Create Content Source in SharePoint 2010 Programmatically Using VS 2012

Introduction

Today, in this article let's play around with one of the interesting and most useful concepts in SharePoint 2010.

Question: What is ContentSource?
 

In simple terms "It determines how the content should be crawled using the search service. It might be based upon many options such as URL defined to crawl, type of crawl opted, how and when to crawl".

Step 1: Open SharePoint 2010 Central Administration and navigate to a specific site.

Step 2: Open up Visual Studio 2012 and try to "SharePoint Visual Web Part" project, as in:


 

Step 3: Select "Deploy as a farm solution" as in the following and click the "Finish" button.

 

 

Step 4: The complete code of visualwebpart1usercontrol.ascx looks like this:
 

<%@ Assembly Name="$SharePoint.Project.AssemblyFullName$" %>

<%@ Assembly Name="Microsoft.Web.CommandUI, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>

<%@ Register TagPrefix="SharePoint" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls"

    Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>

<%@ Register TagPrefix="Utilities" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>

<%@ Register TagPrefix="asp" Namespace="System.Web.UI" Assembly="System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" %>

<%@ Import Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint" %>

<%@ Register TagPrefix="WebPartPages" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages"

    Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>

<%@  Control Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="VisualWebPart1.ascx.cs"

    Inherits="CreateContentSourceApp.VisualWebPart1.VisualWebPart1" %>

<div>

    <table style="font-family: Verdana; text-align: center;">

        <tr>

            <td colspan="2">

                <asp:label id="Label1" runat="server" text="Create Content Source - SharePoint 2010 via Visual Studio 2012"

                    font-bold="true" forecolor="Maroon" font-size="Large"></asp:label>

            </td>

        </tr>

        <tr>

            <td>

                <asp:label id="Label2" runat="server" text="Please Enter Content Source Name:"></asp:label>

            </td>

            <td>

                <asp:textbox id="TextBox1" runat="server"></asp:textbox>

            </td>

        </tr>

        <tr>

            <td>

                <asp:label id="Label3" runat="server" text="Please Enter URI:"></asp:label>

            </td>

            <td>

                <asp:textbox id="TextBox2" runat="server"></asp:textbox>

            </td>

        </tr>

        <tr>

            <td colspan="2">

                <asp:button id="Button1" runat="server" text="Create Content Source" forecolor="Orange"

                    font-bold="true" backcolor="Black" onclick="Button1_Click" width="261px" />

            </td>

        </tr>

        <tr>

            <td colspan="2">

                <asp:label id="Label4" runat="server" font-bold="true"></asp:label>

            </td>

        </tr>

    </table>

</div>

 

Step 5: The complete code of visualwebpart1usercontrol.ascx.cs looks like this:
 

using Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration;

using Microsoft.SharePoint;

using System;

using System.ComponentModel;

using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;namespace CreateContentSourceApp.VisualWebPart1

{

    [ToolboxItemAttribute(false)]

    public partial class VisualWebPart1 : WebPart

    {

        // Uncomment the following SecurityPermission attribute only when doing Performance Profiling using

        // the Instrumentation method, and then remove the SecurityPermission attribute when the code is ready

        // for production. Because the SecurityPermission attribute bypasses the security check for callers of

        // your constructor, it's not recommended for production purposes.

        // [System.Security.Permissions.SecurityPermission(System.Security.Permissions.SecurityAction.Assert, UnmanagedCode = true)]

        public VisualWebPart1()

        {

        }

        protected override void OnInit(EventArgs e)

        {

            base.OnInit(e);

            InitializeControl();

        }

        protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

        {

            TextBox1.Focus();

        }

        protected void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

        {

            if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(TextBox1.Text))

            {

                Label4.Text = "Please Enter Some Values";

                Label4.ForeColor = System.Drawing.Color.Red;

            }

            else

            {

                SPSite site = new SPSite("http://win-5c3g1lanj3k:49003/");

                SearchContext context = SearchContext.GetContext(site);

                Content objContent = new Content(context);

                ContentSourceCollection objCollection = objContent.ContentSources;

                if (objCollection.Exists(TextBox1.Text))

                {

                    Label4.Text = "Content Source Already Exsist";

                    Label4.ForeColor = System.Drawing.Color.Red;

                    TextBox1.Text = string.Empty;TextBox2.Text = string.Empty;

                }

                else

                {

                    SharePointContentSource objShareSource = (SharePointContentSource)objCollection.Create(typeof(SharePointContentSource), TextBox1.Text);

                    objShareSource.StartAddresses.Add(new Uri(TextBox2.Text));

                    objShareSource.StartFullCrawl();

                    objShareSource.Update();

                    Label4.Text = TextBox1.Text + " - Content Source Created Successfully";

                    Label4.ForeColor = System.Drawing.Color.Green;

                    TextBox1.Text = string.Empty;

                    TextBox2.Text = string.Empty;

                }

            }

        }

    }

}

 

Step 6: Deploy the solution file and add the new webpart to a SharePoint site.

 

Step 7: The output of the application looks like this:

 

 

 

Step 8: Data entering output of the application looks like this:

 

Step 9: Content source created output of the application looks like this:

 

I hope this article is useful for you.