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This tutorial demonstrates a method to allow owners of SharePoint sites to have control over the navigation menu for the current site, but to restrict changes to the top (global) navigation menu to ensure that the same top navigation remains on all sites in the site collection.

The article explains how to hide the top/global navigation options from the Navigation Settings page on a SharePoint 2007 (MOSS) site.  The solution is a workaround or quick fix that requires very little customization of the OOB navigation settings page using an inline style and by removing the Global Navigation title from the section.  The underlying form remains on the page allowing it to function properly, but is simply hidden from view when the page is rendered.  



This solution may be useful if you want to maintain or restrict control of the global / top navigation menu on all sites in a site collection, but allow the users with access to the navigation settings to manage only the current site navigation menu without building a custom application page or user control from
scratch.  

Please be aware that as the global navigation settings are only hidden using styles, it is still technically possible for the global navigation to be changed on a site, but would be much more difficult to achieve without a background in web / SharePoint.  This solution should be used to help prevent changes to the top navigation on subsites in a site collection.  if you need to restrict this functionality completely, a custom solution may be more appropriate.

Process:

1. On the SharePoint Web Frontend Server (or each frontend if there are multiple in the SharePoint farm), make a copy of the "AreaNavigationSettings.aspx" page in the LAYOUTS folder, and give it a new name (eg. "AreaNavigationSettingsTest.aspx).  The LAYOUTS folder is usually located in "c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\TEMPLATES\LAYOUTS".  
   
   I highly recommend that you work in the "AreaNavigationSettingsTest.aspx" copy of the Navigation Settings (aspx) page until you are happy with the result before applying the changes to the OOB page, which would be renamed to allow reinstatement if required. This test page can be removed when you are satisfied that the customisations have worked, and the OOB page can also be reinstated at any point if required by removing / renaming the modified version, then renaming the OOB page back to its original filename for the navigation settings page.

2. Open the "AreaNavigationSettingsTest.aspx" page using a text editor.
3. Find the following section in the code (Approx. line 71):
   
   <wssuc:InputFormSection ID="globalNavSection" ..

4. To remove the "Global Navigation" heading from the page, clear the contents of the "Titile" attribute in the <wssuc:InputFormSection ID="globalNavSection" Title="<%....%>" runat="server"> element (line found in step 3).  The result should look like:
   
   <wssuc:InputFormSection ID="globalNavSection" runat="server" >
   

5. To Remove the description from under the heading, remove the following elements from the page, including the contents:
   
   
   
   <Template_Description>
   
      
   ...
   </Template_Description>
   

6. To hide the Global Navigation options from the form: Add the following inline style to the <table> element within <Template_Control>:  (Example below)

           

<Template_Control>

                   <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="display:none"

7. Save the changes and open up a subsite in the site collection, and browse to the Navigation Settings page.  Change the address of the page to include the filename of the test file you have made the changes to (  "AreaNavigationSettingsTest.aspx"  ).
8. Check that the changes have worked.
9. Rename the OOB page to something else (eg. AreaNavigationSettings_global.aspx ).  This original OOB version can still be access on a SharePoint site by manually entering or linking to the new filename.
10. Change the filename of the modified "AreaNavigationSettingsTest.aspx" version to AreaNavigationSettings.aspx.
11. Test that the modified version is opened when accessing the navigation settings for a SharePoint site.

Further Information:
The top level (root) site of a site collection does not have the "Global
Navigation" settings similar to one of the subsites.  For this reason, the
changes made using the above process will have no impact on the navigation
settings page of the top level site, allowing the site collection administrator
to continue to have access and control over the Global / Top Navigation on the
root site and subsites.  If you do need to adjust the global navigation settings
on a sub site, you can still do so using the renamed version of the unmodified
(OOB) page.

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