Customizing the MYSITE Template MOSS 2007

Key Challenges:
1. Delete the existing Web Parts which are available by default.
2. To add new Web Parts which were fetching data from the following items from a site collection existing in a different Web Application (using with Windows authentication).
- Calendar
- Blogs
- News
- Customized Search for searching in documents.

Approach:
In order to customize the MYSITE we took advantage of the several components of core SharePoint platform namely:
- FEATURES: We wrote a feature to change the master page to master page provided by us.
- FEATURE SITE TEMPLATE Association: We associated the FEATURE written by us to existing MYSITE template, so that as soon as these sites are provisioned (for each user) the associated feature gets automatically added.
- MASTER PAGE: We wrote a master page which is similar to master page for MYSITE template and added a Custom Web Control, so that our control is instantiated as soon as master page is rendered.
- Custom Web Control: In OnLoad function of custom control we get hold of the collection of Web Parts and deleted the existing one and added our Web Parts.
And in order to fetch data from any kind of a list from a site collection exist in a different Web Application we created new Web Parts and used SharePoint object model.