Introducing Master Pages in Sharepoint

* Central file controlling the layout and design of the content pages in a sharepoint site

• Title, logo and description of the site
• Navigation controls
• Welcome and Administration
• Search experience
• Linking cascading style sheet(CSS) files and script files
• Web part Manager
• Contentplaceholders for sharepoint products and technologies

Setting Master pages programatically

• Execute code to switch to new provisioned Master page
• Feature Receiver

public override void FeatureActivated(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties)
{
SPWeb site = Properties.Feature.Parent as SPWeb;
Site.Properties["OriginalMasterPage"] = site.MasterUrl;
site.Properties.Update();
site.MasterUrl="/_catalogs/masterpage/Litware.master";
site.Update();
}

CSS Files

CSSLink control loads core.css file

Override Styles

with an Explicit embedded <style> element

programitically setting the AlternateCSSUrl property of the SPWeb
Public override void FeatureActivated(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties)
{
SPWeb site = properties.Feature.parent as SPWeb;
site.AlternateCSSUrl="/_layouts/LitwareCSS/LitwareCore.css";
site.Update();
}