Comments on Chris O'Brien: Site definitions - custom code in the site creatio...

Hi Marten,

Sorry for the delay in replying....

2008-06-29T22:17:00.000+01:00

Hi Marten,

Sorry for the delay in replying.

I'm afraid I haven't looked at version 1.2 yet, but hopefully someone who has might respond to your points. I'm surprised that VSeWSS appears to enforce a certain way of factoring Features, since AFAIK little guidance exists on this - I wonder if you are just encountering bugs which slipped through testing.

In terms of the GUID weirdness, remember that is the default value for a GUID (Guid.Empty) - but yes, it could be that code in VSeWSS is expecting to replace these. Does your end solution/Feature have default GUIDs after building from F5?

Perhaps you should try splitting your artifacts across different VSeWSS projects to see if that works around the issues.

In the end however, I have to say I'm personally not sure VSeWSS is the best approach for WCM sites. I discuss my thoughts in the end paragraphs of SharePoint deployment options: Features or Content Deployment, though I also intend to discuss this again soon. In summary for my most recent projects I have used the SharePoint Content Deployment Wizard to deploy everything which is not on the filesystem, and use a Solution package for those files. This seems to work well and avoids the need to 'featurize' everything - I also avoid site definitions unless users really will create many sites from a template.

HTH,

Chris.

Hi Chris, Thanks for the articles. They are always...

2008-06-27T17:57:00.000+01:00

Hi Chris, Thanks for the articles. They are always helpful.
I am using VS2WSS 1.2, not sure if you've had a play around yet or not. I am facing a few issues:
1. When I create a feature to deploy contenttypes, VSeWSS picks up the contenttype name to be the feature name, rather than the folder name. Even if I modify the folder name and feature name in the manifest, it is still problematic. I had to place it under a different feature for sitecolumns.
2. A site definition cannot be added to a solution, it must be created as a new solution.
3. (Important one for me now) A new site definition solution can have features in the same solution for deployment. However, if the features have feature receivers, VSeWSS creates a new feature with GUID 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 and that dummy feature just calls your feature receiver for your feature. It looks like the developers created the template to scan all feature receivers and assume they will be placed in new separate features. And even if, why on earth are they assigned the GUID 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000!? :|
4. VS hangs when significant change has been made to a feature (or even item inside a feature). CPU goes to 80-90CPU for devenv. Then the sharepoint process also reaches high CPU and doesn't let you deactivate the problematic feature. It just hangs.

I don't know if it is just me or are others facing the same issues.

Any ideas? especially for number 3 above :)

Thanks,
Marten

Hi Tim,

Sorry for the delay in replying. I'...

2008-02-22T07:32:00.000Z

Hi Tim,

Sorry for the delay in replying. I'm not sure why this wouldn't work properly, and it's interesting you say the event receiver has been associated with the list.

How about trying a different approach - in a 'standard' Feature receiver, hook up the event receiver in code, rather than using Feature XML to do this. I'm just interested to know if there's something about the sequence of things which could be having an effect.

I'd also be thinking about using the API to write out the details of the event receiver after each approach, so I can compare what SharePoint believes the definition to be.

Best of luck,

Chris.

Chris,
I'm working on a Site Definition to b...

2008-02-18T23:00:00.000Z

Chris,
I'm working on a Site Definition to be deployed via a SharePoint solution. I'm trying to associate an event receiver with a list that was created in my ONET.xml file. I'm interested in handling the addition of new items.

My event receiver is part of a feature that is activated via a WebFeatures entry in my site's ONET.xml file.

Even though the event receiver feature is activated when the site is created, the event handler is not being called. If I deactivate the event handler feature and then reactivate it, the event handler will be called. Have you seen this problem before?

Thanks.

Cyfred,

Hmm that surprises me - it's been a...

2008-02-17T22:05:00.000Z

Cyfred,

Hmm that surprises me - it's been a long time since I looked at this, but I think you should be able to access the lists in a Feature receiver which runs when sites are created. I show this in Automatically setting custom permissions on new sites.

I can't think of a way to do something like this with a list template (so it would happen when new lists [rather than sites] are created), but it should be possible for site creation.

Can you post the code you used?

Thanks,

Chris.

Chris,

Thanks. I learned a lot from your gr...

2008-02-14T16:38:00.000Z

Chris,

Thanks. I learned a lot from your great articles and demo projects. However, I still can't figure out how to get custom code to execute after a site (or list) is first created.

I am trying to set custom permissions on sub folders of a document library during the site provisioning process. Of course, when I tried doing it using a feature receiver as in your example, the code executed before the site and library were created and therefore the folders could not be modified.

I tried using a ListEventReceiver and an ItemEventReceiver but I can’t find appropriate methods to overload that are activated only after the list or item is created. Any ideas?

Hi Katrien,

Thanks for the feedback!

2007-08-15T13:26:00.000+01:00
Hi Katrien,

Thanks for the feedback!

I went to take a quick look at your blog and ended up reading many of the articles. High quality stuff there - good work yourself!

Chris.

Hello Chris,

I wanted to congratulate you o...

2007-08-15T11:46:00.000+01:00

Hello Chris,

I wanted to congratulate you on your blog. You have posted some fantastic articles.
Keep up the good work!

Katrien

Comments on Chris O'Brien: Site definitions - custom code in the site creatio...

Hi Marten,Sorry for the delay in replying....

Hi Chris, Thanks for the articles. They are always...

Hi Tim,Sorry for the delay in replying. I'...

Chris, I'm working on a Site Definition to b...

Cyfred,Hmm that surprises me - it's been a...

Chris,Thanks. I learned a lot from your gr...

Hi Katrien,Thanks for the feedback! 2007-08-15T13:26:00.000+01:00 Hi Katrien,Thanks for the feedback!I went to take a quick look at your blog and ended up reading many of the articles. High quality stuff there - good work yourself! Chris.