, Manu
ggalipeau
· 3 months ago
That is an interesting question Manu. In the reference I gave to the Microsoft "suggestions" on how to customize the application master page (which I do not support), they say that one way is to modify the file in the 12 hive. In my mind, that should void the warranty because you are not suppose to modify 12 hive files. So, the approach I am suggesting is to avoid doing that. Thus, I believe this is a safter approach to still stay in the guidelines of your SharePoint warranty. Because, you are not modifying anything out of the box, you are leveraging the code to change the master page. Anyways, I don't know of any official statement from Microsoft about this, but I think this is the safest approach to modify the application master while still staying in the guidelines of how Micorosoft tells us we can customize SharePoint.
Brian
· 2 months ago
I used your http module concept and it seemed to work great. But now I am noticing an object failing to initialize error when using the people picker. The validate user check throws a javascript error too.
All Comments
I have seen this question come up many times and there was never a clear direction given by MS. This is by far the most elegant way to customize application.master.
Excellent article, as always!
If we had multiple web applications running, could we not check the top-level domain programatically and then use the appropriate customised master page? Would that get around the SSP issue?
I do have a problem, Im not all that great with Visual Studios, and am using 2008 version
When I try to build the project, I get several errors around line 30 and 32
Unexpected character and several otheres revolving around these lines.
Do you think you can help?
It is hard to say without more information. I don't know what line 30 and 32 are in your code. I might be able to help out, but I would need to know the exact error and what line of code it is happening on.
In the case of front-end web applications (as opposed to Central administration) the changes are made on _any_ Web Front End. SharePoint then picks these changes up and will migrate them to other front ens (if they exist). This is also true for registering safe controls or any other customisations you might need to register.
I think you could implement the same technique as this article. Build a module that checks for that particular master page and switch it out. I haven't tried it with simple.master, but that should work just fine.
Really good article, which I was searching.
Just one issue I have faced, when I have used Sharepoint Designer to edit the content of CustomApplication Master.
At the last I have found that this is the issue, and use Visual Studio to edit the master page.
Thanks for the such a wonderfull article.
We have implemented this for our application, but it is giving us an error for some of the pages
-on the people.aspx
-it also give us the errors while we are trying to create new column in the lists
etc.
Appreciate your any suggestions.
Thanks,
Dhawal
Their OnPrerender events register search.js, which overrides the ShoWhideGroups JS function used on ViewEdit pages (that one was fun to debug...)
They apparently may break Workflows: http://clintcherry.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!AEC...
Will such customization void warranty on MOSS?
Regards,
Manu
So, the approach I am suggesting is to avoid doing that. Thus, I believe this is a safter approach to still stay in the guidelines of your SharePoint warranty. Because, you are not modifying anything out of the box, you are leveraging the code to change the master page.
Anyways, I don't know of any official statement from Microsoft about this, but I think this is the safest approach to modify the application master while still staying in the guidelines of how Micorosoft tells us we can customize SharePoint.