How to dynamically switch PageLayout and MasterPage of SharePoint Publishing page?

Question

To improve both the editing and displaying experience of SharePoint WCM Publishing pages I would like to be able to switch to a special set of Masterpage/PageLayout when in edit

Answer 1

I once wrote a feature to switch page-layouts depending on different criteria. The difference was, that the page-layout was changed during site-creation, not in view or edit mode. The code to change the page-layout is as follows:

    private void SetPageLayout(SPWeb web, string pageName, string pageLayoutName)
    {
        PageLayout layout = null;
        PublishingPage page = null;
        SPFile pageFile = null;
        bool checkedOut = false;

        try
        {
            PublishingWeb publishWeb = PublishingWeb.GetPublishingWeb(web);
            // verify that the requested pageLayout is available
            foreach (PageLayout pl in publishWeb.GetAvailablePageLayouts())
            {
                if (pl.Name.Equals(pageLayoutName, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))
                {
                    layout = pl;
                    break;
                }
            }
            // got my layout
            if (layout != null)
            {
                page = null;
                foreach (PublishingPage pubPage in publishWeb.GetPublishingPages())
                {
                    if (pageName == pubPage.Name)
                    {
                        page = pubPage;
                        break;
                    }
                }
                // got my page
                if (page != null)
                {
                    pageFile = page.ListItem.File;

                    page.CheckOut();
                    checkedOut = true;

                    page.Layout = layout;
                    page.Update();

                    page.CheckIn("changed the page-layout to " + pageLayoutName);
                    checkedOut = false;

                    pageFile.Publish("");
                    // If required, approve the page
                    try
                    {
                        pageFile.Approve(string.Empty);
                    }
                    catch
                    {
                        // Page doesn't need to be approved
                    }
                }
            }
        }