How to Create Master Page Using Design Manager in SharePoint 2013

I have made this tutorial as many of my existing and coming tutorials start with deploying a custom master page to SharePoint 2013.

First you need to make sure you have a development enviroment that is running SharePoint 2013 and have Visual Studio 2012/13 installed.

1. Start by creating a “Web Application” and a new Site Collection in Central Admin for this tutorial.
2. Open Visual Studio and create a new project (SharePoint 2013 – Empty project)
3. Choose Deploy as farm solution, or if you make this for Online then choose Sandbox.

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2. When the project opens, click on the Project Name in the solution explorer and then set the property Site URL to the site collection you made.
3. Now right click on the project and add a folder called FeatureElements
4. Right click in the folder Feature Elements and add – > New Item, Under Visual C# -> SharePoint you create a new Module that you call MasterPages.
   
5. Remove the sample.txt
6. Open your web browser and go to the site you created (http://xyz:57) and in there go to Settings -> Site Settings -> Master pages and page layouts. Find seattle.master and download a copy of that master page to you desktop.
7. Rename the seattle.master to “MyCustom.master”. Now go back to VS and right click in the MasterPages module and take Open Folder in File Explorer. Copy your MyCustom.master to that folder.
8. Go back to VS and In the Solution Explorer menu, click Show All Files. You can then see the MyCustom.master in the MasterPages Module. Right click and include in project.
9. Open the Elements.xml that are in the MasterPages module and remove all code and replace with his code.
   
   
   

   
   

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   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">   <Module Name="MasterPages" Path="MasterPages" RootWebOnly="TRUE" Url="_catalogs/masterpage">     <File Url="MyCustom.master" Type="GhostableInLibrary" IgnoreIfAlreadyExists="TRUE" >     </File>   </Module> </Elements>

   
    
10. Now go to the Features Folder and you will find Feature 1, Rename the feature to “Activate.Custom.Master”.
11. Double click on the feature to open it and Change the Title to “Activate Custom Master”.
12. Set Scope as  Site and make sure MasterPages are included, save and close.
    
13. Now right click on the feature and Add Event Receiver.
14. The feature receiver will open (the Activate.Custom.EventReceiver.cs). If not Open it.
    The code under here will replace the default master page when you activate the feature and when you deactivate the feature it will restore to seattle.master.
15. Delete every thing under “public class ActivateCustomEventReceiver : SPFeatureReceiver {” and paste in the following code under  the “{”
    (My code example will show the full Code, just so that you get the full picture. I have commented in the code what part you should copy. ) 
    
    
    

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    using System; using System.Runtime.InteropServices; using System.Security.Permissions; using Microsoft.SharePoint; namespace MyLabProject.Features.Activate.Custom.Master {     /// <summary>     /// This class handles events raised during feature activation, deactivation, installation, uninstallation, and upgrade.     /// </summary>     /// <remarks>     /// The GUID attached to this class may be used during packaging and should not be modified.     /// </remarks>     [Guid("!!!Use Your own GUID that you have in your file!!!")]     public class ActivateCustomEventReceiver : SPFeatureReceiver     { ///////////// Copy everything under here and paste it in to you file in the same location////////////////         /// Activating the feature         public override void FeatureActivated(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties)         {             SPSite site = properties.Feature.Parent as SPSite;             if (site != null)             {                 SPWeb topLevelSite = site.RootWeb;                 // Calculate relative path to site from Web Application root.                 string webAppRelativePath = topLevelSite.ServerRelativeUrl;                 if (!webAppRelativePath.EndsWith("/"))                 {                     webAppRelativePath += "/";                 }                 // Activate publishing infrastructure                 site.Features.Add(new Guid("f6924d36-2fa8-4f0b-b16d-06b7250180fa"), true);                 // Enumerate through each site and apply branding.                 foreach (SPWeb web in site.AllWebs)                 {                     // Activate the publishing feature for all webs.                     web.Features.Add(new Guid("94c94ca6-b32f-4da9-a9e3-1f3d343d7ecb"), true);                     web.MasterUrl = webAppRelativePath + "_catalogs/masterpage/MyCustom.master";                     web.CustomMasterUrl = webAppRelativePath + "_catalogs/masterpage/MyCustom.master";                     web.Update();                 }             }         }         /// Deactivating the feature         public override void FeatureDeactivating(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties)         {             SPSite siteCollection = properties.Feature.Parent as SPSite;             if (siteCollection != null)             {                 SPWeb topLevelSite = siteCollection.RootWeb;                 // Calculate relative path to site from Web Application root.                 string webAppRelativePath = topLevelSite.ServerRelativeUrl;                 if (!webAppRelativePath.EndsWith("/"))                 {                     webAppRelativePath += "/";                 }                 // Enumerate through each site and apply branding.                 foreach (SPWeb site in siteCollection.AllWebs)                 {                     site.MasterUrl = webAppRelativePath + "_catalogs/masterpage/seattle.master";                     site.CustomMasterUrl = webAppRelativePath + "_catalogs/masterpage/seattle.master";                     site.SiteLogoUrl = string.Empty;                     site.Update();                 }             }         }     } }

16. Right click on the project and take Deploy. If every thing is working you should see your MyCustom.master if you go to your site and choose Settings -> Site Settings -> Master Page.
    
17. Your Project should look like this now. Good Luck!