Chapter 4. SharePoint Features and the Solution Framework
In the second generation of SharePoint, Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 (WSS), Microsoft provided many different opportunities for developers to customize sites as well as augment sites using custom code. These various points of integration provided developers with many opportunities, but seasoned SharePoint developers became familiar with a few pain points with the second generation of SharePoint. These included issues such as promoting code reuse, incorporating new functionality or changes in existing sites, empowering site owners to add/remove this functionally without developer involvement, and deploying (as well as updating) custom code and files.
Thankfully, in the latest SharePoint release, WSS 3.0, Microsoft addresses these issues in two ways: Features and solutions. Features facilitate much more code reuse and provide developers with an easy way to not only introduce new and updated components and functionality into existing SharePoint sites, but also to empower site owners and administrators to implement it without developer involvement. The solution framework provides developers and administrators with a way to easily deploy custom code and files throughout a SharePoint implementation, including a SharePoint farm containing multiple servers such as load-balanced Web front-end (WFE) servers. This chapter explores the details of the Feature and solution frameworks, and provides some guidance on how to best create ...
