I recently created a site in Sharepoint 2010, and I have saved it as a template. I'm able to apply this template to new sites, which is great. I can then add new data to each site individually. However, my problem is that if I want to change something on every child site, I would have to go through manually and do so. Is there any way that I can create a template that will work dynamically so that I can make changes to the original and all the child sites will inherit these changes?
Unfortunately not how you are requesting. When a site is created it uses a site template, including your own custom site template. Once a site has been created there is no way to reapply a site template to that existing site. You could use PowerShell to update a series of existing sites but the commands would get quite complex.
If you have deployed new site collections using a globally deployed template and you change that template using SharePoint designer, you should not have any issues and changes will be automatically applied to child sites unless you change master page.
Related
Right now I have an HTML file and I'm trying to convert it to a master page. I'm using a VM on CloudShare.
So I create a new site collection and go into the site settings. Under “Look and Feel”, Design Manager isn’t there so I’ve found that if I go to “Site Collection Features” under “Site Collection Administration”, and activate “SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure” Design Manager will show up. So I go into design manager, but under Edit Master Pages none of the file or folder names will show up, and when I convert the html file the status column doesn’t show up either, so I can’t go to preview it or to the snippets gallery.
The only thing I can find online is to create a new site collection, which I’ve tried a few times. This happened on my old CloudShare VM, and creating a new site collection fixed it, but it’s not working for this. Can anyone help?
Personally when working with new master pages I have found that the best application to use is SharePoint Designer. You should be able to download it for free. Here are the instructions to configure SharePoint designer using it with CloudShare.
http://blog.cloudshare.com/tag/sharepoint-designer/
Figured it out - I made a new site collection and set it to a Publishing site template and it fixed the issue.
My team is trying to build out a Web Template which includes an instantiated Wiki Page with some default Web Parts added to it; but we're unable to get this behavior to happen.
In brief, we're looking to add some default.aspx (or Home.aspx, the name is unimportant, just the functionality) to the SitePages directory, GhostableInLibrary; so it's visible to all SiteCollections made from this Web Template.
It is of note that we're basing our Web Collection off the Team Site, and that the Wiki will be the default Home Page for the new site.
Site templates can be used to customize newly created sites except for the top site of a site collection. Since site templates are all managed in site collection's Solution gallary, so a site template CAN'T be used to define its own container.
You need a Site Definition to customize the first site of your site collection.
For how to use site template, you can goto, http://weblogs.asp.net/soever/archive/2009/10/19/sharepoint-2010-site-exporting-as-wsp-solution-part-1.aspx
For how to create a site definition, you can goto, http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg276356.aspx
If you want to strap onto an existing template without creating a new copy, or you don't have the original site template to access. You use a process called feature stapling.
When you create a sharepoint solution it would contain two features, one for your actual functionality and one that simple staples it to an existing template.
Here is an article discussing it some more. http://mssharepointtips.com/tip.asp?id=1065
More SharePoint questions from me again today! I thank everyone that has helped thus far!
Here is my situation:
I have to create a custom application inside of sharepoint. I am using a document library which hosts web part pages and i am using Web User Controls to do all the manipluating and displaying of data. Once I build the app the way i want, I am going to turn the doc lib into a template that way i can create the same thing on multiple sites (many customers using this app).
The issue that I am running into is that I need to know what happens/how do I update it so that my changes will apply itself to all sites that are referencing the template.
HELP! anyone who knows how to do this OR has a better idea for creating custom apps that multiple sites will be able to take advantage of would be SO helpful!
Thanks
Short answer is that you cannot accomplish this, even with a custom site/list definition.
Once a site or list is created from a site or list definition, it is basically on its own (layouts and master pages modifications, however, do get applied to all sites referencing them).
Once workaround would be to create a site feature that iterates through sites and performs whatever custom action you wish to do.
For requirement like this, you really should create custom list/site definition. NOT just save customized list into template.
Anything you have updated in list/site definition will be reflect to the sites that are referencing the definitions. Unfortunately this is not the case for Template. You will have to delete the old list you have on other sites, then re-create them again with new template.
how to create list definition - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms466023.aspx
for site definition please go - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc287930.aspx
James
During site creation using SharePoint, SharePoint offers some templates. If we need to create a site other than a template offered, how should we proceed?
You have 2 options:
Site Templates
Site Definitions
Many people use those terms interchangeably, but there are big differences between the two.
Site Templates
Site templates are easy to create. Basically, you create a site using a ite definition (e.g. the blank site) and start customizing it. You can add lists and libraries and setup the site however you want it. Then, go to Site Actions > Site Settings > Save site as template. You can save your site as a .STP file. The .STP file basically records everything that you added or changed on your site after site creation.
Once saved, your site template will show up in your site template gallery. You can go to the site template gallery and save the .STP file offline. Your new site template will be available in the subsite creation page in the "custom" tab. The template will only be availalbe in this site collection, unless you add the .STP file to the site template gallery of another site.
You can deploy site templates globally. So, if you want everyone to see a STP in their subsite creation page, you can run the following stsadm command:
stsadm -o addtemplate -filename BoardDirectors.stp -title "Board of Directors"
You can retract site templates whenever you want without affecting the sites that used them for creation. This makes them easy to version, as long as you don't want to push updates to existing sites.
One big problem with site templates is that you cannot staple features to them.
Site Definitions
Site definitions are collections of XML files deployed to the 12 hive. They are harder to develop; you basically have to use Visual Studio. The XML files have to be packaged into a SharePoint WSP and deployed using STSADM.
Creating a site definition gives you the most control over your site. Another benefit is that sites using the site definition will always reference the site definition's files, so updates will be recognized by sites using that site definition. For example, if you find a bug, you can fix it in one spot and all sites using that site definition will be fixed.
Note that withdrawing a site definition will break sites that use it.
Recently, many SharePoint experts have recommended staying away from creation new site definitions because of the overhead. Instead, if custom functionality is needed, they recommend coding custom features and just activating those features on sites.
Think about which option you need. In our organization, we chose not to create any new site definitions, and use site templates sparingly. Custom functionality is driven primarily by the use of features.
You are talking about custom "site definitions" and custom "site templates". Google those terms and you'll find tons of information.
You can design your own custom templates. Install VSeWSS extension for Visual Studio and it has a project type called "Blank Site" template. You can use it as a base starting point and customize the solution generated to your needs. All the information required to do so is available in the help document that comes with VSeWSS.
What is the best way to copy an existing SharePoint MOSS site and then recreate a copy of it on the same server?
I want to ideally include web parts but not actual content like documents etc.
I've looked at using the SPDeploymentWizard and saving the site as a template but the SPDeploymentWizard takes all the content and saving it as a template I get an error that the site is too big to save.
Any suggestions appreciated
You can create a site template by clicking the "Save Site as Template" option in the Site Settings page. SharePoint does not have the ability to create templates based on Publishing definitions but there is a work around listed here:
link text
Webpages with weparts or not are considered content in SharePoint.
So to move the site you will have to create a new moss site with an associate content database.
You will then be able to backup your original site and restore it over the new one.
Then you will have to delete the content you did not want to have in the new site.
To avoid this problem in the future, create a SharePoint Solution containing site template using STSDev2008.
This will take time, but it will allow you to create a site with all the required content pages etc ready to go and will reduce the time to create these sites.
You can backup and restore to a different server using stsadm.exe.
EDIT
Apparently there's an actual export feature for content
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb507233.aspx
The default size of templates is around 10 MB. you can increase that using
stsadm -o setproperty -pn max-template-document-size
Also if you are doing templates, that does not do sub-sites.