Site Template - Category

Many times site templates are a good solution to store out-of-the-box customisations. These templates can be retrieved under the 'Custom' tab during the site creation process.

You can however create your own custom tabs, be it with a little workaround: after some searching I found out that the site definition on which the site template is based, apparantly defines the name of tab! Here is how you do it...

1. Create a custom site definition to define the category. You can for example copy the Publishing template.

2. In the webtemp file of you site definition provide the FilterCategories parameter on the Configuration tag. Assign it the string you want to appear on the tab:

< Template Name="CUSTOMSITE" ID="1001" >
< Configuration ID="0" Title="Custom Web Site" Hidden="FALSE"
ImageUrl="/_layouts/images/stsprev.png" Description="Customized site definition for My Team Site"
DisplayCategory="My Site Definitions" FilterCategories="My Custom Site Templates" >
< /Configuration >
< /Template >

3. Install your custom site definition

4. Create a site based on you site definition and customize it.

5. Save your site as template

Your site template will be available on the site creation page under the tab 'My custom site templates'.

A site template is in fact a cab-file with a manifest.xml file in it. In this xml file the site definition ID is stored. Based on this ID the FilterCategories parameter of the site definition is retrieved.