SharePoint Feature Deployment Tip.

In a previous article, I have shown how to build a SharePoint Feature and here is just a trick that could save you quite some time…

The issues is that when developing a SharePoint features (or any other component), you end up writing, compiling and testing your code many times over. The code you are writing is a separate component that, essentially, has to be taken from Visual Studio, registered in the GAC, plugged into SharePoint and then manually activated.

Then you realize something isn’t working, you make a change to your code, compile and you end up with a new component, but you can’t try it, before turning off and “unplugging” the component that is currently plugged into SharePoint. And that is just the class…if you make changes to anything inside the Features folder, you have to remember to upload that as well…

In other words, it requires several manual steps outside of the development environment that could consume a lot of time.

To make it easier for myself, I have included all those steps as command line commands into Visual Studio, so that when I build my code, it automagically does all of it behind the scenes and out of my way.

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Double click on your “Properties” folder in your Solutions Explores (or My Project in VB.NET)

The corresponding dialog comes up (in a VB.NET project you have to click one more button)…

So, the first thing we want to do is to run some commands to deactivate and uninstall the feature from SharePoint and then unregister it from the GAC (not strictly necessary, but just in case…).

Click on the Edit Pre-Build button and you should be presented with a dialog.

You can use the Macros button to insert the variables or you can just copy the code below (pay attention to substitute the -url parameter with your own, everything else, should be pretty much the same).

cd "%CommonProgramFiles%\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN"

stsadm -o deactivatefeature -name $(ProjectName) -url http://sharepoint/sites/sandbox/
stsadm -o uninstallfeature -name $(ProjectName) -force

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\Bin\GacUtil.exe" /u $(TargetName)

Your dialog should look like this… and you can click OK when done.

Again, we are doing three things here, before we compile any code, we:
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• Deactivate the Feature
• Unistall the Feature
• Unregister from GAC

And fill in the following code, substituting the -url parameter and the appPool name you want to recycle:

"C:\[...]\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\Bin\GacUtil.exe" -i "$(TargetPath)"

cd "$(ProjectDir)"
xcopy "12" "%CommonProgramFiles%\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\" /ys

cd "%CommonProgramFiles%\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN"

stsadm -o installfeature -name $(ProjectName) -force
stsadm -o activatefeature -name $(ProjectName) -url http://sharepoint/sites/sandbox/

%windir%\system32\cscript.exe c:\windows\system32\iisapp.vbs /a "[SPAppPool]" /r

Your Editor should look like this:

So, here we are doing a few more things, all happen after we compile our code; we:
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• Copy (overwrite) our Feature folder to the 12 Hive
• Register our dll in the GAC
• Install the Feature
• Activate the Feature
• Recycle the SharePoint Application Pool

…build your code and view the output window….

In essence, and to conclude, we can make any change anywhere; to our feature, to our classes and then build as usual and Visual Studio 2008 handles everything for us.

Once finished building, all you will need to do is to refresh your browser and test your newly compiled and installed SharePoint Feature…