Where to Find MCMS 2002 Tasks in the Office SharePoint Server 2007 SDK

Because Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is built upon Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, which includes many services previously provided by Microsoft Content Management Server (MCMS) 2002, such as workflow and authentication, many tasks that were developer tasks in MCMS 2002 have become IT professional tasks in Office SharePoint Server 2007.

In addition, because Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is based on Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0, Office SharePoint Server 2007 also uses ASP.NET 2.0, so certain functionality, such as master pages and providers, addresses some of what MCMS 2002 does.

The following sections list the major development areas in MCMS 2002 and where to find parallel information for Office SharePoint Server 2007.

Templates

Office SharePoint Server 2007 replaces templates with page layouts and master pages. Office SharePoint Server 2007 master pages are ASP.NET master pages that determine the layout of your site.

You create master pages and page layouts to determine the look and feel of your site. Master pages contain controls that are shared across multiple page layouts, such as navigation, search, or language preference. Page layouts are ASPX pages that are similar to MCMS 2002 template files, although they contain field controls instead of placeholder controls.

Figure 1 shows how page layouts and master pages work together to create the layout for a Web page.

Figure 1. Master page and page layout interaction

For more information about master pages, see "Master Pages" in the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SDK and the Master Pages section of Migrating from ASP to ASP.NET 2.0.

Navigation

Navigation in Office SharePoint Server 2007 uses the Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 navigation provider model. The navigation provider in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 works with the standard Visual Studio 2005 navigation control to provide many options for displaying site navigation.

Authoring Connector

In Office SharePoint Server 2007, the MCMS 2002 Authoring Connector is replaced by smart client authoring. Users save files from Microsoft Office Word 2007 to a document library, and then the smart client authoring converter on that library turns the files into pages. You can also develop converters to convert files of almost any type into pages managed by the "Publishing" feature of Office SharePoint Server 2007.

Web Author

The basic idea of in-place Web site authoring in MCMS 2002 exists in Office SharePoint Server 2007: a console and dialog boxes enable users to create and edit pages. The new authoring environment is built by using XML and Visual Studio 2005 controls.

Placeholders

In MCMS 2002, users could add content to placeholder controls on pages. In Office SharePoint Server 2007, users enter content in field controls, and that content is stored in fields on the page. Like the MCMS 2002 placeholder control model, the field control model is extensible, and Office SharePoint Server 2007 includes several default field controls.

Publishing Events

In MCMS 2002, events were used primarily for creating workflow. Workflow is now a powerful built-in feature, built on Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, that IT professionals and users can extend. Office SharePoint Server 2007 comes with a default workflow for pages in Publishing sites, and you can create your own.

Provisioning

In MCMS 2002, users created new sites by using the Site Manager. In Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, users provision sites by using a Web page. You first create site templates or portal site templates that users can choose to create sites, and then they use a Web-based user interface to provision sites.

Deployment

The COM-based site deployment API has been replaced by a new Microsoft .NET–based API. The deployment user interface is much richer, so most deployment scenarios can be accomplished by an IT professional. You can use the new API to handle other scenarios, such as deploying content between servers that are not on the same network.

See Also

Concepts

Microsoft Content Management Server 2002 Developers
New Terminology in Office SharePoint Server 2007
API Changes from MCMS 2002