Extending features functionnalities?

Question

Features in SP allow us to perform a limited set of operations. Fortunately, Microsoft created the feature receiver class to allow us to perform additional operations.

However, in a more industrialized world, I'd like to extend the features functionnalities with my own features "kind", to avoid adding for each project the same c# code (I'm quite fond of declarative way)

A good example would be a feature definition that automatically create groups.

Sample target xml :

<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
    <Group xmlns="http://my.custom.schema" name="My group">
        <Add Member="domain\user" />
    </Group> 
</Elements>

The idea is to allow a developer to reuse, declaratively, some useful features : creating groups, adding webpart to existing page, etc.

I'm quite sure, however, that my xml file won't be like this, but I'm open to suggestion.

thx

Answer 1

To answer the question (Andy gives a great example on how it should be done though):

No, you can't extend the schema of the feature framework (as you describes). You have to do it in custom code, for example using a Feature Receiver.

Except from adding properties to an element manifest, you could create your own "manifests". Just deploy a custom XML (with whatever schema you like, so you get Visual Studio intellisense) and parse it using Feature Receiver.

Answer 2

Yes, you can do that, for simple settings at least. I've written Feature Receivers to run C# code for my Features, when activated, and then used that in different Features with different property settings.

The Features themselves can then contain properties that you read in within your assembly. In Feature.xml you'd have something like:

<Properties>
  <Property Key="MyProp" Value="SomeValue"/>
</Properties>

Then in your feature receiver, something like:

public override void FeatureActivated(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties)
{
  SPSite site = properties.Feature.Parent as SPSite;
  SPWeb web = site.RootWeb;
  if (web != null)
  {
    SPFeatureProperty someProp= properties.Feature.Definition.Properties["MyProp"];