Project DescriptionA very simple feature creator for MOSS publishing sites. Having created numerous custom columns, content types, page layouts, master pages and uploaded the necessary stylesheets and images it can be a tedious task deploying this to test, stage and production servers. Well here you can create a feature to deploy all the custom content from your own MOSS publishing enabled site to any number of environments.
Simply click to select the columns, content types, page layouts, master pages and more....Enter a name for the feature and click OK! The relevant files are created and saved straight to a document library of your choice, ready for downloading and deploying. It really is that simple!
Use this tool for deployment or even as a quick backup for all your custom added content.
The project uses the
Starznet WSS / MOSS Build Tasks to create a deployable solution (WSP) that can be added to a server farm. This installs and activates the feature and deploys the necessary dependent files - no need to manually copy files to any directories.
Update 7th December 2008 : Now with ZIP support - the generated feature files and dependecies are zipped up and stored in a target document library - no need to download each file individually or use explorer viewUse STSADM -o addsolution -filename
PATH TO StarznetFeatureGenerator.wsp to add the solution, then go into Central Administration solution management to deploy the solution.
Once the solution has been installed navigate to the Site Collection Features and activate the Starznet - Publishing Site Feature Generator
A new link will appear in the Site Settings page
Use this link to navigate to the Site Provisioning Utility main page
This page should be fairly self explanatory, simply select all the various parts of your publishing site that you want wrapped into a deployable feature. A fair amount of common sense is needed to ensure content types that rely on custom fields have the necessary columns also selected. At the moment there is no validation for checking that selected page layouts and content types also have the dependent columns and associated content types selected - just be careful!
Enter the additional feature details, select a target document library to save the feature files, and then click OK.
Once the feature has been created you will be automatically be redirected to the document library selected on the configuration page where you will see the feature folder
Inside the folder you can see the files that make up the feature.
To save the entire folder structure to your own hard drive simply open the document library in Explorer mode and copy and paste the root folder. You should be able to copy this into the FEATURES folder in your MOSS 12 hive, use STSADM to install the feature and activate as necessary,