Just another day trying to learn SharePoint…
4:15am – Wake up for some unknown reason. Immediately think about SharePoint. Am I going to be able to get it to work today?
5:20am – Still awake. Stressed about SharePoint. Eat a peanut butter sandwich.
8:35am – Wake up late. Yikes!
9:00am – Delete a dozen emails from colleagues on how SharePoint searching, check-in/check-out and email-enabled groups still aren't working. Can't deal with that.
9:11am – Sip coffee. OK. Over the past two weeks I've learned I can't use Themes. Updates to themes via a Feature don't apply automagically. Site Definitions only apply upon site creation. Ok. It's all about master pages. I'm not going to try to over-achieve. I'll just walk through a tutorial. Mmmmm. Four books to choose from….ah…Here we go…
9:13am – Start create a Custom Master Page tutorial.
9:32am – The tutorial wants me to use SharePoint Designer. Uh oh. SharePoint Designer customizes everything it touches. Crud. What am I going to use when I really want to do this for real?…Shhh. Just do the tutorial.
9:40am – Find out Step 11 doesn't work. Where did the "Master Page" option go in Site Settings?
9:55am – Delete and recreate the site collection over and over. Choose different templates. Nothing helps.
10:02am – Must be a Feature. Yep. Book says I need Publishing but thought I had all that set up. Review Features. Start with the Farm and work up from there…ah…"Office SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure" is not active for the Site Collection. Wonder why.[click ...wait for refresh...]
10:03am – Error. Access Denied.
10:04am – Push chair from desk. Wonder what I've done to deserve this.
10:20am – Flail around. Make sure I'm System Account several times. Google stuff. Get nowhere. Find article by Heather Solomon further confirming this feature is probably the issue. She must not sleep. She must just write SharePoint documentation all the time.
10:21am – Notice that the other web application in the Farm does have the feature enabled. Start tutorial over.
10:33am – Stuck at step 13. Where's the master page I just saved? It's not in the drop-down list to choose from. Go back to Designer.
– Ah, the page is still checked out. Maybe that's the problem. ok…Check In…Minor or major version? Uh…"Publish a major version" sounds good.
– "This document requires content approval. Do you want to view or modify its approval status?" Uh….sure…Yes…
10:35am – Get the absolute silliest error message I've ever seen:
"A World Wide Web browser, such as Windows(R) Internet Explorer(R), is required to use this feature."
(I've got at least five different browsers installed!) Flail around looking for a setting in Designer. Google. Get nowhere.
10:37am – Bang head on solid objects nearby.
10:56am – Refresh a few pages. The new master page still doesn't appear in the Master Page Gallery. Ug. Check the Site Master Page Settings page one more time…oh…ok…there it is now…
10:58am – "Warning: The selected master page has no approved version. This site may appear to be broken to users without the view versions right in the Master Page Gallery." Wonder what the heck that means.
11:00am – It worked. OK! One tutorial. One page. Two hours. I'm cookin' now!!
11:11am – Next page. Next tutorial.
11:12am – Step 3. Create a document library.
– Error. Cannot complete this action. Please try again.
11:13am – [Stare at screen] …
11:14am – …
11:15am – …
11:22am – …
11:23am – Go play on Linux…
seanharrison