title: Custom SharePoint List View - can I put it in a feature (WSP)?
body: <p>Here's my situation:</p>
  
  <p>I'm working in SharePoint 2007 Enterprise, I have a feature that creates a list for me when I deploy and activate it. My usual workflow thus far has been to deploy the solution, activate it, then open up SharePoint Designer to customize the list.</p>
  
  <p>My customizations are typically pretty complex, but I'll keep things simple. In this case, let's just say that I edit <code>AllItems.aspx</code>, convert the data view to an XSLT data view, then I add one column with static text.</p>
  
  <p>I've used a few different tools (SPSource, VSeWSS, SharePoint Manager, OCDExportList, etc) to extract my custom <code>schema.xml</code> and all the default views, but I have yet to have any luck figuring out where the the code for <code>AllItems.aspx</code> is now that it's been customized.</p>
  
  <p>When I extract (using any of the tools above) <code>AllItems.aspx</code> is no different than the default. The <code>&lt;View&gt;</code> element in schema.xml is reduced to one line, for example:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;View DefaultView="TRUE" 
        MobileView="TRUE" 
        MobileDefaultView="TRUE" 
        Type="HTML" 
        FPModified="TRUE" 
        DisplayName="All Documents" 
        Url="Forms/AllItems.aspx" 
        Level="1" 
        ContentTypeID="0x" /&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I'm really stuck here... I've got no clue what to do. Is it even possible? It would save me a great amount of time (and documentation) if I could include my customizations in my feature.</p>
  
  <p>If there's any other info I'm missing that would help, let me know... thanks!</p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <p><strong>Latest findings</strong>:</p>
  
  <p>I've found out a bit more in the past couple hours. If I save the list as a List Template, then save the .stp file locally as a .cab file I can extract its contents. One of the files is <code>manifest.xml</code> which contains the <code>schema.xml</code> as well as a few other sections.</p>
  
  <p>One of those sections is a <code>&lt;webparts&gt;</code> section that has a <code>&lt;webpart&gt;</code> for each view. Each of those <code>&lt;webpart&gt;</code> elements contains a really long string of characters... no clue what those characters actually represent.</p>
  
  <p>The important thing is that I think any custom views have to actually be Web Parts if deployed as part of a solution... but I'm not positive.</p>