How to delete a Page layout in Master page and layouts library in SharePoint 2010/2013

On activating a feature, a new page layout will be deployed to the Master page and layouts library. On the other way, when I deactivate the feature the solution should delete the deployed page layout and associated content types etc so that I can ensure that no turds are left in the farm.

But to my surprise I was not able to delete the page layouts I created either through code or manually in the document library. It was throwing a very misguiding error "Server error: This item cannot be deleted because it is still referenced by other pages".. After spending a hour or so I figured that there is no page in my site referencing this Page Layout.

Deletion Approach:-

If you have created any custom pages using above created custom page layout. Then before deleting custom publishing page layout. Delete all create pages then it will allow to delete custom page layout.

Alternative Trick…

But how do I delete it then?. There is a trick to do it.
1. Open the Master page gallery in windows explorer mode.
2. Create a subfolder and name it 'Delete' (you can give any name to it).
3. Cut and paste your layout.aspx page to the folder.
4. Delete the folder now.

So we confirmed that manually we were able to delete the page layouts. Lets try it programmatically.

SPWeb web=properties.Feature.Parent as SPWeb;
SPSite sitecollection= web.site;

PublishingWeb web=PublishingWeb.GetPublishingWeb(web);

SPFolderCollection folders=web.Lists["Master Page Gallery"].RootFolder.SubFolders;

SPFolder folder =folder.add("Delete");

PublishingSite psite=new PublishingSite(sitecollection);

SPContentType ctype=psite.ContentTypes["SampleCType"];

PageLayoutCollection pagelayouts=psite.GetPageLayouts(ctype,true);

PageLayout layout=pagelayouts["/_catalogs/masterpage/SampleLayout.aspx"];

layout.ListItem.File.MoveTo(folder.url+"/SampleLayout.aspx");

folder.Delete();

Step by step creating News Page Layout using Content Type in SharePoint 2013

Step 1- Open Visual studio 2013 and create new project of type SharePoint Solutions…”SharePoint 2013 Empty Project”.

Step 2- As we will deploy our solution as a farm solution in our local farm on our local machine.

Step 3- Our solution will be as the picture blew and we will add a three folder for “SiteColumns”, “ContentTypes”, “PageLayouts” and "Resources" .

Step 4: - Starting by adding a new item to “SiteColumns” folder.

Step 5 - After we adding a new site column and renaming it. Add the following columns as we need to make the news layout NewsTitle, NewsBody,NewsBrief,NewsDate and NewsImage.

then add the blew fields and you will note that I use Resources in the DisplayName and the Group.

<Field

ID="{9fd593c1-75d6-4c23-8ce1-4e5de0d97545}"

Name="NewsTitle"

DisplayName="$Resources:SPWorld_News,NewsTitle;"

Type="Text"

Required="TRUE"

Group="$Resources:SPWorld_News,NewsGroup;">

</Field>

<Field

ID="{fcd9f32e-e2e0-4d00-8793-cfd2abf8ef4d}"

Name="NewsBrief"

DisplayName="$Resources:SPWorld_News,NewsBrief;"

Type="Note"

Required="FALSE"

Group="$Resources:SPWorld_News,NewsGroup;">

</Field>

<Field

ID="{FF268335-35E7-4306-B60F-E3666E5DDC07}"

Name="NewsBody"

DisplayName="$Resources:SPWorld_News,NewsBody;"

Type="HTML"

Required="TRUE"

RichText="TRUE"

RichTextMode="FullHtml"

Group="$Resources:SPWorld_News,NewsGroup;">

</Field>

<Field

ID="{FCA0BBA0-870C-4D42-A34A-41A69749F963}"

Name="NewsDate"

DisplayName="$Resources:SPWorld_News,NewsDate;"

Type="DateTime"

Required="TRUE"

Group="$Resources:SPWorld_News,NewsGroup;">

</Field>

<Field

ID="{8218A8D9-912C-47E7-AAD2-12AA10B42BE3}"

Name="NewsImage"

DisplayName="$Resources:SPWorld_News,NewsImage;"

Required="FALSE"

Type="Image"

RichText="TRUE"

RichTextMode="ThemeHtml"

Group="$Resources:SPWorld_News,NewsGroup;">

</Field>

Step 6 : - Creating Content Type, we will adding new Content Type to the folder ContentTypes.

Step 7- We must make sure to select the base of the content type “Page”.

Step 8- Open the content type and adding our new columns to it.

Step 9 - Open the elements file of the content type and make sure it will look like this the code blew.

Note: we use Resources in the Name, Description and the group of the content type.

<ContentType ID="0x010100C568DB52D9D0A14D9B2FDCC96666E9F2007948130EC3DB064584E219954237AF39007A5224C9C2804A46B028C4F78283A2CB"

Name="$Resources:SPWorld_News,NewsContentType;"

Group="$Resources:SPWorld_News,NewsGroup;"

Description="$Resources:SPWorld_News,NewsContentTypeDesc;"

Inherits="TRUE" Version="0">

</FieldRefs>

</ContentType>

Step 10- Add new Module to the PageLayouts folder after that we will find sample.txt file then rename it “NewsPageLayout.aspx”.

Step 11- Adding the the code blew to this “NewsPageLayout.aspx”.

<%@ Page language="C#" Inherits="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.PublishingLayoutPage,Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing,Version=15.0.0.0,Culture=neutral,PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>

<%@ Register Tagprefix="SharePointWebControls" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>

<%@ Register Tagprefix="WebPartPages" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>

<%@ Register Tagprefix="PublishingWebControls" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.WebControls" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>

<%@ Register Tagprefix="PublishingNavigation" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Navigation" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>

<asp:Content ContentPlaceholderID="PlaceHolderPageTitle" runat="server">

<SharePointWebControls:FieldValue id="FieldValue1" FieldName="Title" runat="server"/>

</asp:Content>

<asp:Content ContentPlaceholderID="PlaceHolderMain" runat="server">

</asp:Content>

Step 12- Adding the following code to the elements file of the “NewsPageLayouts” module.

</File>

</Module>

Step 13- Don’t forget to add the Resources Folder then adding the resource file with the name “SPWorld_News.resx” as we used it the previous steps and adding the blew keys to it.

News News

NewsBody News Body

NewsBrief News Brief

NewsContentType News Content Type

NewsContentTypeDesc News Content Type Desc.

NewsDate News Date

NewsGroup News

NewsImage News Image

NewsPageLayout News Page Layout

NewsTitle News Title

Step 14- Finally Deploying the solution.

Step 15- The next steps will explain how we add the “news content type” to the page layout through SharePoint wizard we will do these steps pragmatically in the next article.

A- Go to Site Contents then Pages , Library, Library Settings