More useful and (free!) SharePoint "Features" available at http://www.CodePlex.com/Features
About 6 months ago, I posted a guest blog entry by Scot Hillier, a SharePoint MVP, about the shared source Features project that he had started on CodePlex. Since then, several others (Brendon Schwartz, Dan Attis, Renaud Comte, and Stacy Draper) have joined the project, and I'm very happy to post this update from Scot about additional features that are now available. I look forward to seeing even more features become available over the next 6 months as the project grows. If you would like to contribute to the project, please contact Scot via the http://www.codeplex.com/features project site.
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Overview
As developers in the SharePoint community learn more about the capabilities of SharePoint, new opportunities arise for creating tools and customizations. In the vast majority of cases, these new tools and solutions are created as “features.” A correctly developed SharePoint feature consists of a self-contained solution that can be deployed as a single WSP file and activated/deactivated on the Site Settings | Site Administrator | Site Features page. WSP files provide many of the same benefits with SharePoint as MSI files do with installations of rich client Windows-based programs. This “one-touch” deployment paradigm makes features packaged as WSPs the best method for SharePoint customization.
The idea behind the http://www.codeplex.com/features project was to create a single location where the SharePoint community could find solutions to nagging issues in SharePoint – along with the source code, of course! In this post, I’ll highlight some of the latest additions to the project.
Features to Support Development
Several new features are aimed at making SharePoint development easier. These features allow you to more easily debug components either directly or by getting better error messages.
AJAX.Config
This feature uses a custom event receiver to update the web.config file to use Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 with SharePoint sites. This is useful for configuring sites in both development and production scenarios.
Debugger
This feature adds a new menu item to the Site Actions menu that starts the debugger. Simply select the option in SharePoint and the debugger will start. This makes it easy to debug components running within the site. This feature was announced several months ago, but since it's so useful for developers, I want to highlight it again here.
Debug Config
This feature uses a custom event receiver to update the web.config file. When activated, it will disable custom errors and enable debugging and stack tracing for the web application.
Features for Lists
Task management in SharePoint can be tedious and confusing for end users. Because tasks can exist in any site, users have difficulty locating all of their tasks, setting up alerts, and organizing them. Two new features in the project help users better manage tasks. Along with these new features, the project also contains a list type for opening links in new windows, which was one of the most often requested features from the community.
Task Alert
This feature automatically sets up an alert for someone when a new task is assigned to them. When a new task is assigned, the feature checks to see if the person (or people) in the “Assigned To” field has an alert set up on the task list. If not, then a new alert is set up automatically.
Task Copy/Move
This feature allows you to move a task from one list to another. A “Copy To...” menu item appears on the Edit Control Block for a task item. When selected, you can then choose the list where the task will be copied. If the task is versioned, all versions are copied. Once the task has been copied, it can then be deleted, resulting in a task move from one list to another.
Window Links
This feature is a custom Links list that allows you to control all aspects of opening the link in a new window. The following screen shot shows the options.
Features for Administration
Many of the features in the project are targeted at administrators. Recently, we added new features for managing users under forms-based authentication (FBA) as well as managing custom additions to web configuration files.
Manage FBA Users
This feature adds a page to the People and Groups section of Site Settings for sites that use the SqlAuthenticationProvider. It allows you to add, edit, and delete users.
Manage Configuration Modifications
This feature allows you to manage the web.config modifications that are applied across the server farm. This feature runs in the Central Administration site and can be found under the Global Configuration section on the Operations tab. When you open it, you’ll see all of the current configuration modifications as shown below:
You can click on any modification to view its details, and then delete it if you like.
You can also add new modifications. The picture below shows how to add a new entry to appSettings.
I hope that you will find at least a few of these features to be useful in the development, deployment, or administration of SharePoint solutions. If you have ideas or source code for other features that you would like to contribute to the project, please leave a comment here or on the Features discussion list at http://www.codeplex.com/features/Thread/List.aspx.
Scot Hillier, Founding Contributor
http://www.codeplex.com/features
