.. include:: /../common/authors.txt

Content Type

Content Types are used in SharePoint to classify information. Omnia Foundation makes it easy to create content type definitions by using attributes that can be provisioned using an Omnia feature or referenced in a List definition.

Content Types are hierarchical, meaning that new content types needs to inherit from an existing one. The base content type in SharePoint is Item.

Create a Content Type

1. In your Visual Studio project, right click and choose Add -> New item
2. From the Omnia group, choose the Content Type template and give your content type class a name. Click Add

When doing this a new class is created in your project, inheriting from Omnia.Foundation.Extensibility.ContentTypes.BuiltIn.Item. This class represents the Item content type in SharePoint.

Inheritance

To make your content type inherit from another content type than Item, you can either choose to inherit from another class in the Omnia.Foundation.Extensibility.ContentTypes.BuiltIn or from any other content type class in your project.

Properties

The content type class is also decorated with a ContentType attribute. This attribute tells Omnia that your class should be treated as a content type and contains a number of required properties:

Attribute	Description
id	A unique GUID for the content type, adds as part of the ContentTypeId
name	The name of the content type. Could be a Localization string or a plain text string
Group	The group of the content type
Description	The description of the content type. Could be a Localization string or a plain text string

There is also a large number of optional properties that can help you configure the content type the way you want.

Adding fields

To add fields to your content type you add properties to your class:

[FieldRef(typeof(Preamble))]
public string Preamble { get; set; }

In the FieldRef attribute you supply the class of an existing Field

In the FieldRef attribute you can also specify a number of optional properties, to for example make the field required or hidden:

[FieldRef(typeof(Preamble), Required = true)]
public string Preamble { get; set; }

Provisioning

As mentioned, a content type can be provisioned directly via an Omnia feature. This way the content type will be created as a Site Content Type.

It can also be provisioned via a List definition class. This way the content type will be a List Content Type.

Provision Site Content Type

In a site scoped feature, in the OnSharePointArtifactMappings(SharePointArtifactMapper artifactMapper) method, add the following code

public override void OnSharePointArtifactMappings(SharePointArtifactMapper artifactMapper)
{
        artifactMapper.MapToContentType<MyContentTypeClass>().
        ApplyChangeOn(Ctx.Web);
}

You can also tell Omnia to add the content type to a list:

public override void OnSharePointArtifactMappings(SharePointArtifactMapper artifactMapper)
{
        artifactMapper.MapToContentType<MyContentTypeClass>().
        ApplyChangeOn(Ctx.Web).
        AddToList<Omnia.Foundation.Extensibility.Lists.Builtin.Pages>();
}

Provision List Content Type

In a List class find the public IEnumerable<ContentTypeBase> ContentTypes property.

Decorate this property with a ContentTypeRef attribute

[ContentTypeRef(typeof(MyContentTypeClass))]
public IEnumerable<ContentTypeBase> ContentTypes
{
        get { return GetContentTypes(); }
}

In the ContentTypeRef attribute, supply the class of your content type, or the ContentTypeId of an existing content type.

The ContentTypeRef attribute also contains a number of optional parameters to allow you to for example make the content type the default one for the list.