Now that we have the basic concept of a feature, let us build and deploy one that can be activated. You probably know by now that the base directory for SharePoint is C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12 on a standard SharePoint install. There are various names for this directory, and to make it easy for this article we will call it “12.” I use a small batch file in my path called “12.cmd” that has the following line: “@call start explorer "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12"” (without the outside quotes). This makes it very simple to type Start | Run | 12 | <Enter> to get into the 12 directory. As you look around at various directories and files you may notice that SharePoint is nothing if not open to use as a guide. Although I am sure you have also noticed that I did not say easy. None the less, it is there, and you will find as you progress in your learning that SharePoint development may not be especially well documented in all cases. Especially early in your development learning curve, I highly recommend that you locate an existing component that Microsoft has already constructed, and plagiarize it for your needs.

As you already know, deploying a feature is almost always required to get your code out to the SharePoint site and useful to the user. It is quite true that you can place certain files in a SharePoint environment and make them work, but in order to influence very powerful functionality, the act of deploying a feature is usually required.