I've created a content type on my local dev server, how can I package this content type, so I can deploy it professionally to live installations?
An option is AC's WCM Custom Commands for STSADM.EXE which adds two commands which is relevant here:
GenSiteColumnsXml
GenContentTypesXml
These allow you to get the XML for Site columns and content types base on ones existing in a site
I would suggest you to look at the WSP Builder. It will help you a lot when creating SharePoint WSP solutions.
I came across this , http://moss2k7ctypesviewer.codeplex.com
SPSource is an open source project that can reverse-engineer quite a few SharePoint artifacts and is actively supported by knowledgeable SharePointers such as Jeremy Thake and Rich Finn. There is a bit of set-up time required however.
There's also SharePoint Solution Generator from the Visual Studio Extensions for WSS (although I would use SPSource over this any day).
Note that both of these options are much more comprehensive than what you've asked for and designed to extract the artifacts from an entire SharePoint site. So if you just want the content types go with Per Jakobsen's answer.
Related
I have created and deployed a MOSS Site defintion using VseWSS 1.3
I install the site definition and create a new site and everything works fine. However, when anybody goes into any site on that WebApplication (in any site collection) and goes to the feature list then all these features are in the list.
I have about 15 content types, with 15 lists based on these content types each with their own instance and ItemRecievers. As you can imagine this is a lot of features in the list. My Sharepoint administrator saw this and had a meltdown...
He wants to see a single entry like you see for the MOSS Enterprise features etc, that activates all the features for my solutions. I have seen somebody menation the term 'feature pack' - in relation to this but I don't know if that's just their terminology.
How can I do this? Can this easily be done is VseWSS or do I have to go in manually and hack the IDE generated files?
james :-)
VseWSS isn't great for producing solutions - it can pull out elements of a solution, but tends to (in my limited experience with it) set things up like they're all going to be seperate features.
The unfortunate thing is, your Admin is right. What you've got - those content types, list definitions, and list instances - are a lot of feature Elements. A single Feature can have many of those, usually in a file called 'elements.xml'. There's a good description of this at:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms460318(v=office.12).aspx
(Note, in Visual Studio 2010 parlance, these elements are 'SharePoint Items' within the visual studio project. But I digress)
I've always tended to use VseWSS to create the files that I need - my list definitions, etc. - and then copy these files into a WSPBuilder project for packaging, ready for installation. If you've not used WSPBuilder, I recommend it for SP2007 development - though it's largely superceded by Visual Studio's own tools for SP2010. It takes a little understanding, but then you'll realise that if you simply copy the files into the right places, you can easily build your solution.
(You should be deploying your solution in a WSP file. ALWAYS deploy solutions in WSP files.)
(Also, you shouldn't have to 'hack' any of the files, just rearrange them on the file system so WSPBuilder packages them correctly. See the WSPbuilder documentation.)
An easy option to do is simply modify the feature elements to hidden, and create your primary feature as a visible feature with activation dependencies. This means that once the primary feature is activated all the dependency features will be activated automagically.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jjameson/archive/2007/03/22/scope-dependencies-for-sharepoint-features.aspx
One of our product will consist of multiple SharePoint solutions. Now we're wondering what would be the best way to provide an easy deployment to our customers? At the moment we deploy each solution by hand, which is OK during development process but not acceptable for our customers.
For your information, we're using VSeWSS 1.3 for development and solution packaging.
So how do you offer your solutions to your customers? Do you write installation scripts using STSADM commands? What other options do we have?
WSPBuilder
Personally I use WSPBuilder for packaging and find it much easier to work with than VSeWSS. However if VSeWSS is working for you then that's great.
One of many the benefits I found of using WSPBuilder is that it's easy to integrate into a build system. It's just a simple, but clever, commandline tool.
Batch File
For deploying multiple SharePoint solutions to our customers I usually provide a batch file that contains the necessary STSADM command and prompts them to enter any environment specific data i.e. site collection urls etc...
SharePoint Solution Installer
There is also a nice GUI installer,called SharePoint Solution Installer, that you can use in-conjunction with SharePoint solution files. Check it out it might suit your needs.
alt text http://i3.codeplex.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=sharepointinstaller&DownloadId=18625
SAF - SharePoint Action Framework
It's worth pointing out SAF; which is an extremely comprehensive framework that can automate installation and configuration tasks, using either MSBuild, Powershell, Stsadm or a custom SharePoint feature.
We just use plain old batch/cmd files. If you need to "productize" this, just wrap up all solutions in a selfextracting rar package and have it run the batch file after unpacking.
Stick to Microsoft products. Powerbuilder is being groomed to gradually take over from STSADM for this type of task. In a farm scenario (remember, yours may have to grow over time), this would be the tool to use to push out solutions to all front-end Web servers.
EDIT:
MS are preparing a final version of VSE 1.3 to ease the migration of 2007 solutions to the 2010 environment.
Have you looked at Microsoft SharePoint Designer?
not sure if it will do all you need, but it does allow you to package sites or individual objects that you can then run on another SharePoint install.
Is there a way to (semi) automatically convert a sharepoint 2007 site template to a site definition? This seems like it could be quicker than building a site definition from scratch, yet provide the benefits of the site definition.
I think with VSeWSS 1.2 you can convert a site to an site definition.
Extract from the VSeWSS 1.2 announcement on the SharePoint Team blog:
SharePoint Solution Generator
This
stand-alone program generates a Site
Definition project from an existing
SharePoint site. The program enables
developers to use the browser and
Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer
to customize the content of their
sites before creating code by using
Visual Studio.
So crating a site from a site template an then running VSeWSS 1.2 should do the trick.
One way you can do it to rename the Site Template (.stp) file to .cab and extract the content and get the onet.xml schema and customize it as you wanted it.
Which defintion was used for the site template do you want to convert? I've found the SharePoint Solution Generator to be hit and miss. For example I can't get it to process blog sites. Worth a shot though.
Here's the scenario
I created a Site which in I used custom lists, webparts, custom developed webparts, workflows et cetera. You can see the site as an application.
What I am trying to do is to create a solution package which holds everything I build in that site so that I can give the solution file to an sharepoint administrator who can install the solution to his sharepoint environment.
For example look at the free application templates you can download from MSDN, I am trying to achieve the same as they did. One solution file to hold them all!
Any idea's?
Cheers!
Get STSDev and SharePoint Manager. STSDev is goog for creating the solution you want and SharePoint Manager can be used to get the SchemaXML from the customisations you have already created.
You will need to package up the webparts and everything. Unfortunately, this is a pretty hefty learning curve, so expect to do a lot of reading on this subject and some experimentation. However, this is time well spent as a solution is the "only" way to release a custom site definition.
Workflows created using SPD are not portable across sites - they will have to be recreated. As a result, Nathan's solution is probably going to be the only way to go.
Export the site as a template and include all the content. The workflows will point at the old site and will need to be updated manually, I believe. Everything else should work.
I am total beginner in SharePoint and I need some help in starting a project. I have to develop publishing site that will be delivered to the client. I would like to give client deployment experience like he would get when deploying standard ASP.NET application as much as possible. I plan to use Visual Studio 2008 with SharePoint extensions and maybe WSPBuilder or some other tools.
I also need help in structuring whole project.
Here is what I plan to do:
1. Develop minimal site definition
2. Create site from this defionition. How should I do this from code ? Use SharePoint Feature ? How should I activate it ?
3. Develop all the needed infrastructure for the site (master page, layouts, content types, ...) as SharePoint Features.
Is this correct and how should I develop all those parts so I can make a some kind install script so can client create get complete site with one click ?
Site definitions are complex no question about it, but they are very useful if you need to deploy to unrelated enviornments. If you are staying on the same server farm, maybe site definition is overkill. If you are going between domains (i.e. test & prod, then maybe they are worth looking into).
Another advantage to site definitions, esp. if delivering to a client is it feels more like a traditional deliverable. They will have a bunch of files (hopefully in source control) that are their custom site. I think that gives IT dept's a much warmer feeling than an XML file created from the SharePoint UI.
Another benefit of site definitions are you have a lot more control over the pages that make up the site. IMHO its easier to add master pages & custom CSS via site defintion that site template.
I am curious as to what are the 'moving parts' to the site you are trying to deliver? I think that answering that question will determine how to define the project's structure.
Generally, I think you are on the right track. Features and solutions are a must. I would stay away from VSeWSS, its buggy and clunky and generally terrible if you are trying to do anything complex. It tries to be so smart, that it leaves you no control.
That said, it really depends on what you are trying to do. If you are going to build a solution to deploy to the GAC with one assembly, and only building features supported by vsewss you may be fine.
If however, you want to develop, say a timer job wiring that into the VSeWSS feature framework gets tough. Also, if you need multiple assemblies in the solution. YMMV, but I had to junk it and find of a more flexible solution (hello NANT).
A lot of the work you will end up doing is building and checking, and re-checking XML configuration files. Bookmark the Feature Schema reference page on MSDN, you will be spending a lot of time going through it.
Finally, yes, if you have all of the parts packaged as features you should be able to develop a nice install script. Ultimately the script will need to call the STSADM (there are some really nice STSADM extensions here) commands necessary to create the site structure, add & deploy the solution & activate the features. You can start with a batch file, and get as complicated as you want.
Personally I don't find that creating a site definition is really that useful for the sites I have built. They can be very tricky to set up, because of their complex nature.
What I do is use the standard Publishing Site and then using features to add my additional componets (deployed via a SharePoint solution).
You can use Feature Stapling to connect up the feature to the Publishing Site creation.
I've also just done a blog post on how to programmatically modify the workflow which is created by default: http://www.aaron-powell.com/blog/february-2009/programmatically-modifying-sharepoint-workflows.aspx (that also has a link in the comments off to the Feature Stapling concept).
Then I use a combination of SharePoint Solution Installer (http://www.codeplex.com/sharepointinstaller) and batch files to install the components. SSI for all the SharePoint database level installs and batch files for the file system stuff.
Adding another answer, because I have more than 300 characters worth of stuff to say :(
RE: SharePoint solutions generator, again I would say your mileage may vary.
The biggest issue with SharePoint dev is managing all of the "magic strings" across the various configuration files. GUIDs and Fully Qualified Assembly names are the spit and glue that hold the whole thing together, and although it all makes sense its very difficult to manage.
The current crop of tool all try and alleviate the complexity of managing these things, but they require that you work in a certain way, so the tool knows how to inject the appropriate plumbing.
If you plan on doing a lot of work with SharePoint it really behooves you too learn to manage the plumbing yourself. Its painful up front, but really pays dividends.
Basically, I suggest you spend your time learning the platform and not the tools. Once you know the platform, using the tools will be much easier.
If you are doing this as a one-off engagement and just want to get it done, I'm sure you can get any of the tools you've mentioned to do the trick.
I would agree with the use of the out of the box publishing site definition, and then customizing it using Site Collection features (Master Page, Page Layouts, CSS) and site features (create lists, pages, sub sites, defining master pages of sites, etc...).
Feature stapling is great when you want to customize new sites (allow user to create new sites) of well known site templates, like customize the "My Site" look and feel. In this case I don’t think its very useful.
As a tool to help this task, I personally use STSDEV (http://www.codeplex.com/stsdev) to help in creating, programming, debugging and deploying my Sharepoint solutions.
First it creates a good project for Visual Studio (clean, or with some nice "starting point" definitions). Then it includes some “build configurations” that really helps with install, deploy and upgrade in the development machine.