In this post I'll Show you take how to generate features by First creating a Virtual Site, consisting of all your selected functionality from the original MOSS site. If you have created the Virtual Site, you can create all the features at once, using default settings, or you can generate them one by one ,giving you more control.
At this time, I have not included a great deal of logic into build process. It is planned for the next version of the MFG. So when you start editing Content Type ID's for example, you'll have to keep them in sync manually when you refer to them from List Templates.
Therefore, it is not practical to generate hundreds of features at once. Package them into groups of ten or so.
If you want to have this information in a slightly more readable version, goto http://www.codeplex.com/mossfeaturegenerator and check out the MFG Quick guide.
The steps to create features from the MOSS GUI:
1 From the Main menu, choose Build à Site
A form now opens in which to the left a MOSS site will be shown (only Site Columns, Content Types, List Templates and List Instances). To the right, the functionalities you selected for the creation of features is shown.
2 Enter a site Url and click Go. Then select a site.
The functionalities of the MOSS site will now be shown.
3 Drag en drop the functonalities from the real MOSS site to the Virtual Site, consisting of all the features you select.
You may now inspect the properties of the functionalities.
4 If you want to change properties, dubbelclick an item, and an appropriate properties screen will open. This is the same screen as when you create a functionality directly from a MOSS site.
5 If you wish to change the properties of the feature.xml, press, Specify Feature. A form will open, allowing you to specify properties for this specific feature.
6 Create a single feaure by adjusting the path and pressing the Create Feature. If you create a 12\Template\Features directory structure, you can use
WSPBuilder afterwards.
7 When you wish to create all the features at once, specify the path and press Create Features on the main form. Note that when you create features in this way, you will be prompted with a form allowing you to specify a feature file for the combined Site Columns. The program cannot deduce the properties for this file from the collection of site columns.
8 If there are any XSD Validation Errors, the Show Schema Validation Errors button will be available.
9 By pressing the Show Schema Validation Errors button, you may open a form containing info about the validation errors.
10 You now have your generated Feature.xml, Elements.xml, Schema.xml and your Forms and Views on the ListTemplates.
11 Your original functionality gets reproduced when you install and activate the features.
