Create Publishing page from module

Question

I have create page layout and uploaded it to the master page gallery in a module, now I want to create a publishing page from this page layout, I know I should use a module and upload an .aspx page to the pages library. But what's the content of this .aspx page will be? for my page layout I know the exact html and everything, but for my publishing page what should I write inside? should I create an .aspx page with minimal html?

Answer 1

You can provision publishing pages using modules.

Add a new module to your project, and add the module to a feature.

Add a file to the module (in this case named TemplatePage.aspx) with the following content:

<%@ Page
Inherits="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.TemplateRedirectionPage,
Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing,Version=12.0.0.0,Culture=neutral,
PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>
<%@ Reference VirtualPath="~TemplatePageUrl" %>
<%@ Reference VirtualPath="~masterurl/custom.master" %>

In the Elements.xml of the module you can use the following structure:

<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
  <Module Name="Pages"
    Url="$Resources:cmscore,List_Pages_UrlName;">
    <File Name="Page1.aspx" Url="Page1.aspx"
      Path="TemplatePage.aspx" Type="GhostableInLibrary"
      IgnoreIfAlreadyExists="TRUE">
      <Property Name="Title" Value="Lipsum"/>
      <Property Name="PublishingPageLayout"
        Value="~SiteCollection/_catalogs/masterpage/MyLayout.aspx,
        /_catalogs/masterpage/MyLayout.aspx"/>
      <Property Name="ContentType" Value="My page CT" />
      <Property Name="ContentTypeId"
        Value="0x010100C568DB52D9D0A14D9B2FDCC96666E9F200794..." />
      <Property Name="PublishingPageContent"
        Value="Lorem &lt;strong&gt;ipsum&lt;/strong&gt;
        &lt;em&gt;test add&lt;/em&gt;" />
    </File>
  </Module>
</Elements>

As you can see you can modify the values for ContentType, ContentTypeId, PublishingPageLayout, Title and PublishingPageContent to match your project.

Waldek Mastykarz has an excellent and detailed walk-through here