About Master Pages In Share point

Type Of Master Pages In Share point 

SharePoint 2010 supports master pages to support consistent look and feel. SharePoint provides a special document library namely Master Page Gallery for storing master pages. SharePoint foundation has 3 out of box master page  namely:

v4.master

minimal.master

default.master

But still there are some other master pages are present like:

application.master

applicationv4.master

dialog.master

layouts.master

pickerdialog.master

simple.master

simplev4.master

sspadmin.master

You can check all the master page files in this directory also: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS

Amoung all the master pages v4.master is the most popular master page. It has elements like Site Actions menu, the breadcrumb trail, the Ribbon, the Welcome menu, the Site Icon, the TopNav bar, the Quick Launch etc. v4.master is the default master page in SharePoint 2010.

If you open the master page, then you will able to see it contains some standard html element like html, head, body, and form, and includes many server-side controls. But one more major concept it, is contents 34 ContentPlaceHolder  like PlaceHolderPageTitle, PlaceHolderAdditionalPageHead, PlaceHolderMain etc.

difference-between-the-master-page-and-page-layout

Page layout defines the structure of the page. Also defines rendering of content types. 

Master page contains the overall appearance and branding of the site. Master page contains elements like stylesheets, common search webpart, navigation components, header and footer etc. 

Pagelayout and master page are merged runtime to generate the complete page. 

Hope you will get some idea from this.