Microsoft SharePoint 2007 Technologies

16.6 Feature Stapling 491

Chapter 16

another Feature, and no additional Features depend upon that Feature, then

both Features are automatically deactivated.

Additionally, when you deactivate a Feature, the functionality that the

Feature provided is removed from the area in which the Feature was deacti-

vated. For example, when we deactivate our HelloWorld Feature, the Hello

World action disappears from the Site Actions menu.

16.5.5 Uninstalling a Feature

Features are uninstalled using the uninstallFeature operation of the

stsadm.exe command line utility. Figure 16.23 shows the command required

to uninstall our HelloWorld Feature; you can specify either the name of the

Feature folder, using the –

name switch, or the path to the Feature.xml file,

using the –

filename switch.

When a Feature is uninstalled, the Feature definition is removed from

the

Objects table within the SharePoint configuration database.

16.6 Feature Stapling

Feature stapling allows you to associate, or staple, Features to an existing site

definition or custom site definition. For example, if you had a custom Fea-

ture that set the master page, the cascading style sheet, and the theme to

custom settings, and you wanted these settings to apply when a site was cre-

ated using a specific site definition, then you would use a Feature staple to

staple your custom Feature to that site definition. A Feature staple is itself a

Figure 16.21

Deactivate Feature

using browser UI.

Figure 16.22

deactivateFeature

command.

Figure 16.23

uninstallFeature

command.

492 16.6 Feature Stapling

Feature; it comprises a Feature folder, a Feature definition file, and an ele-

ment manifest file. The element manifest file uses the

FeatureSiteTem-

plateAssociation

element to associate the Feature with a specific site

definition. The

FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation element has two

attributes:

Id and TemplateName. The Id attribute must map to the ID of

an existing Feature, and the

TemplateName attribute is used to specify the

site definition configuration (site template) to which the Feature will be sta-

pled. Figure 16.24 shows an example of a Feature staple that staples a brand-

ing Feature to the site SpysRUs site template. If you want to make your

Feature available to all newly created sites, regardless of the site definition

from which they were created, you can staple your Feature to the GLOBAL

site definition. Figure 16.25 shows an updated version of the element mani-

fest used in our previous example; the

TemplateName has now been replaced

with the GLOBAL setting. Note that you do not need to specify a configu-

ration number when stapling to the GLOBAL site definition.

As you can see, Feature stapling allows you to staple a Feature to exist-

ing site definitions, even the typically untouchable Microsoft-generated site

definitions. This ability provides an extremely easy way of adding additional

functionality and customizations without having to reproduce an entire site

definition. Feature stapling provides easier manageability and maintainabil-

Figure 16.24

Feature stapling.

Figure 16.25

StapleSites.xml