Question

Background:

I have a site that I deploy my content type too and this site has many sub-sites. The content type will be used by each sub-site.

I have a module that I want to push custom New/Edit/Display forms (Web part pages) when my feature is deployed and activated.

I want to set these forms to the content type directly (FormUrls), but I do not know how or where I should deploy my forms so that I can reference them correctly.

I know how to do this with _layouts and I also know how to use the list definition schema (setup path), but I cannot use either of these due to version requirements (We try to avoid _layouts when possible). We are required to maintain the list and form history at the time it was created. When a new version of the list/form is released, the new content type will inherit the previous and the new form will be set to the new content type.

We also cannot use Infopath (Licensing issues).

I have tried deploying the forms using a module to the Url of the content type (_cts/Content Type Name), but I cannot seem to get the content type path correct. Here is an simple example (I cannot give the actual code or I would, sorry).

Module

<Module Name="Module1" Url="_cts/Content Type" RootWebOnly="FALSE">
  <File Path="Module1\MyNewForm.aspx" Url="Module1/MyNewForm.aspx" />
</Module>

Content Type

<FormUrls xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/v3/contenttype/forms/url">
      <New>Module1/MyNewForm.aspx</New>
</FormUrls>

The above example does not work and I’ve tried removing the Module -> Url attribute so it is deployed at the root and that also did not help. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

You can use any sharepoint library for store forms.
First, you need to deploy page to library/folder by ‘Module’, elements.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
  <Module Name="Forms" Url="SiteAssets">
    <File Path="Forms\CustomDisplay.aspx"
     Url="CustomDisplay.aspx" 
     Type="GhostableInLibrary" />
  </Module>
</Elements>

Then it can be referenced as form for content type, elements.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

 <Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">

 <ContentType ID="0x01080100AB22BE524D7344D89DBB2A27AAF5AB3C00924B45ABBDA240DA8C5B32541E9184AE"
           Name="CTName"
           Group="CustomCTypes"
           Description="Decription"
           Inherits="FALSE"
           Hidden="FALSE"
           Version="0">
<FieldRefs>
</FieldRefs>

<XmlDocuments>
  <XmlDocument NamespaceURI="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/v3/contenttype/forms/url">
    <FormUrls  xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/v3/contenttype/forms/url">
      <Display>SiteAssets/CustomDisplay.aspx</Display>
    </FormUrls>
  </XmlDocument>
</XmlDocuments>