Adding "Modify All Site Settings" to the root of the Site Action Menu

One of the most often required dialogs in MOSS is settings dialog which can be found as “Modify All Site Settings” menu option in the Site Action menu. Unfortunatelly it is not directly in the Site Action menu but needs to be accessed using “Site Actions” – “Site Settings” – “Modify All Site Settings”.

At least for me it’s annoying to use these steps over and over again and to hover over the Site Settings menu to get the flyout and then to click on the Modify All Site Settings option.

So I moved this action into the root of the Site Action menu right above the “Manage Content and Structure” option.

The recommended way to do this is to use SharePoint designer and to adjust the CustomSiteAction.xml file in the “_catalogs\masterpage\Editing Menue” folder of the desire site collection. The benefit of this approach: you can have different Site Action menues for each site collection. The caveat: you have to adjust this file for all Site Collections again and again.

Here is what you would need to add to the CustomSiteAction.xml file if you would like to use this approach:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Console>
   <references>
       <reference TagPrefix="cms"
         assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c"
         namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.WebControls.EditingMenuActions" />
   </references>
   <structure >
       <ConsoleNode NavigateUrl="_layouts/settings.aspx"
             DisplayText="cms,siteactions_modifysitesettings_displaytext"
             Description="cms,siteactions_modifysitesettings_description"
             UseResourceFile="true"
             PermissionContext="CurrentSite"
             IsSiteRelative="true"
             ImageUrl="/_layouts/images/ActionsSettings.gif"
             ID="AllSiteSettingsRoot"
             MenuGroupId="300"
             Sequence="365"
             UserRights="ManagePermissions|ManageWeb|ManageSubwebs|AddAndCustomizePages|ApplyThemeAndBorder|ManageAlerts|ManageLists|ViewUsageData"
             RequiredRightsMode="Any"/>
   </structure >
</Console>

Especially for me as working in support where I have to deal with new site collections every day modifying the CustomSiteAction.xml file is only sub-optimal. It would be great to have a way to do this change globally for all site collections.

This is possible by modifying the following file:

\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\EditingMenu\SiteAction.xml 

Be aware that this change can be reverted by future hotfixes or service packs. The change is also not officially supported so be sure to create a backup copy of your SiteAction.xml file.

To add the “Manage All Site Settings” menu option to the root of the Site Action menu you would need to add the code below ahead of the cms:ManageSiteAction ConsoleNode:

       <ConsoleNode NavigateUrl=”_layouts/settings.aspx” 
             DisplayText=”cms,siteactions_modifysitesettings_displaytext” 
             Description=”cms,siteactions_modifysitesettings_description” 
             UseResourceFile=”true”
             PermissionContext=”CurrentSite” 
             IsSiteRelative=”true” 
             ImageUrl=”/_layouts/images/ActionsSettings.gif” 
             ID=”AllSiteSettingsRoot” 
             MenuGroupId=”300“
             Sequence=”365“
             UserRights=”ManagePermissions|ManageWeb|ManageSubwebs|AddAndCustomizePages|ApplyThemeAndBorder|ManageAlerts|ManageLists|ViewUsageData” 
             RequiredRightsMode=”Any“/>