It's been a while since I last blogged - with the work I am doing at the moment I haven't had time!

I have been given the task of creating new site definitions complete with branding and functionality. I'm still waiting to go on my SharePoint Designer course but having played with my virtual environment for the past month I have picked up quite a bit

So far I have created a new site definition based on STS unde SiteTemplates, I have managed to create new preview images and got a new tab to appear on the New SharePoint Site page. I was quite pleased with myself when it all worked. Then I applied a custom master page to the new site definition by changing ONET.XML in my new site definition's XML directory. Following that I started playing around adding new Web Part Zones and seeing how everything linked together. ONET.XML defines the initial content that is displayed in the default.aspx page of your new site.

I've also modified custom.master so that additional options are available in the top right hand corner navigation bar. So far it all works

What's next? Well, I need to create site definitions for wikis, blogs etc all by the end of next week!

One thing I haven't worked out how to do is apply my own custom css file - I had problems when I tried to apply an alternate css file through the SharePoint Site Settings pages. There has to be a better way of applying your own CSS file so that it is applied after CORE.CSS, maybe someone will work it out.

One little quirk I did notice was that if I created a site using my new site definition and custom master page and then tried to edit the site in SharePoint Designer, the custom.master file that appeared in the mastercatalogs directory was different to my site definition's custom.master file - wierd! I'll have to come back to that one.

I am documenting everything I am doing, including the quirks, and I'll post the document here in a future blog once I have made sure it all works ok.

It's been handy having the virtual environment to work with. I keep a backup of the VHD file (10Gb!) and can restore if I foul up (which I quite often do!). I would recommend virtualisation for anyone who has the kit that is able to take the strain. 2Gb of RAM seems to be the minimum workable. I tried it on a 1.5Gb laptop and it struggled. Not nearly as slow as my original setup of 1Gb though!

I've just signed up to the SharePoint User Group UK site as it could be quite handy building up a network of fellow SharePoint misfits

One of the other things I have been tasked with is to create an online help centre for our users. I have created a SharePoint 2007 wiki site for this and set up a series of pages with detailed help on blogs, wikis etc. I then found the Customizable Everyday Productivity Education (EPE) content developed by Microsoft IT for end user training page which has some useful stuff on there for end users, so I may be cribbing bits from it.

You've also probably already found this but Help for SharePoint 2007 from Microsoft is quite good too.

Anyway, next week should be interesting as I try and get all of the site definitions finished. I'll let you know how I get on.