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FIGURE 9-1:
The Document Center site template.
When you’re first starting out with SharePoint development, you need a site that you can use to practice. When you create a new site, you start by choosing a tem- plate site that already has some stuff built into it — such as lists, libraries, and Web Parts (also known as apps) developed and configured to do particular tasks. Those templates are available on the Create screen when you create a new site. For example, you may get a request to create a Document Center site in order to man- age documents from a central location. Rather than try to configure a Team site to be optimized for document management, you can use a template specifically designed for this task. In this scenario, the template site you would use is called the Document Center and is shown in Figure 9-1.
Developing SharePoint sites
When you need to develop a SharePoint site to solve a problem, be sure that you start with a solid understanding of the available site templates. It’s often much easier to start with a site template that almost does what you want, and then develop it from this starting point, than to develop everything from scratch.
Before you start building custom applications for SharePoint, having a solid work- ing knowledge of its various components is a good idea. (After all, you wouldn’t try to design a house without having some knowledge of how the plumbing works, right?) The best way to get to know SharePoint is to start with a basic Team site, then further develop it so you understand what the templates are doing. Then you can expand to explore other templates as you build your SharePoint knowledge.
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