Any time you deploy custom development artifacts (style sheets, assemblies, web parts, etc.), it is best practice to package everything up into one or more features, then wrap them up into a SharePoint solution (.wsp) file. The only problem with creating features is actually defining the feature definition files – the syntax and nuances of each manifest type is difficult to remember, and there are so many that writing these from scratch is next to impossible. Personally I’ve done enough that I have templates I always use, but occasionally I’ll need to create a new type of feature and I find myself search MSDN for documentation on what to throw into the XML files. Enter CAML.NET IntelliSense.
John Holliday recently introduced CAML.NET IntelliSense, which is a Visual Studio add-in that provides IntelliSense support for each type of file that requires to to sling around CAML. This add-in adds the necessary XML schema files to Visual Studio for you.
Now when I create a feature.xml file, I have full IntelliSense support:
This works for all types of feature manifest files too, such as your elements manifest:
It even allows you to pick a specific value if there are only a limited set of valid values:
As I’ve reiterated in multiple blog posts, you should absolutely be deploying your custom development artifacts as features and solution packages. Hopefully this makes it a little easier!
Posted by Aaron Varga
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Visual Studio,
.NET