I am developing publishing site and it will have complex tree structure.
Is there any way to deploy site structure (multiple sub sites - SPWeb) using SharePoint solution?
I know I can create site tree programmatically.
I have been on a project with the same needs, but we didn't find the answer with the OOTB functionality of the feature framework. We also had to go through the object model and do the creation programmatically.
But instead of hard-coding the site structure, we took a different approach. Our solution was to implement a generic SiteCreation feature that takes an xml file as input. The xml defines the site structure and is read by the feature receiver which parses it and creates the specified sites.
I know that there is some coding involved in this solution, but I think the extra work is well spent, since the site structure will likely change numerous times before it reaches production.
The default publishing portal (and collaboration portal) site definitions use a portal provisioning class to build the site structure based on an xml file (this is all out of the box for a MOSS installation).
You can see how the provisioning class is referenced in the webtemp file for the portal site definitions (12\TEMPLATE\1033\XML\webtempsps.xml). An example of the actual xml documents that are used can be found in 12\TEMPLATES\SiteTemplates\WebManifest - it's a fairly straight forward schema.
If you are creating a custom site definition based on publishing portal then you can re-use the provisioning class and provide your own xml document to build your custom site structure.
Related
I am making a Sharepoint 2010 WebPart with functionality from another Main Web Application.
To develop the Webpart quickly I have imported the business logic assemblies used in the Main Web Application. The Webpart works and pulls application specific configuration information from the Sharepoint web.config file.
Is this the best place to store this information?
If not..
Where/How should the application specific configuration data be stored in Sharepoint?
The config data contains items like locations of web services etc. The data will only need to be edited by system administrators.
Thanks
Web.Config is, IMHO, a terrible place to store this sort of config information - its hard to deploy and hard to change, especially if you're using multiple web front ends.
The recommended way to do this is to use PropertyBag (key/value pairs) through the .Properties of SPFarm, SPWeb.RootWeb (for site collections), SPWeb, SPList etc (depending upon the scope that you need).
MSDN - Managing Custom Configuration Options for a SharePoint Application
There is a production ready code available as part of the
MSDN - The SharePoint Guidance Library
See Hierarchical configuration manager
This gives you programmatic access to read/write these values. If you want to do this without using the guidance library then you would use something like the following code.
SPWeb web = SPContext.Current.Web;
if (web.Properties.ContainsKey("MyProperty"))
string myProperty = web.Properties["MyProperty"];
If you want a UI to allow admins to easily set the values then use something like SharePoint Property Bag Settings
The easiest way to do it is to create sharepoint list visible only to administrator. It can have 3 columns description, title, value. It will store all config values. Also you can add a link to this list to site settings page.
The web config is always a good place. However if you want to change that data you will have to enforce some sort of site recompile which is a pain for end users.
Theres a nice little app/solution on codeplex to do with the property bag value
http://pbs.codeplex.com/
This is a brilliant little app/solution that ties in with your central administration.
It should be inbuilt i think.
Hope this helps.
We use SharePoint 2007 and have set up a web application with several site collections. One for each of our clients. We'd like to synchronize content in all of the site collections. Maybe having a central repository, then all other site collections get content from here.
I was looking at Lightning Tools Conductor web part and seems a pretty good solution. However, I'm wondering if this can also be possible using the Content Deployment feature to copy a site from the central repository to all other site collections.
I do not advice you to copy and thus duplicate the information from your central repository to the other site collections. You'll lose precious disk space, performance and scalability.
If you have content that is created in a common site collection, you should either use the built-in web services or create dedicated ones to retrieve the content within the targeted site collections.
I usually create cross site collection look-up fields that allows a contributor to pick an entity from my central repository in a visual way and apply the rendering of the content once the page is in view mode.
That might not suit every need but I don't think content duplication is a wiser choice.
Edit : re-reading your question, is there a specific reason why you want to copy a complete site (spweb I guess) rather than specific content inside ?
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.
I am new to SharePoint development. We have created a base site template and have used that template to start new sites in other locations on the same server. This works fine but the newly created site seems to "flatten" the custom content types created in the original site. I would think there would be a way to keep the original content type inheritance intact to help support any necessary modifications on the new site. They can still make the modifications but they take longer because you have to visit each list individually. Does anyone know how to fix this or know a better way to approach this?
The problem you are having is the move from your original site collection to another. The site template does not store the complete definition of a site - only the differences from the underlying site definition. Move from one site collection to another and you lose the underlying site definition and run into problems such as the loss of your content types.
Site templates and site definitions are two separate customizations you can undertake. You need to make a decision based on your requirements as to which is best.
Site templates
Pro's:
Easy to create and reuse through the SharePoint interface
Ideal for end users
A site template is a customization of the underlying default site definition
Con's:
Dependency on underlying site definition means SharePoint updates could break your site templates
Poor performance since the modifications are held in the database and are read from the DB and compiled on each request
Limited customization options
Site definitions
Pro's:
Harder to create: involves coding XML
Made by developers and site administrators
Independent of SharePoint default site definitions so not affected by SharePoint updates
Limitless customization options
Con's:
Difficult to modify when deployed
Can be cached on the file system so is fast to load
Check out Google for info on creating custom site definitions.
Hope this helps!
Jonny
The best way to do this is to create a site definition where the content types are within features whose scope is to the farm.
Tim
I've created a custom list & also added a column in the Announcement List. Question is, how can I include those newly created items when I create a fresh Web Application (like a script, feature or something)?
Additional Info: It's like when you're to deploy from your development machine to a staging or production server. I'd like to have a script or something to update my production server to have the new column i've added to the Announcement List. Just like SQL Server's ALTER TABLE command to update a SQL Server Table.
Is there an equivalent in Sharepoint Lists?
TIA!
Regarding the new custom list, this can be done using features. See How to: Create a Custom List Definition for more information. The Visual Studio Extensions for SharePoint (VS2005 / VS2008) will help you to extract the list definition if you've created it through the SharePoint UI. If you are fortunate enough to be using a custom site definition and don't have any webs created yet, you can set your site definition to create the custom list using feature stapling.
If you are attempting to apply these changes to webs that already exist, you can still use a feature to define your custom list. It will just appear as a type of list that can be created. Then to have the custom list automatically created for existing webs or to modify existing lists such as the Announcements list, you can use a feature receiver. This allows you to run any custom code when the feature is activated. See the MSDN article Feature Events for more information.
Alternatively, you could not use features at all as they can be difficult, time consuming and painful. In fact, this blog post has a good argument against the idea. You could try the tool mentioned on that page or other applications such as DocAve Content Manager and SharePoint Site Migration Manager.
Your question is not very clear but I think you may want to look at Application Templates.
Microsoft provide 40 pre-built templates in the link below and the same technology is available to you. Links from this page should lead you to information showing you how you can crate your own.
Application Templates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/sharepoint/bb407286.aspx