Creating a NuGet Package to Automate the SharePoint Solution Creation Process.

In this blog post I will talk about how to automate the SharePoint solution creation process by making use of NuGet. As an example I will use NuGet to automate the SharePoint Branding process in Visual Studio.

NuGet is a package management system for your develop environment. NuGet makes the process of importing .NET libraries into your current project a lot easier. You can find more information about NuGet on: http://www.nuget.org

The idea to automate some processes came from the fact that, for me, every branding project starts with the same manual operations to prepare my Visual Studio project. These steps include:

Adding a SharePoint Module for my masterpage and theme;
Adding mapped folders to the “Images” folder and “Styles” folder.

Requirements

Before you can start, you will need to download the following files:

NuGet Visual Studio add-in: http://www.nuget.org

Install this to your Visual Studio environment.

NuGet command line program: http://nuget.codeplex.com/releases/view/58939

Make sure NuGet.exe is added to your path.

Creating a NuGet package

Creating a NuGet manifest file

The first thing you need to do is creating a “nuspec” or NuGet manifest file. This can be done by opening a command console, and run the following command:

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nuget spec EStruyfSP2010Branding

This command creates the “nuspec” file in the current path.

When you open the file you have something like this:

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<?xml version="1.0"?>
<package xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/packaging/2010/07/nuspec.xsd">
  <metadata>
    <id>EStruyfSP2010Branding</id>
    <version>1.0</version>
    <authors>elst</authors>
    <owners>elst</owners>
    <licenseUrl>http://LICENSE_URL_HERE_OR_DELETE_THIS_LINE</licenseUrl>
    <projectUrl>http://PROJECT_URL_HERE_OR_DELETE_THIS_LINE</projectUrl>
    <iconUrl>http://ICON_URL_HERE_OR_DELETE_THIS_LINE</iconUrl>
    <requireLicenseAcceptance>false</requireLicenseAcceptance>
    <description>Package description</description>
    <tags>Tag1 Tag2</tags>
    <dependencies>
      <dependency id="SampleDependency" version="1.0" />
    </dependencies>
  </metadata>
</package>

This is my cleaned up version:

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<?xml version="1.0"?>
<package xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/packaging/2010/07/nuspec.xsd">
  <metadata>
    <id>EStruyfSP2010Branding</id>
    <version>1.0</version>
    <title>SP2010 Branding Starter Files</title>
    <authors>E.Struyf</authors>
    <owners />
    <requireLicenseAcceptance>false</requireLicenseAcceptance>
    <description>This package contains the starter files for a SP2010 Branding project.</description>
    <summary />
    <language />
  </metadata>
</package>

Adding SharePoint Content

When the NuGet manifest file is created, your next step will be to build the NuGet package by adding the SharePoint Content. An easy way to do this is by creating a new Visual Studio Project and adding the necessary SharePoint Modules, Mapped Folders, etc.

My branding project looks like this:

Go to the location where you created your NuGet manifest file and create a folder with the name “content”. This folder will be used to add the SharePoint content (Modules, mapped folders), so that it can automatically be added when installing the package to your project.

In my example I have copied the “_catalogs” module, the mapped “Images” folder, and the mapped “STYLES” folder to my NuGet “content” folder. Be sure that you also copied the “*.spdata” files. If you did not copy them, Visual Studio will recognize the content as common folders.

Build the NuGet Package

When everything is added to the content folder, you are ready to build your package. Go back to the command console, and run the following command:

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Nuget pack EStruyfSP2010Branding.nuspec

When the command is complete, you end up with a new file named: EStruyfSP2010Branding.1.0.nupkg.

To check the package you can rename the “nupkg” extension to “zip” and open it.

Testing the NuGet Package

Adding a package source

NuGet allows you to add new Package Sources in Visual Studio. These sources can be linked to a local folder on your server/PC, so you do not need to publish them to the NuGet site.

To add a new Package Source, open Visual Studio with NuGet installed. Click “Tools” -> “Options” -> “Package Manager” -> “Package Sources”.