The CKS - Development Tools Edition for Visual Studio 2012 and 2013 is a collection of Visual Studio templates, Server Explorer extensions and tools providing accelerated SharePoint 2010/2013 development based on Microsoft's SharePoint 2010/2013 development tools.
The Community Kit for SharePoint: Development Tools Edition extends the Visual Studio 2012/2013 Preview SharePoint project system with advanced templates and tools. Using these extensions you will be able to find relevant information from your SharePoint environments without leaving Visual Studio. You will have greater productivity while developing SharePoint components and you will have greater deployment capabilities on your local SharePoint installation.
This version is targeted for users running SharePoint 2010 or SharePoint 2013. You only need this version regardless of SharePoint edition or version.
Exploration extends the new SharePoint Explorer with advanced information about SharePoint sites such as the installed Web Parts and Master Pages or the Feature dependencies and elements. Also included in the Explorer are a variety of import functions to bring existing SharePoint items into your active solution.
The Content area includes advanced templates such as Linq to SharePoint, Custom Action or Delegate Control. Become extra productive while developing sandboxed solutions using the SharePoint Full Trust Proxy. Utilise the SharePoint Console Application project template to quickly build SharePoint code.
Our enhanced Deployment functions give you the ability to utilise quick deployment and almost a dozen other productivity enhancing deployment steps, including automated deployment (per file on change deployment).
Find the complete overview of all the CKS Development Tools Edition features on thedocumentation tab of the project site.
What's new in this release
The current 1.2 release includes the following features:
Improvements to Quick Deploy - Performance improvements with a switch from calling into GACUtil.exe and returning to direct GAC API calls to improve performance. Also removal of 'custom tokenisation' for now until a more performant version is tested.
Copy Assembly Name - From the context menu of a SharePoint project you can now get the full assembly name copied to the clipboard.
Cancel adding features - Automatic cancellation of new SPIs being added to features. You can turn this off via the CKSDev settings options.
Find all project references - Find where a SPI/Feature is being used across the project from the project context menu.
Activate selected features - Setup which package features you want to auto-activate from the project context menu.
Quick deploy GAC/Bin deployment configuration - A deployment configuration which runs the pre-deployment command line, recycles the application pool, copies the assemblies to either the BIN or GAC depending on their packaging configuration, and runs the post-deployment command line.
Quick deploy Files deployment configuration - A deployment configuration which runs the pre-deployment command line, recycles the application pool, copies the SharePoint artefacts to the SharePoint Root, and runs the post-deployment command line.
Quick deploy all deployment configuration - A deployment configuration which runs the pre-deployment command line, recycles the application pool, copies the assemblies to either the BIN or GAC depending on their packaging configuration, copies the SharePoint artefacts to the SharePoint Root, and runs the post-deployment command line.
Upgrade deployment configuration - A deployment configuration which runs the pre-deployment command line, recycles the application pool, upgrades the previous version of the solution, and runs the post-deployment command line.
Attach To IIS Worker Processes Step - Which attaches the debugger to the IIS Worker process during deployment.
Attach To OWS Timer Process Step - Which attaches the debugger to the OWS Timer process during deployment.
Attach To SPUC Worker Process Step - Which attaches the debugger to the User Code process during deployment.
Attach To VSSPHost4 Process Step - Which attaches the debugger to the Visual Studio deployment process during deployment.
Copy Binaries Step - Copies the assemblies during deployment to either Bin or GAC.
Copy To SharePoint Root Step - Copies the files during deployment to the SharePoint Root.
Install App Bin Content Step - Copies the files to the App Bin folder during deployment.
Install Features Step - Installs the features during deployment.
Recreate Site Step - Recreates the deployment targeted site during deployment.
Restart IIS Step - Restarts IIS during deployment.
Restart OWS Timer Service Step - Restarts The SharePoint Timer service during deployment.
Upgrade Solution Step - Upgrades the solution during deployment.
Warm Up Site Step - Calls the site to get SharePoint to warm it up during deployment.
ASHX SPI template - Produces a full trust ASHX handler.
Basic Service Application template - Produces a full trust basic service application.
Branding SPI Template - Produces a full collection of SP2010 branding elements baseline items.
Contextual Web Part SPI template - Produces a contextual ribbon enabled web part.
WCF Service SPI template - Produces a full trust WCF Service endpoint.
Web template SPI template - Produces a SP2010 web template.
This v1.2 release is focused on providing the key areas of functionality from the VS2010 versions in a consolidated and refactored format. Other features such as the item templates will be coming asap.
Contribute
If you have a great idea for a deployment tool, template or any other thing that you believe increases developer productivity, contribute! Contact theProject team or add your idea to thediscussion forum. Use the#CKSDev tag to follow and connect with the team on Twitter.
About the Community Kit for SharePoint
The Community Kit for SharePoint is a set of editions, components, tools and recommended documentation for SharePoint development. You are currently viewing the edition project site for the Development Tools Edition. To learn about the other editions and components you can go tohttp://www.communitykitforsharepoint.org/default.aspx.
For the latest version of the CKS charter document, clickhere
