About Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Software Development Kit

The Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Software Development Kit provides information about customizing SharePoint sites programmatically. Using the information and examples in the Software Development Kit (SDK), you can:

• Customize sites, including layouts, navigation bars, themes, and lists.

  You can customize most sites by using a Web page editor compatible with Windows SharePoint Services, such as Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003. For example, you can modify page layouts, themes, and add custom lists. However, to perform identical customizations across sites, it is much easier and quicker to do so programmatically.

• Create custom templates.

  Although you can create list and site templates from within the Web browser, you can create more complex templates (for example, templates that link to databases) or edit the iste templates stored on the Web server by using information from the SDK.

• Create custom Web Parts.

  Although you can easily customize instances of Web Parts from within the Web browser, to create a Web Part assembly (.dll) to support a custom class of Web Parts, you need the information in the SDK.

• Connect an application to Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services.

  For example, if you want to use Windows SharePoint Services as a front-end application to another application such as a workflow application, you can learn how to implement this by reading the SDK.

The SDK also contains information about other customization tasks and information about how to programmatically manage sites and servers.