As the volume of intranet content grows, enterprises and organizations are increasingly looking for efficient ways to manage large volume of information through internal and external websites. Microsoft SharePoint technology allows enterprises to create custom views of their websites. This customization can be very simple or very complex, depending on enterprise’s demands and type and version of SharePoint that is installed.

In general, SharePoint contains all of the features you can expect from a portal or collaboration tool:

• Browser-based customization of page
• Browser-based content administration
• Aggregation capabilities
• Document Repository
• Message board
• Ad-hoc data storage
• E-mail notifications
• Announcements, event calendar and contact list

Sharepoint sites can be branded and customized with a variety of tools and methodologies. At the basic level, the look and feel can be specified through the browser interface. For more advanced branding and customization, designers and developers at MDT InfoTech turn to tools like SharePoint Designer 2007 and Visual Studio.

External portal customization requirements vary from site to site, and from organization to organization. For Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) sites, the needs are typically not substantial, and the browser-based configurations are often sufficient. However, MOSS sites, particularly publishing sites, may require the branding to meet organizational standards and policies which are dramatically different from the out-of-box MOSS look and feel. Fortunately, MOSS provides an extensive set of methods to meet your needs. Today, many large intranet and public MOSS sites have been implemented with a distinct corporate look and feel. In fact, many don't even resemble typical SharePoint sites.

While basic branding can be achieved with native browser interface, any serious or more advanced branding and customization requires tools such as SharePoint Designer and/or Visual Studio. Choosing the right tool(s) depends on a variety of factors. Each tool has its pros and cons, and, in a lot of cases, a hybrid approach makes the most sense.

Here are some major terms and methods available for building and customizing internal / external portals in MOSS:

Master Pages - an essential tool for customizing MOSS sites. First introduced with ASP.NET 2.0, a master page serves as a “template” to provide a consistent look and feel across pages using the master page. The elements of SharePoint master pages include the following:

• CSS references to define fonts, colors, background images, etc.
• Navigation menus
• Site logos
• Controls for login, search, page editing, etc.
• Any other custom controls

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) – Just like a regular ASP.NET page, master pages can also make references to CSS files. As a matter of fact, SharePoint makes extensive use of CSS to define the out-of-the-box look and feel of both site pages and application pages. For branding, you can create your own CSS file. You may create new style classes or overwrite out-of-box MOSS style classes.

Minimal Master Page - Master pages in SharePoint have a special requirement. They must include what the MOSS page model requires - several content placeholders and controls to work with the page layouts that are included in a default MOSS installation. The required elements include a title, branding, logon functionality, search functionality, breadcrumb functionality, and basic structural elements such as page areas, separators, borders, consoles, and description placeholders. These elements can be “turned off” though by setting the control visibility to false. This should serve as a good starting point if you want the maximum customization flexibility for your site.

Creating Master Pages in SharePoint Designer - it is straightforward. You can create one from scratch, and paste the content from a minimal master page as just discussed. Alternatively, SharePoint Designer allows you to create from an existing master page of your choice.

Creating Features - Introduced in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, features are a new mechanism for defining site elements and adding them to a target site or site collection through a process known as feature activation. In other words, SharePoint uses features to extend functionalities. The element types that can be defined by a feature include menu commands, link commands, page templates, page instances, list definitions, list instances, event handlers, and workflows.

Themes - Like master pages, themes are introduced with ASP.NET 2.0. Themes are made up of a set of elements: skins, cascading style sheets (CSS), images, and other resources. At a minimum, a theme will contain skins. Themes are defined in special directories in web site or on web server. Both Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 sites and MOSS sites support themes.

Publishing Page Layouts - Page layouts are available only in MOSS 2007 and when the publishing feature is activated on the site. At the root, page layout is a content type derived from page content type. The page layout terminology should not be confused with the layout templates in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 site that you select when creating a new Web part page. Page layouts may be thought of as layout templates for content pages, and are saved as aspx pages by themselves. When combined with master pages, they define the layout and branding of content pages. Page designers and developers add field controls (discussed in the next section), Web part zones and Web parts to a page to leave out places on a page that can contain dynamic content to be entered by content owners/authors.