CHUVASH.eu

I found an easy way to provision multiple pages. Create a module. Add an aspx.file (e.g. default.aspx). In the elements file define nodes for every page. Path should be the same for all pages, but the Url should be your destination page.

The “default.aspx” (name doesn’t matter) can contain content, or just one @Page directive if Publishing feature is available:

<%@ Page Inherits="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.TemplateRedirectionPage,Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing,Version=14.0.0.0,Culture=neutral,PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>

In the Element.xml define all your pages:

In every File node you can add webparts, here is an example:

<File Path="ABunchOfPages\default.aspx"
	Url="Cars.aspx"
	Type="GhostableInLibrary">
  <Property Name="Title" Value="About cars" />
  <Property Name="PublishingPageLayout"
		Value="~SiteCollection/_catalogs/masterpage/MyLayout.aspx, Text page" />
  <Property Name="ContentType"
		Value="$Resources:cmscore,contenttype_welcomepage_name;" />
  <AllUsersWebPart WebPartZoneID="Top" WebPartOrder="2">
	<![CDATA[
	   <WebPart xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebPart/v2">
		  <Assembly>Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=14.0.0.0,
				Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c
		  </Assembly>
		  <TypeName>
			Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.ContentEditorWebPart
		  </TypeName>
		  <Title>About cars</Title>
		  <Description>Test</Description>
		  <FrameType>None</FrameType>
		  <IsVisible>true</IsVisible>
		  <Content
			xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebPart/v2/ContentEditor">
				Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet
		  </Content>
		  </WebPart>
	   ]]>
  </AllUsersWebPart>
</File>

Of course we could do it in the onet.xml file, but in this case I wanted to show how to do it with an additional module. It is a good way to control the content which is provisioned. And your onet.xml is not so big.

The last thing is to add a web scoped feature which will have this module and add the new feature reference into a site configuration (SiteFeatures section) in the onet.xml.

In this example we provision pages to Pages library ($Resources:cmscore,List_Pages_UrlName;):

<Module Name="ABunchOfPages"
    Url="$Resources:cmscore,List_Pages_UrlName;"
    Path="">

It works fine to use our default.aspx with redirection directive (TemplateRedirectionPage):

<%@ Page Inherits="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.TemplateRedirectionPage,
   Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing,Version=14.0.0.0,
   Culture=neutral,PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>

But what if we want to save these pages in a different location? Perhaps use the same url as the module name (ABunchOfPages). Inside Sharepoint describes how to do this. When you deploy the module with the custom url (ABunchOfPages) a new folder in the web root folder will be created and the new pages will be created in this new folder.

The problem is, you won’t be able to use the redirection ability and if you navigate to one of your new pages an unexpected error will be shown.

In the log file there are more details:

System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
	at Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.TemplateRedirectionPage.ComputeRedirectionVirtualPath(TemplateRedirectionPage basePage)
	at Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.TemplateRedirectionPage.get_RedirectionUrl()
	at Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.TemplateRedirectionPage.ProcessRequest(HttpContext context)
	at System.Web.HttpApplication.CallHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute()
	at System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously)	92f74450-a50b-416d-9b03-25ef15e3c845

So you have to use another aspx-file to provision your pages. Or you can create another publishing document-library in the same web, although it is not recommended according Microsoft.