Fun with the _layouts directory

Ever wonder what the heck all those .aspx pages in your _layouts directory are? Of course they’re for running your Portal but there are a lot of files and some are rather interesting (and rather odd). So here’s something to do when you’re bored one afternoon. Download this CEWP (Content Editor Web Part) file here and import it to a Web Part Page on your portal. It’s just a simple listing of all the pages with links to them which will open up in a new window. Don’t worry, just launching these files doesn’t do anything destructive (but I can’t be held responsible for you if you click OK or otherwise continue using the page).

Most pages are things you’re used to and have seen (and probably used a lot) before. Some are subsets of pages that you’ve seen (for example, htmledit.aspx is the Rich Text editor you see when you create a Basic Page). Most pages require parameters in order to work (in some cases they’ll tell you what that parameter is) so you’ll have to check out what’s useful and what isn’t. In some cases you can reuse the page as they’ll post back to the calling page information it contains. For example, you can invoke CategoryPickerPopup.aspx and get a popup window that lets you select an area in the portal which you can then use in your own page or Web Part. Re-use that infrastructure! Work the machine!

There are also some neat things here too. The mngsubwebs.aspx page for example will show you the page you normally see for managing subwebs in a WSS site (for navigating to or even deleting). In the Portal, this lists all the areas that exist which can come in handy sometimes.

Anyways, have fun and play around. Let me know if you find this useful or discover any coolness.

P.S. it seems weblogs.asp.net is going up and down like a yo-yo tonight.Wonder if they’re having problems or <gasp> upgrading to Community Server? So I apologize for any weird behavior.