July 2007 - Posts

• Site definition customizations versus using feature stapling Part 1

  Site definition customizations versus using feature stapling Part 1  I have been doing a lot of work recently with publishing site definitions and custom page layouts.  The current project that I am working on requires the creation of custom publishing site definitions and custom page layouts that will be wrapped up into features and deployed as solution packages (.WSP).  In this blog entry I am going to discuss some options that a SharePoint developer has when implementing a custom page layout when a publishing site is created.  Lets first start with a little background on the requirement for this project. ·         The client was requesting that there were some OOTB web parts and field controls that they would like by default on some of their web content publishing pages upon site creation.  ·         The client was also looking to have a custom page layout associated with this custom publishing site.  ·         Custom master page associated to the custom publishing site upon creation of site. ·         The final requirement was that when a new publishing site is created custom lists and a custom document library were to be created.  These lists and the document library would be utilizing custom site columns.   Now that we had the requirements gathered we had some decisions to make as to how we were going to accomplish these requirements while minimizing the footprint left in the environment.  In the SPS 2003 days I would first look at handling this all through a custom site definition via the ONET.xml file.  In fact my first thought was to create a custom site definition with a custom ONET.xml file that creates all of the requirements above upon the provisioning of the site.  This would work out great for all new sites but what if down the line the client would like to change what custom page layout all of their sites were using quickly and efficiently?  The problem with building this functionality into the ONET.xml file which your custom site definition will use is that SharePoint only references the ONET.xml for these requirements upon site creation.  Thus, not allowing us developers to proactively change sites by re-editing the ONET.xml of our custom site definition once the sites have already been created.  So, the best approach to the requirements above was a combination of custom site definition development and custom feature development.  At the end of the day even our custom site definitions were wrapped up into a feature so that they were easily deployable via a solutions package (.WSP) into multi-stage environments (dev,staging,prod).  In the next piece of this article I am going to go through which pieces we decided to create features for and which requirements we built directly into the custom site definition.  Unfortunately I am not going to go in-depth into the feature creation process because I was only responsible for the custom site definition requirement in this project.  Even though I consider myself a SharePoint admin/information architect/whatever I need to learn to successfully complete the job I have worked significantly with custom list and site definitions.  I guess I am just an architect stuck in a developer’s world J….. In the next part of this article I am going to talk about the decisions that my team made for the actual implementation of the requirements listed above……Stay tuned!   Cheers! Posted Jul 24 2007, 04:43 PM by jmedero with 4 comment(s) Filed under: MOSS 2007

• In NYC on August 1st? Come join us for the largest SharePoint user group on the east coast!

  If  you are going to be in the NYC area Aug. 1, 2007 then why not stop over at the MS office in Manahattan and come join us for some SharePoint and food!  Great people, great place, great information, great time!  My company B&R Business Solutions who is a top provider for SharePoint implementations up in the NY/NJ/CT metropolitan area will be sponsoring the great door prizes!  I also have some great freebies that we will be giving away such as MOSS 2007 adminisrators companion book.  Looking forward to seeing some new faces!    NYC SharePoint User Group 8/1/2007  5:30 PM – Microsoft Office – 1290 6th Ave. (51st/52nd) NEXT NYC SHAREPOINT USER GROUP: Wednesday, August 1   Brad Smith, President of Black Blade Systems & a Microsoft SharePoint MVP,  will present on “Creating & Deploying Custom Field Types for MOSS 2007”   The meeting will start at 5:30 PM with an opportunity to network with your colleagues in other companies and free food compliments of Intellinet   For immediate registration:   https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=119311   For additional information, directions & other details, visit the NYC SPUG website:  http://www.sharepointusergroup.org/nyc/default.aspx   Each month follows the format below. Here’s the agenda for this month: 5:30 PM Eat & Greet Networking Free Food & Drink Courtesy of this month’s sponsor: Intellinet 6:00 PM The News Breaking SharePoint News NYC SPUG Advisors deliver the latest SharePoint news 6:15 PM Tip Talk Fast ideas for getting more out of SharePoint “Creating & Deploying Custom Field Types for MOSS 2007” Brad Smith, Microsoft SharePoint MVP 7:20 PM Wrap Up Announcements/Giveaways Door Prizes courtesy of: B&R Business Solutions, Intellinet & Microsoft   The sponsors for the August 1 meeting include: Networking/Food:    Intellinet Speaker Gift:          CorasWorks Door Prizes:            B&R Business Solutions – Intellinet - Microsoft After Meeting Social: CorasWorks     The mission of this group is to provide in-depth coverage of Microsoft SharePoint technologies in a fun, collaborative way. Meetings are held on the first Wednesday of each month.   **Building Security Requirements: You can expect to have some difficulty & delay getting up to the meeting room if you arrive late. We recommend bringing a copy of your meeting registration confirmation notice with you. Cheers, Posted Jul 23 2007, 10:30 AM by jmedero with no comments