Windows SharePoint Services - Site Pages, Application Pages, Ghosted/Unghosted Pages

Site pages support customisation. A customised site page is now an unghosted page. A site page that hasnt been customised is a ghosted page.

The fact that site pages support customisation provides flexibility but raises performance concerns and security issues.

Site pages do not support in-line code under the default security policy enforced by WSS.

Example Site pages

• default.aspx


• AllItems.aspx


• NewForm.aspx


• EditForm.aspx

Application pages do not support customisation. Each application page is always compiled into a single DLL so it will perform and scale better than a site page.

Application pages support in-line code.

You can create your own application page for a custom solution.

Application pages are in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS

Example Application pages

• settings.aspx