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I have created a new Team site inside my sharepoint enterprise server 2013, and from "Site Setting">>"Navigation" i created a new link named "Test Link" which reference the defualt view of a list:-

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then i save this site as template, then i create a new site based on this site temple. but when i access the new site navigation, i found that my Link have been converted into Heading as follow:-

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Now i need my Link to be created a Link inside the new sites, because link is dynamic unlike the Heading. so for example if i change my defualt view for a list then the Link will automatically reference the new defualt view,, while the Heading is static so it will be keep referencing the old list view. also if i rename my list then the Link will automatically show the new list name ,unlike the Heading which will keep showing the old list name !!

so can anyone adivce on the following:-

  1. How i can preserve my Link inside the site template, so it will not be created as Heading?
  2. If point one is not possible.. then how i can force the Heading to dynamically/automatically adjust its title and url based on the changes i made on the list?
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1 Answer 1

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This is bug in SharePoint Saving the site as a template Microsoft reported Issue does not retain navigation settings.

Resolution A
In the new site that has been created from the saved template, manually change the navigation node settings to get the desired behavior. This can be done by navigating to the site settings page from the "Site Actions" menu, and clicking on "Navigation" under the "Look and Feel" section.

Resolution B

  • Download template WSP file.
  • Change downloaded WSP extension to folder by cabsdk (download CABSDK from microsoft. There you need 2 files CABARC.exe and EXTRACT.exe).
  • use the extract.exe to extract the WSP to a folder.
  • Open folder and find onet.xml file.
  • Find NavBars element in onet.xml and do required changes and save.
  • Use the CABARC.exe to zip it back to WSP extension. Regenerate WSP solution file form CAB folder.
  • Deploy it.

Resolution C
Follow this blog. It's SharePoint 2010 example but also works with SharePoint 2013.

  • Download template WSP file.
  • Import solution file into Visual Studio (Install SharePoint developer tools).
  • Do necessary changes in required places.
  • Build Visual Studio solution and deploy to SharePoint.
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  • thanks for the link but it is talking about SP2010 while i am using SP2013,, also in the link it mentioned "_certain navigation items that were created as a "Heading" will appear as links on the new site. _" while in my case the situation is the opposite as Link will be converted as Headings.. in all ways your "Resolution A" is a bit hard to achieve as i created the site template to prevent manual modifying the new sub-sites,, for ResolutionB can you advice what kind of modification i need to do inside the wsp file??
    – John John
    Commented Jan 6, 2017 at 9:43
  • can you advice on my above comment please?
    – John John
    Commented Jan 7, 2017 at 0:14
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    I updated one more option. You have to check different xml configuration files in solution. Start checking onet.xml >NavBars element
    – asim nadeem
    Commented Jan 7, 2017 at 1:32
  • i know how to edit a site template and also where the quick launch links is located inside the site template... but my question is what type of modifications i need to do to preserve the quick launch's navigation links inside my site template ,, so they will not get converted into navigation headings?
    – John John
    Commented Jan 7, 2017 at 16:15
  • If you open it in visual studio and open Onet.xml. Navigate to the required element and click inside the element attributes , then press space it will show you all available attributes.
    – asim nadeem
    Commented Jan 7, 2017 at 17:07

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