Microsoft SharePoint 2007 Technologies

14.7 Basic Branding Exercises 421

Chapter 14

These settings apply to all pages in the site, even the _layouts pages,

which means that even the illusive _layouts pages adopt your custom logo.

The bad news is that, through the browser user interface, there is no mecha-

nism for pushing the logo down to subsites. It makes sense that you wouldn’t

want the Title and Description to be pushed down, but the logo?! At the very

least we should be given the option! Interestingly enough, when you create a

new site, it actually inherits the site logo setting from the parent site. So we

know that at least one developer in Microsoft considered the concept of

inheriting branding-type settings from parent sites at site creation. It is a pity

that the application of master page settings, alternate CSS URL settings, and

theme settings were not handled in the same way. You could go the old-fash-

ioned route and replace the titlegraphic.gif file with your own logo directly

on the file system; however, this method has the usual caveats with respect to

modifying out-of-the-box files—they could be overwritten by a future service

pack. In Chapter 16, Features, we look at how to change the site logo for all

sites across all site collections in your deployment and how to ensure that

new sites inherit all the appropriate branding settings from their parent site.

14.7 Basic Branding Exercises

SharePoint Server 2007 provides three levels of customization when it comes

to branding: Browser-based customizations; SharePoint Designer 2007 based

customizations; and finally more advanced customizations applied through

the use of site definitions and Features. In this final section we will step

through some exercises that focus on customizations that can be performed

Figure 14.36

SpysRUs

collaboration portal

with

settings applied.

422 14.7 Basic Branding Exercises

through the browser and through SharePoint Designer. The more advanced

customizations using site definitions and Features are covered in Chapter 15,

Site Definitions and Templates, and Chapter 16, Features respectively.

Note that the following exercises reference a site collection created from

the collaboration portal site template.

14.7.1 Browser Customizations

1. Using your browser, navigate to the Site Settings page at the root

of your site collection.

2. From the Look and Feel section, click the Title, description, and

icon link.

3. Change that title, description and icon of the root Web site.

4. View the home page and verify that the settings have been

applied.

5. From the vertical navigation bar, click the View all Site Content

link; your custom logo appears on the All Site Content page, even

though this page is located in the _layouts directory.

6. From the horizontal navigation bar, click the Documents Center

link. The Documents Center site does not pick up the logo from

the parent site. This is because the site logo is a per site setting.

7. Navigate back to the Site Settings page for the root site.

8. From the Look and Feel section, click the master page link.

9. Set the site master page to BlueBand.master and check the box to

reset all subsites to inherit this site master page setting.

10. Set the system master page to OrangeSingleLevel.master and

check the box to reset all subsites to inherit this system master

page setting.

11. Click OK.

12. Navigate to the root site; the home page now reflects the Blue-

Band look and feel.

13. Navigate to the News site; the News site reflects the BlueBand

design.

14. Navigate to the Document Center site; the Document Center

reflects the OrangeSingleLevel.master look and feel. This happens

because the pages in the Document Center reference the default

master as opposed to the custom master.