SharePoint 2007: The Definitive Guide

Deploying Customizations with SharePoint Solutions

In the previous section, I talked about how you can use the Features framework to extend SharePoint. But at a certain point, you will still need to deploy these features to your SharePoint servers (be it on a single server or for a complete web farm). This is where SharePoint solution packages are used. Solution packages are cabinet (.cab) files with a .wsp filename extension and a manifest file. This package can contain .NET assemblies, feature definitions, site definitions, etc. Building these SharePoint solution packages is a tedious and error-prone process; for a detailed description, take a look at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/aa543741.aspx. Fortunately, there is an alter-native that uses Visual Studio 2005 extensions for WSS.

Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for WSS

Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for WSS 3.0 (the November CTP version is available from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=19f21e5e-b715-4f0c-b959-8c6dcbdc1057&DisplayLang=en) contains a number of tools for developing custom SharePoint applications: Visual Studio project templates for Web Parts (the successor to the Web Part project templates for WSS 2.0/SPS 2003), site definitions, list definitions, and, last but not least, a standalone utility program, the SharePoint Solution Generator. After you have installed Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for WSS 3.0 (VSEWSS), you will get the additional Visual Studio 2005 Project Templates, as shown ...