Who am Anders Rask SharePoint Solution Architect, ProActive A/S Community moderator on sharepoint.stackexchange.com

Developing Custom Web Templates In Visual Studio 2010 #spsuk30

Web Templates?  Web Templates is a new site provisioning method in SharePoint 2010 that, amongst other things, can be used with MSOL since it can be deployed as a Sandboxed Solution  Relatively unknown, probably due to little attention from product group  Should be used when ever possible for branding SharePoint 2010!

 Site Templates  Site Definitions  Feature Stapling  Provisioning Providers  WebProvisioned event  Web Templates Template Provisioning methods

Site Templates  A ”light” version of Web Templates.  (Most) sites can be saved as template  In SP2010 they are WSP solutions (not STP files)  Can be imported into Visual Studio to become ”real” Web Templates

Custom Site Definitions  Defacto way of customizing SharePoint in SP2007  Many opinions on how (and if) to use them  Best Practice to keep site def’s slim (get ID and use feature stapling)  That means no modules in ONET.XML and as few features as possible

Feature Stapling  Makes it possible to associate (staple) functionality to existing site definitions when site is being provisioned " TemplateName="BLANKINTERNET#0" />  Can also have feature properties  Scope is usually Farm, but can also be WebApp or Site  To associate to all templates (except Blank) use Global

Provisioning Providers  ”Hotwires” site provisioning, by only creating site collection and database, but not apply template  In code you then apply any template, and then apply any logic  Example: Activate features, restrict sub-templates, create subsites, set security, create groups, add web parts... class MeetingWorkspaceProvisioningProvider : SPWebProvisioningProvider { public override void Provision(SPWebProvisioningProperties properties) { SPWeb site = properties.Web; string xmlPath = properties.Data; // provision Blank Meeting Template site.ApplyWebTemplate("MPS#1"); // do something potentially useful here } class MeetingWorkspaceProvisioningProvider : SPWebProvisioningProvider { public override void Provision(SPWebProvisioningProperties properties) { SPWeb site = properties.Web; string xmlPath = properties.Data; // provision Blank Meeting Template site.ApplyWebTemplate("MPS#1"); // do something potentially useful here }

WebProvisioned event receiver  Gives you a hook into the provisioning process to execute arbitrary code.  Event is asynchronous (but a good idea to set to Synchronous to avoid race conditions)  Receiver can have Site or Web scope  Site: called for every sub-site created in the site collection  Web: called only for the sub-sites that are immediate children of the site where receiver is called  Usage example: set Theme on sub-sites, add web parts... etc public override void WebProvisioned(SPWebEventProperties properties) { ThmxTheme theme = ThmxTheme.Open(properties.Web.Site, ThmxTheme.GetThemeUrlForWeb(properties.Web.ParentWeb)); theme.ApplyTo(properties.Web, false); properties.Web.Update(); base.WebProvisioned(properties); } public override void WebProvisioned(SPWebEventProperties properties) { ThmxTheme theme = ThmxTheme.Open(properties.Web.Site, ThmxTheme.GetThemeUrlForWeb(properties.Web.ParentWeb)); theme.ApplyTo(properties.Web, false); properties.Web.Update(); base.WebProvisioned(properties); }

Web Templates  Created in Visual Studio as Element  No direct tool support yet, but not much to it…  Custom ONET is injected instead of referenced site definition, so no link to provisioned sites  Scope can be Site (Sandboxed Solution) or Farm (Trusted solution)  Supports publishing framework

 Use the right tool for the job  Often a combination is the right solution.  The customizations you want to do often dictates approach.  Use Web Templates whenever possible! What provisioning method is right? ”It Depends!”

Time for… DEMO!

Common ”gotcha’s” creating Web Templates  Since stapling is not supported, be aware that features that would normally be stapled on an OOB site definition must be activated manually (e.g. Taxonomyfield feature)  Web Template and the element it resides in must have same name  If your Web Template has site scoped features, you must ensure these are activated when using template on sub-webs  When provisioning sub-webs with PowerShell using Sandboxed Solutions you need to provision in two steps: 1) Create web, 2) Apply template Known issues:  Doesn’t work with variations and content publishing  Subweb and Locale doesn’t work!  Bug if OS regional settings and installed language isn’t the same and provisioning “outside of UI” (Visual Studio or PowerShell)  “Race conditions” with Content Type provisioning (CT hub)

Good Web Template practices  Save the custom template name in a property bag on the SPWeb for future reference  Ensure your site scoped features for example by calling them from web feature in ONET.XML  Use Visual Studio –not save Site as Template- to create Web Templates  Check what features are normally stapled to the OOB site definition you are mimicking and add them last at appropriate scope in ONET.XML

Key take-aways  Web templates is just a new way of provisioning sites in SharePoint 2010  Prefer them over Site Definitions 99% of the time:  B2B upgrades is easy (no link to manifest)  V2V upgrades will be easier  Works on SharePoint Online  Scope is either Site (Sandbox) or Farm (Trusted) solutions  Does not work with Site Variations, Content Publishing or similar sites where template selection is out of your control (think Meeting templates, My Sites etc)

Mirjam van Olst: Using Web Templates to create Site Collections Supported and unsupported scenarios for working with custom site definitions Vesa Juvonen: SharePoint 2010 and web templates Robert Bogue: Understanding SharePoint Branding Options Brian Wilson: Site Definitions versus Site Templates and deciding on the correct customization approach New Event Binding Functionality in SharePoint Foundation References

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 Visual Studio 2010 SharePoint Power Tools Templates and extensions that provide a sandboxed Visual Web Part together with enhanced support for sandboxed compilation to help you develop SharePoint solutions even more productively.  Mavention Cancel Adding SharePoint Project Items Disables the default behavior of automatically adding SharePoint Project Items to Features.  CKS - Development Tools Edition (Server) The SharePoint 2010 Visual Studio 2010 Extensions project (CKSDEV) is a collection of Visual Studio templates, Server Explorer extensions and tools providing accelerated SharePoint 2010 development based on Microsoft's new SharePoint 2010 development tools.  Imtech Get SPMetal Definition Extension Installs a Site Node Extension that allows you to generate the SPMetal Definition from the given SharePoint Site.