Professional SharePoint® 2007 Development

A.9. Summary

VSeWSS is an efficient way for SharePoint developers to eliminate the redundant tasks that can sometimes make SharePoint development a tiresome effort. VSeWSS Visual Studio Project and Item Templates, such as the Site Definition, Content Type, List Definition, and Web Part, allow the creation of boilerplate code files that you can use to reduce framework integration code, allowing you to spend more time developing custom code. The embedded SharePoint solution deployment options support the familiar F5 runtime debugging and deployment scenario through the use of SharePoint Features and bundled SharePoint solutions. Using the embedded deployment functionality resolves two of the principal grievances in legacy SharePoint development: runtime debugging issues and the need for quick, easy deployment mechanisms that can be integrated directly into the development environment.

The VSeWSS templates can be extended by cloning the existing project templates to make new custom templates available from the Visual Studio interface. Doing so allows you to create SharePoint development templates that allow the implementation of coding standards, helper libraries/classes, and predefined coding attributes that can be distributed across an enterprise.

The SharePoint Solution Generator provides an easy way to take existing sites and lists within a live SharePoint environment and pull them back into an IDE that developers are familiar with by autogenerating the Visual Studio project ...