The objective:
Ever occurred to you that you loose track of what solutions relates to what features enabled at site or site collection level? Yeah I've been in that situation too.
The objective is to add new field to Site features & Site Collection features page (/_layouts/ManageFeatures.aspx) showing a link of Solution name for each feature.
Introduction:
First, let's have a look for on urls of different pages:
Site features: /_layouts/ManageFeatures.aspx
Site Coll. features: /_layouts/ManageFeatures.aspx?Scope=Site
WebApp features: /_admin/ManageWebAppFeatures.aspx?WebApplicationId={Id}&IsDlg=1
(from CA -> select WebApp -> Manage Features)
Farm features: /_admin/ManageFarmFeatures.aspx
(from CA -> System Settings -> Manage farm features)
In this post, I am going to customize 'ManageFeatures.aspx' page only. However, the same procedure below can be applied to other pages. (Note: influenced by code from following post , I decided that I should start customizing my solution http://blogs.msdn.com/b/varun_malhotra/archive/2012/01/31/sharepoint-2010-get-solution-file-name-from-feature-activated.aspx).
OOB Page Details:
Let's first understand contents of ManageFeatures.aspx page and how it works:
- Fields: FeatureIcon(image), FeatureTitleDescription(Text), FeatureActiveButton(button), FeatureActiveState(text)
- Page calls a user control (~/_controltemplates/FeatureActivator.ascx) to render the table of features
<asp:Content ContentPlaceHolderId="PlaceHolderMain" runat="server">
<wssuc:FeatureActivator runat="server" ID="featact" />
<SharePoint:FormDigest runat=server />
</asp:Content>
- Page also calls another control ( ~/_controltemplates/FeatureActivatorItem.ascx) to do the feature logic
<AlternatingItemTemplate>
<wssuc:FeatureActivatorItem
DataItem='<%# Container.DataItem %>'
AlternatingItem="true"
runat="server"
/>
The feature logic is at code files:
- Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.FeatureActivator.cs
- Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.FeatureActivatorItem.cs
Customization Steps for SP2010 & SP2013:
1. First, make sure you backup the original manageFeatures.aspx page & user controls files (FeatureActivator.ascx & FeatureActivatorItem.ascx).
2. Make a copy for the following: page & user controls, then rename all with postfix with "Ex":
ManageFeaturesEx.aspx, FeatureActivatorEx.ascx, FeatureActivatorItemEx.ascx
3. Do the following changes to edit 3 files:
- In ManageFeaturesEx.aspx file:
| Set the Src parameter to refer to FeatureActivatorEx.ascx <%@ Register TagPrefix="wssuc" TagName="FeatureActivator" src="~/_controltemplates/FeatureActivatorEx.ascx" %> |
- In FeatureActivator.ascx file:
| 1. Set the Src parameter to refer to FeatureActivatoritemEx.ascx <%@ Register TagPrefix="wssuc" TagName="FeatureActivatorItem" src="~/_controltemplates/FeatureActivatorItemEx.ascx" %> 2. Add new column header ("Solution") under <colgroup> add: <col width="10%" /> 3. Add new column content: *** For SP2010 *** Under <tr> add: <th scope="col" id="FeatureSolution" class="ms-vh2" style="padding-bottom: 4px"><SharePoint:EncodedLiteral runat="server" text="From Solution" EncodeMethod='HtmlEncode'/></th> *** For SP2013 *** Under <tr> add: <th scope="col" id="FeatureSolution" class="ms-vh2-nofilter" style="padding-bottom: 4px"><SharePoint:EncodedLiteral runat="server" text="From Solution" EncodeMethod='HtmlEncode'/></th> |
- In FeatureActivatorItem.ascx file:
| 1. Only for SP2013: First Add these 2 lines to import SharePoint namespaces <%@ Import Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint" %> <%@ Import Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration" %> 2. insert the following code in page after the header tags & before first <td> tag: <script runat = "server"> SPSite Site = SPContext.Current.Site; SPSolutionCollection FarmSolutions = SPContext.Current.Site.WebApplication.Farm.Solutions; private string getSolutionNameFromFeatureDef(SPFeatureDefinition featDef) { string result = string.Empty; Guid FeatureSolutionID = featDef.SolutionId; if (FeatureSolutionID != Guid.Empty) { SPSolution solution = FarmSolutions[FeatureSolutionID]; if (solution != null) { result = solution.SolutionFile.DisplayName; } } return (result); } public string getSolutionName() { string result = string.Empty; try { Guid FeatureID = new Guid(this.FeatureId); SPFeatureDefinition CurrentFeatureDefinition; SPFeature CurrentFeature = Site.Features[FeatureID]; if (CurrentFeature != null) { // feature is activated at site collection CurrentFeatureDefinition = CurrentFeature.Definition; } else { // feature is activated at Farm or other level CurrentFeatureDefinition = SPFarm.Local.FeatureDefinitions[FeatureID]; } result = getSolutionNameFromFeatureDef(CurrentFeatureDefinition); } catch (System.Exception) { // do nothing when exception } return (result); } </script> 3. Then add a new <td> cell at the end of file: <td class="<% Response.Write(this.CssClass); %>" style="padding-top: 4px; padding-bottom: 4px; "> <table width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0"> <tr><td class="ms-vb2"><% Response.Write(getSolutionName());%></td></tr> </table> </td> Note: for SP2013 make sure to postfix any '_layouts/' with '15' to target the new hive |
4. Copy the 3 files to hive (14 for SP2010 or 15 for SP2013) in all related WFE servers:
- Copy controls FeatureActivatorEx.ascx, FeatureActivatorItemEx.ascx to \TEMPLATE\CONTROLTEMPLATES folder
- Copy page ManageFeaturesEx.aspx to \TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS folder
That's it! no need for IIS reset. Now you can enjoy having the solution info across all sites collection & site features across the farm.
Note: the solutions column will be empty when no wsp found for target feature (example: for OOB MS features that were stapled in with site definition). Also, solutions column will not support user solutions (sandboxed solutions).
