SharePoint WCM Feature Generator

From my experiences on of SharePoint WCM projects I did so far, I came across certain repetitive & time-consuming development tasks. Some of them are listed below:

1. Creating Site Definition

2. Features

· Site Columns- Columns used in lists/libraries/page layouts.

· Content Types- Lists/Page Layout content types.

· Content Type Associations- Association of Content Types with the SharePoint list.

· Master Pages and Page Layouts- Provisioning master pages and layouts on SharePoint master pages library.

· Provision Files- Provision image, CSS, XAPS and documents on specified SharePoint library.

· Feature Staplers- Auto activation of features based on site creation.

3. Feature Receivers

4. Custom Controls

The image below illustrates the Visual Studio 2005/2008 solution for a typical SharePoint WCM project.

Keeping the same thought in mind, I have developed a utility SharePoint WCM Feature Generator to automate the feature creation for some of the fundamental WCM components in SharePoint like Site Columns, Content Types, Content Type Associations, Provisioning etc (indicated by green callout).

Also this tool well integrate with Visual Studio to make things even simpler.

The SharePoint WCM Feature Generator is targeted for both Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and SharePoint 2010.

The tool can be downloaded from here: SharePoint WCM Feature Generator.exe

The user guide can be downloaded from here: SharePoint WCM Feature Generator User Guide

Making your SharePoint environment ready for Silverlight development

SharePoint and Silverlight can be integrated together to provide an interactive user experience. The data within SharePoint and various LOBs can be delivered to the end user in a compelling manner using Silverlight.

But making SharePoint Server 2007 environment ready for Silverlight development is a bit challenging and a time consuming process. There are several updates and components needed on the development machine before you can actually begin Silverlight development. For instance, to see a Silverlight application in action on a SharePoint Web page proper configurations need to be made in the web.config of the Web application.

To address the same challenges, Advaiya has developed a tool Advaiya Development Scanner which analyzes a target machine for the necessary components, and reports what is already installed and what needs to be installed or updated in order to support Silverlight 2.0 development. Along with this it also makes the necessary web config modifications on the targeted Web applications.

The demo of the tool can be seen here in action.