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Question:
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Explain the concept of "Feature" in SharePoint?
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Posted By:
Avi
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Date:
26 October 2009 06:41:04 AM
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Answer:
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SharePoint "Feature" is a container of various defined extensions for SharePoint. It's a set of XML files which are deployed to web front ends, that can be bundled in site definitions or individually turned on in SharePoint sites.
Lets consider a scenario, if you want to add a web page together with a list in an SharePoint website. One way to achieve this is to add web page and create list manually. But the recomended approach is to create a "Feature" which will have the web page and list definition in it. Now you just need to install this "Feature" in the SharePoint server and activate it at the rerespective SharePoint site. On activate, the web page will be added and list will be created automatically at specified location within the site. So the key point is that the Feature in SharePoint is a way to bundle all of these extensions together and get them provisioned into a SharePoint site.
However, not every behavior or kind of change you would want to implement can be expressed in XML. For this reason, you can also define a feature receiver which contains callbacks which will get fired when the Feature is installed or activated.
Features are designed to be a way for developers to express building blocks for SharePoint, and for site admins to pick and choose new functionality they can add to their site. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and WSS have about 128 Out of the box "Features" defined. |
Posted By: eTechPlanet |
Date: 26 October 2009 06:41:04 AM |
One of the major concepts in WSS3.0 is the "Feature". The Feature is a container of various defined extensions for SharePoint. It’s a set of XML files which are deployed to web front ends, that can be bundled in site definitions or individually turned on in SharePoint sites.
The typical scenario is if you want to deliver a new "Ratings" capability for SharePoint. You want to make it easy for someone to tag any particular item with a rating, and then aggregate those ratings and provide statistics on them. To implement Ratings, you’d need to develop a custom list for storing ratings, and web parts for displaying those ratings. To make this happen in SharePoint, you’d deliver that as a Feature. The Feature would contain a list definition for defining how Ratings are stored, a list instance for defining the common store of Ratings, a web part definition for showing highly rated items, and perhaps a dashboard web page for aggregating different types of rating views together. From the end users perspective, they could "activate" (turn on) your Ratings Feature in their site, and the Ratings list and web parts would be made available to them. (yes, ok, this is just a mythical sample. I'll try to come up with code to illustrate this in a future post.) The key point is that the Feature in SharePoint is a way to bundle all of these extensions together and get them provisioned into a SharePoint site.
Features have a scope, and can be associated with various scopes in SharePoint: web, site, web application, or farm. Depending on the scope, different types of individual elements can be defined in XML. For example, you can associate a List Instance at the Web Scope (every provisioned web will get a list provisioned along with it), but you can’t associate a List Instance at the Farm scope. |
Posted By: Johndecruse |
Date: 10 February 2010 02:47:52 AM |
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