Site Definitions Demystified - Creating a custom site definition having Custom webparts

Article
03/31/2008

There are two confusing terms in MOSS 2007, site templates and site definitions.

A site template is a .stp file which contains only the difference of changes from the

Original site definition. A user wants to install a custom .stp file must have a site

Definition installed from which the .stp file was saved.

(Note: In MOSS B2, you can only save top level sites. i.e. site collection as a site

Template. This is a bug and will be corrected in B2TR.)

A site definition on the other hand is a complete definition with a directory structure

Containing .aspx files and important Onet.xml file.

We will create here a simple site definition which when applied shows a custom webpart

On page.

The site definitions are stored in this directory

\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\SiteTemplates

Each site definition needs an entry in webtemp*.xml file which are located here

\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\1033\XML

To begin with:

Make a copy of this directory

Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\SiteTemplates\sts

In the Site Templates directory and name it sample. This will create a site definition named sample having the

Same structure as team site i.e. sts directory.

Now to make it appear in the create site list, create a file named webtempsample.xml in the directory

\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\1033\XML

And paste these contents

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

</Template>

</Templates>

Reset the IIS and try creating the new site. We will get a custom tab while choosing the site definition which

Three choices.

Now the important bit, we will now modify the site definition file onet.xml and place a custom webpart in the definition

So that when site definition is created, a custom webpart appears on the page.

I assume we have a custom webpart .dll and .dwp file ready.

Open the onet.xml file from

\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\SiteTemplates\sample\xml

This is the main file of the site definition and it stores the structure of whole site definition.

Observe this section of the file, the <modules> tag.

<Modules>
<Module Name="Default" Url="" Path="">
<File Url="default.aspx" NavBarHome="True">
<View
List="$Resources:core,lists_Folder;/$Resources:core,announce_Folder;"
BaseViewID="0" WebPartZoneID="Left" />
<View
List="$Resources:core,lists_Folder;/$Resources:core,calendar_Folder;"
BaseViewID="0" RecurrenceRowset="TRUE" WebPartZoneID="Left"
WebPartOrder="2" />
<AllUsersWebPart WebPartZoneID="Right" WebPartOrder="1"><![CDATA[

<Assembly>Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c</Assembly>

<TypeName>Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.ImageWebPart </TypeName>

<FrameType>None</FrameType>;

<Title>$Resources:wp_SiteImage</Title>

<iwp:ImageLink>/_layouts/images/homepage.gif</iwp:ImageLink>

</WebPart>

]]></AllUsersWebPart>

<View
List="$Resources:core,lists_Folder;/$Resources:core,links_Folder;"
BaseViewID="0" WebPartZoneID="Right" WebPartOrder="2" />
<NavBarPage Name="$Resources:core,nav_Home;" ID="1002" Position="Start" />
<NavBarPage Name="$Resources:core,nav_Home;" ID="0" Position="Start" />
</File>
</Module>

If we try to understand this section, we also have an .aspx file in our site definition directory. If we observe the .aspx

File, we will see that it defines two webpart zones, left and right . See the snippet below of .aspx file :

The ids of webpart zones are left and right respectively.

<td>

<tr>

<WebPartPages:WebPartZone runat="server"
FrameType="TitleBarOnly" ID="Left" Title="loc:Left" />

&nbsp;

</td>

<WebPartPages:WebPartZone runat="server"
FrameType="TitleBarOnly" ID="Right" Title="loc:Right" />

&nbsp;

</td>

The onet.xml defines which webpart goes into these zones and the order of those webparts. If we see the line number

Five above, it defines the right webpart zone and places the .dwp file of the out of the box ImageWebPart in the

CDATA section.

Now delete everything in the CDATA section and place the .dwp file of your custom webpart. We will also have to place

The .dll file in the web application bin directory.

Now again reset the IIS and create a new site based on this definition.

When we will create a site out of this customized site definition, we will get a custom webpart already created on the site

On the right zone.

There are lots of possibilities in customization of onet.xml file. We could have modified the left webpart and zone and

Place another webpart there. Or we could have modified an .aspx file and added more webpart zones.

If that's not enough, we could have added our own custom .aspx file and added its entry in the modules section of the

Onet.xml file. The possibilities are endless !

Mail me your comments and suggestions. I can mail the custom site definition discussed here to the interested.

Site Definitions Demystified - Creating a custom site definition having Custom webparts

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