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Creating and deploying a custom site definition for MOSS 2007

by Adam Conde

I’ve spent the last couple weeks trying to create a custom site definition for SharePoint 2007. If you’re unsure of what a custom site definition is and how it differs from a site template, there is a good MSDN article which explains both.

I found a bunch of good resources out there that describe the steps in creating a custom site definition, but none gave me everything I needed. I will give a brief rundown of the steps that I followed, and provide links to the articles that I referenced.

  1. Download WSPBuilder and the WSPBuilder Extensions for Visual Studio. (I believe you need to install the Visual Studio SDK prior to installing the extensions)
  2. In Visual Studio create a new WSPBuilder Project.
  1. I don’t know if it is supposed to be this way or just a problem that I was having, but it did not create the entire 12 hive folder structure like I thought it would. To fix this, I ran WSPBuilder.exe –createfolder true from the command line, and then added the resulting folder structure to my Visual Studio project.
  • Then follow these steps: Creating a Custom WSS Site Definition [2007]
    1. In the example from that article, the author uses a folder named SampleMPS. In your Visual Studio project, you will be using the \12\TEMPLATE\ directory.
  • Now, I wanted to associate a custom masterpage to my site definition. The steps I followed to do that are outlined here: http://statto1974.wordpress.com/2007/04/30/using-a-custom-master-page-in-a-site-definition/. Put your master file in the \12\TEMPLATE\SiteTemplates\v2DefaultOrg\ (where v2DefaultOrg is whatever you named your site definition) directory, beside the default.aspx file. Below is a screenshot of my project folder structure. You’ll notice the eight folders in my FEATURES folder. The first is a feature that, when activated, associates a site with a new custom masterpage (read more). The remaining seven are custom list definitions. I have two site definitions in my project 1) v2DefaultOrg and 2) v2DefaultUser.
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  • Once you have everything setup as you like. Right-click on the project and choose WSPBuilder –> Deploy. Then go into SharePoint and test out your Site Definition by creating a new site using it.
  • When you’re ready and it’s time to package it up and deploy it on your production SharePoint farm. Right-click on the project again and choose WSPBuilder –> Create deployment folder.
  • Then go to your project BIN folder and you’ll see a deploy folder. Inside this folder you should see a setup.exe and a .wsp file. The .wsp file is the Solution Package, and the setup.exe is from the SharePoint Solution Installer project on CodePlex. You’ll need to create and modify a configuration file as described on the SharePoint Solution Installer home page.
  • Then you simply need to run the setup.exe and the project should install on your SharePoint farm.

    • As I’ve found creating and deploying a custom site definition can be frustrating. Hopefully the information I’ve provided will be of help to someone.

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