How to add feature to web template

Question

I have created a web template into my project. I have created a feature and add event receiver where I have added code to create custom list. Now I want to add this feature to the web template. How I add this? I just go to feature file system folder and copied visual studio sharepoint feature file and pasted to web template file system folder. is that correct way? But I am wondering, should I also copied .xml and EventReceiver.cs files of feature? or only sharepoint feature file is enough ?

Answer 1

This article gives you step by step procedure for creating a full Web template. There is one step that also details how to add Features to the template http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vesku/archive/2010/10/14/sharepoint-2010-and-web-templates.aspx#associateion, as besides adding it as part of your project, you also need to specify it in the WebFeatures element or SiteFeatures according to its scope.

Answer 2

Yup in your element.xml file you can add following tag,

<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
  <WebTemplate Name="SimpleSite" Title="Simple site" BaseTemplateID="1" BaseTemplateName="STS" BaseConfigurationID="0" DisplayCategory="Simple sites" />
</Elements>

Your project structure should look something like this,

I personally use WSP Builder which does the job for me, but if you don't know how to do it by yourself then I won't recommend yu using WSP builder straight away.

Here's tutorial for how to use WSP builder for creating a feature.