Andy Burns’ SharePoint Blog

Came a cropper on this one today – using web parts based on System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebPart in a Site Definition. Unlike the Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages base web part, ASP.NET 2.0 ones need a <webParts /> tag around your <webPart> tag – other wise you get the error:

Cannot recognize the xml namespace of this web part

Joris Poelmans has a good description of the problem, and that was where I read the solution – it saved me a tonne of time.

Tags: Site Definition, Web Parts

I love the idea of site definitions. The idea that we can just say ‘give me a site for X’ and in a puff of magic smoke have a site with a feature rich experience just appear – that’s neat! And with SharePoint’s Feature mechanism and object model, we should be able to to a lot with them.

Strangely, after two and a half years working with SharePoint, I’d never built a site definition.  (I don’t know how I managed that!) Recently, though, I’ve written several, and all I can say is that I’m older, and greyer than I was before. The reality of Site Definition development did not live up to my hopes. Read more »

Tags: CAML, Site Definition

So yesterday I was trying to add a content editor webpart to a page I was deploying through ONET.XML. I wondered how to add custom web parts, and how you’d know what the XML for them was.

Turns out it isn’t very hard. An example:

<webParts>
<webPart xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebPart/v3">
<metaData>
<type name="SourceCode.Solutions.GenericCaseWebParts.CaseSSRSReportViewer" />
<importErrorMessage>Cannot import this Web Part.</importErrorMessage>
</metaData>
<data>
<properties>
<property name="TitleUrl" type="string" />
<property name="TitleIconImageUrl" type="string" />
<property name="ReportServerUrl" type="string">http://vm-moss:8088/ReportServer</property>
<property name="Parameters" type="string">&lt;ReportParameters&gt;&lt;Parameter Name="CaseId" MultiValue="false" Value="[Case Id]" /&gt;&lt;/ReportParameters&gt;</property>
<property name="ChromeState" type="chromestate">Normal</property>
<property name="Title" type="string">Context Info</property>
<property name="ReportPath" type="string">/Reports/Case Details</property>
<!-- Snip -->
</properties>
</data>
</webPart>
</webParts>

As you can see, at the top we define the class to use, then we set various properties (I’ve trimmed that set quite a lot). But how did I get the XML? Well… I set the web part up in SharePoint and exported the web part to a file; this was the XML I needed to put into my ONET.xml. Copy and paste… job done.

Tags: ONET, Site Definition, Web Parts

When you provision sites you can provide various pages (normal pages, not just publishing ones!) However, what if you want to put web parts onto those pages?

Well, you could build multiple pages for your different site configurations. Or you could use a feature receiver  to add it programmatically. Or, you could add it via your site configuration. Read more »

Tags: CEWP, ONET, Site Definition, Web Part Zones, Web Parts

Yesterday I wrote about the SmallSearchInputBox, how scopes only appear if you set a search center for the site collection, and how to set the Search Center in code.

Well, as is typically the way with CAML, I figured out how to do this declaratively later. Or, more specifically, I found that there is a feature I could call declaratively that would do what I want:

<!-- SearchCenter Url feature -->
<Feature ID="7AC8CC56-D28E-41f5-AD04-D95109EB987A" >
<Properties xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
<Property Key="SearchCenterUrl" Value="~SiteCollection/Search/" />
</Properties>
</Feature>

Yup, all I need to do is put that into my site definition…

Tags: Scopes, Search, Site Definition, SmallSearchInputBox