Real World SharePoint® 2007: Indispensable Experiences from 16 MOSS and WSS MVPs

Chapter 4. Developing Publishing Sites the Smart and Structured Way

by Andrew Connell

The latest release of the SharePoint platform, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007, introduces new capabilities to the SharePoint platform: hosting content-centric Web sites on SharePoint and providing a robust publishing infrastructure. This publishing infrastructure enables site owners to delegate to certain individuals the creation and management of content on the site. Other users have rights to approve and publish content for readers to see. Interwoven in this process is a robust controlled publishing infrastructure founded on the Windows Workflow Foundation (WFF). Combined with significant performance enhancements and improvements to the underlying foundation of MOSS, Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) v3, SharePoint is now capable of hosting content-centric Internet sites! This component of MOSS 2007 is commonly referred to as Web Content Management (WCM), and sites utilizing the WCM features are called Publishing sites.

A major component to Publishing sites is the development story: the process behind constructing a content-centric site. Most development concepts surrounding Publishing sites are really SharePoint concepts, because a Publishing site is just another WSS site with some extra functionality. So, how are you supposed to develop a Publishing site? To date, only one approach has been the leader in the WCM community. This is the approach you will find in virtually all documentation, ...