How to manage CustomActionGroups with more than one feature

copyright from: www.stefan-walter.net

The problem

If you need a CustomActionGroup and link in the site settings, you can create them with a feature and its xml. But there is no way to manage the CustomActionGroups programmatically, if I am wrong on this point, tell me please!

So if I have two features which creates custom site settings links and groups, I get two CustomActionGroups (even with the same id). As workaround I created the following solution architecture to avoid this, but it’s not very handy.

If it’s possible use a base feature for things like constants, helper methods and things like CustomActiongroups because that approach would be much less work.

Solution architecture description

All my visual studio solutions contains three features. Two of the features are hidden and responsible for creating the CustomActionGroup and links, while the third is responsible for the business logic. Both of the hidden features contains a feature property which we need to identify the ‘partner’ feature (look at the xml files to know what I mean).

Feature 1: SiteSettingsGroup

When activating this feature, it creates the CustomActionGroup and the CustomAction (=link).

Feature xml

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<Feature xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/" Hidden="True" Title="SWShowPermissions SiteSettingsGroup" Id="3ba67c2b-9dbe-473a-a5fa-0dbe065525d9" Scope="Site">   <Properties>     <Property Key="Feature_SiteSettingsLink_GUID" Value="796770a4-5845-46e3-8fec-6f34964b0d8d" />   </Properties>   <ElementManifests>     <ElementManifest Location="SiteSettingsGroup\Elements.xml" />   </ElementManifests> </Feature>

Elements xml

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xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">   <CustomActionGroup     Id="stefan-walter.net"     Location="Microsoft.SharePoint.SiteSettings"     Title="$Resources:SWShowPermissions,SiteSettings_GroupTitle"     ImageUrl="_layouts/images/SWShowPermissions/SiteSettings48x48.png"     Sequence="500" />   <CustomAction Title="$Resources:SWShowPermissions,SiteSettings_ActionTitle"     Location="Microsoft.SharePoint.SiteSettings"     GroupId="stefan-walter.net"     Id="SWShowPermissions_SiteSettingsPage"     RequireSiteAdministrator="TRUE">     <UrlAction Url="{SiteUrl}/_layouts/SWShowPermissionsSiteSettings.aspx"/>   </CustomAction> </Elements>

Feature 2: SiteSettingsLink

When activating this feature, it creates the CustomAction (=link).

Feature xml

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<Feature xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/" Hidden="True" Title="SWShowPermissions SiteSettingsLink" Id="796770a4-5845-46e3-8fec-6f34964b0d8d" Scope="Site">   <Properties>     <Property Key="Feature_SiteSettingsGroup_GUID" Value="3ba67c2b-9dbe-473a-a5fa-0dbe065525d9" />   </Properties>   <ElementManifests>     <ElementManifest Location="SiteSettingsLink\Elements.xml" />   </ElementManifests> </Feature>

Elements xml

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xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">   <CustomAction Title="$Resources:SWShowPermissions,SiteSettings_ActionTitle"     Location="Microsoft.SharePoint.SiteSettings"     GroupId="stefan-walter.net"     Id="SWShowPermissions_SiteSettingsPage"     RequireSiteAdministrator="TRUE">     <UrlAction Url="{SiteUrl}/_layouts/SWShowPermissionsSiteSettings.aspx"/>   </CustomAction> </Elements>

Feature 3: Business logic

When activating this feature it activates, depending on necessity one of the other two, and provides the business logic for disposal, in this case my webpart.

ManageSiteSettingsGroupByFeatureActivated

C#

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// call this method in the eventreceiver @ feature activated public void ManageSiteSettingsGroupByFeatureActivated(string featureGroupId, string featureLinkId, string groupId,  Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite siteCollection) {   bool GroupFound = false;     // check each sitecollection feature       foreach (Microsoft.SharePoint.SPFeature CurrentFeature in siteCollection.Features)   {     Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPFeatureDefinition FeatureDefinition = CurrentFeature.Definition;     Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPElementDefinitionCollection ElementDefinitionCollection =     FeatureDefinition.GetElementDefinitions(System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);       foreach (Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPElementDefinition ElementDefinition in ElementDefinitionCollection)     {       // search for a CustomActionGroup and your groupId       if (ElementDefinition.ElementType == "CustomActionGroup" && ElementDefinition.Id == groupId)       {         GroupFound = true;         goto BreakLoops;       }     }   }     BreakLoops:     // onle one =>create group and link   // more than one => create only link   if (!GroupFound)   {     // group not there => create it!     ActivateFeature(siteCollection, featureGroupId);   }   else   {     // group there => create only link!     ActivateFeature(siteCollection, featureLinkId);   } }

ActivateFeature

C#

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public void ActivateFeature(Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite siteCollection, string featureGUID) {   bool FeatureAllreadyThere = false;   System.Collections.Generic.List<Microsoft.SharePoint.SPFeature> CurrentFeatures = siteCollection.Features.ToList<Microsoft.SharePoint.SPFeature>();   foreach (Microsoft.SharePoint.SPFeature CurrentFeature in CurrentFeatures)   {     if (CurrentFeature.DefinitionId == new Guid(featureGUID))     {       FeatureAllreadyThere = true;       break;     }   }     if (!FeatureAllreadyThere)   {     siteCollection.Features.Add(new Guid(featureGUID));   } }

ManageSiteSettingsGroupByFeatureDeactivating

C#

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// call this method in the eventreceiver @ feature deactivated public void ManageSiteSettingsGroupByFeatureDeactivating(string featureGroupId, string featureLinkId, string groupId, Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite siteCollection) {   // group feature activated?   // no: don't care   // yes: deactivate it and activate some other feature to create the group instead if necessary   if (IsFeatureActivated(siteCollection, featureGroupId))   {     List<Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPElementDefinition> FeaturesWithGroup = new List<Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPElementDefinition>();     List<Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPElementDefinition> FeaturesWithLink = new List<Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPElementDefinition>();              foreach (Microsoft.SharePoint.SPFeature CurrentFeature in siteCollection.Features)     {       Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPFeatureDefinition FeatureDefinition = CurrentFeature.Definition;       Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPElementDefinitionCollection ElementDefinitionCollection =       FeatureDefinition.GetElementDefinitions(System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);         foreach (Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPElementDefinition ElementDefinition in ElementDefinitionCollection)       {         if (ElementDefinition.ElementType == "CustomActionGroup" && ElementDefinition.Id == groupId)         {           FeaturesWithGroup.Add(ElementDefinition);         }           if (ElementDefinition.ElementType == "CustomAction" &&       ElementDefinition.XmlDefinition.OuterXml.Contains(groupId) &&       ElementDefinition.FeatureDefinition.Properties[Constants.Feature_SiteSettingsGroup] != null)         {           FeaturesWithLink.Add(ElementDefinition);         }       }     }       // other features which uses that group?     if (FeaturesWithLink.Count > 0)     {       // deactivate link-feature from other solution       DeactivateFeature(siteCollection, FeaturesWithLink[0].FeatureDefinition.Id.ToString());         // activate group-feature from other solution       ActivateFeature(siteCollection, FeaturesWithLink[0].FeatureDefinition.Properties[Constants.Feature_SiteSettingsGroup].Value);     }     else     {       Guid UserCustomActionLogId = Guid.Empty;       foreach (Microsoft.SharePoint.SPUserCustomAction CurrentAction in siteCollection.UserCustomActions)       {         if (CurrentAction.RegistrationId == Constants.UserCustomAction_Logging)         {           UserCustomActionLogId = CurrentAction.Id;         }       }         if (UserCustomActionLogId != Guid.Empty)       {         siteCollection.UserCustomActions[UserCustomActionLogId].Delete();       }     }       // deactivte group-feature of this solution     DeactivateFeature(siteCollection, featureGroupId);   }   else   {     // deactivte link-feature of this solution     DeactivateFeature(siteCollection, featureLinkId);   } }

IsFeatureActivated

C#

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public bool IsFeatureActivated(Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite siteCollection, string featureGUID) {   System.Collections.Generic.List<Microsoft.SharePoint.SPFeature> CurrentFeatures = siteCollection.Features.ToList<Microsoft.SharePoint.SPFeature>();   foreach (Microsoft.SharePoint.SPFeature CurrentFeature in CurrentFeatures)   {     if (CurrentFeature.DefinitionId == new Guid(featureGUID))     {       return true;     }   }     return false; }

DeactivateFeature

C#

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public void DeactivateFeature(Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite siteCollection, string featureGUID) {   bool FeatureAllreadyThere = false;   System.Collections.Generic.List<Microsoft.SharePoint.SPFeature> CurrentFeatures = siteCollection.Features.ToList<Microsoft.SharePoint.SPFeature>();   foreach (Microsoft.SharePoint.SPFeature CurrentFeature in CurrentFeatures)   {     if (CurrentFeature.DefinitionId == new Guid(featureGUID))     {       FeatureAllreadyThere = true;       break;     }   }     if (FeatureAllreadyThere)   {     siteCollection.Features.Remove(new Guid(featureGUID));   } }