Although I do MOSS 2007 / WCMS development since 2.5 years I was wondering on how to limit the AvailableWebTemplates and AvailablePageLayouts  using onet.xml. I have done it before but I forgot so I will use this post to list the possibilities I have found and to unload things from my brain… ;)

As usual here is the scenario: I have a website (also works for collaboration).

When I chose Create Site or Create Page I want to show a limited set of templates to the user.

Limiting templates by user interface

As you know you can limit the choices for a site collection if you go to Page layouts and site templates:

There you can chose to limit page layouts or site templates or both. 

Limiting AvailableWebTemplates and AvailablePageLayouts by onet.xml

Page layouts are provisioned by the Publishing layouts feature and ProvisionedFiles.xml:

You can see the page layouts and file names. Since modifying the out of the box files is not a good idea and also not supported by Microsoft you have to use a different approach. In the following examples I want to have

• Site templates of the kind BLANKINTERNET and
• Page layouts of kind article.

In order to limit this you can use the following values for the properties AvailableWebTemplates and AvailablePageLayouts:

<Feature ID="22A9EF51-737B-4ff2-9346-694633FE4416">

    <!-- Publishing -->

    <Properties xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">

        <Property Key="ChromeMasterUrl" Value="~SiteCollection/_catalogs/masterpage/

            BlueBand.master"/>

        <Property Key="WelcomePageUrl" Value="$Resources:cmscore,List_Pages_UrlName;/

            default.aspx"/>

        <Property Key="PagesListUrl" Value=""/>

        <Property Key="AvailableWebTemplates" Value="*-BLANKINTERNET#1;

            *-BLANKINTERNET#2"/>

        <Property Key="AvailablePageLayouts" Value="~SiteCollection/_catalogs/

            masterpage/ArticleLeft.aspx:~SiteCollection/_catalogs/masterpage/

            ArticleLinks.aspx:~SiteCollection/_catalogs/masterpage/ArticleRight.aspx"/>

        <Property Key="AlternateCssUrl" Value="" />

        <Property Key="SimplePublishing" Value="false" />

    </Properties>

</Feature>

After creating a new site collection I have the limited templates: 

The following value was not working for me:

<Property Key="AvailablePageLayouts" Value="Template1.aspx:Template2.aspx"/>

This value was not working for me too:

Deployment

Ok at which time can I limit the available choices?

• If you are using the user interface can limit the templates at any time.
• If you change the onet.xml of an already deployed solution in the 12 hive with an iisreset you can’t change the available templates.
• If you change the onet.xml in your solution, deploy it afterwards and create a new site collection you can limit the templates.
• If you change the onet.xml in your solution and do an upgrade of the solution you can’t change the available templates.

That are the things I know so far… have a nice day. :)