I have an event handler feature that I've built for sharepoint 2007 and have deployed by moving the DLL to the GAC and creating Feature.xml and Elements.xml in the necessary folder and then installing them using the stsadm commands. I'm looking to avoid doing all this and instead have a WSP file that I can run to install the feature automatically in a production environment.
Thanks
Here's how I would proceed to convert your unmanaged items into a managed solution package in Visual Studio 2010:
Create an "Empty SharePoint Project".
Set the deployment target. In Solution Explorer, click the project node and look at the Properties pane. Set the Assembly Deployment Target property between GlobalAssemblyCache and WebApplication. In this case, we'd leave it as the default GlobalAssemblyCache.
Note also there's a handy property called Include Assembly In Package. This is used to exclude your default project assembly from the output package. Why do you need this? If your project contains no code: for example, you're just bundling up some third-party DLLs for deployment.
Replace your SharePoint DLL references. Follow the steps in Adam Macaulay's article to remove the v14 DLLs and add back the v12 DLLs.
Add an Event Receiver item. Right-click your project and point to Add > New Item... and select "Event Receiver". Give the event receiver a proper name and click Add.
Configure the Event Receiver. Visual Studio will connect to your (2010) SharePoint instance, then prompt you with a wizard to walk you through what events you want to handle and for which item types. The end result is an Event Receiver item in your solution with a stubbed-out class that overrides the proper methods, as well as an Elements.xml file that is configured appropriately. If you have both of these files already, you don't really need to complete the wizard "truthfully"... just select the first option, click Finish and let Visual Studio create the Event Receiver and corresponding Feature.
Add your code logic. In Solution Explorer, expand your Event Receiver node to reveal the .CS class and the corresponding Elements.xml. Copy the contents of your existing files into those locations.
Configure the package feature. In Solution Explorer, expand the "Features" node and locate the default feature (Feature1.feature). This was created when you added the Event Receiver item. For clarity's sake, rename the feature to something logical, then double-click it to open the feature in design mode. You should see your Event Receiver has already been added to the right-most pane ("Items in the Feature"). Were there others, you could selectively add/remove items from the feature. Here is the place you set the feature scope between Farm/Site/Web/WebApplication.
Also importantly, while in the Feature designer, notice the Properties pane has a wealth of additional options to set on the Feature. These can't be accessed any other place, so keep in the back of your mind that is where to find them.
Lastly, if you click the Manifest tab at the bottom of the designer, you can preview what the feature manifest will look like. The manifest can be manually edited if need be (effectively disabling the designer), but I have yet to find something I need to do that I can't configure via properties.
Configure the overall package. In Solution Explorer, expand the "Package" node and locate the default package (Package.package). Just as for features, double-click the package to open it in design mode. This is the same UI that features use, allowing you to pick which features will be part of this package. Your event receiver feature should already be added to the right-most pane ("Items in the Package").
Again, same as features, while you're in Package design mode, the Properties pane will make available certain properties that can't be edited elsewhere. Most notably, it is here you should clear the value out of SharePoint Product Version.
Also, we have the same manifest preview available to us via the Manifest tab at the bottom of the screen. This is handy for checking things like SafeControl entries (if you need them) and the like. The Assembly entry should reflect the correct deployment target (in this case GlobalAssemblyCache) that was set on the project.
Finally, the Advanced tab allows you to specify additional assemblies/SafeControl entries to the package, which is helpful if you're bundling up additional DLLs to the default project DLL.
Build your project. Obviously we want to make sure it compiles!
Test the deployment. When I test, I deploy to my 2010 instance first (because it's handy) and double-check that everything has been installed as I expected: DLL in the correct place (BIN/GAC), appropriate Web.config entries created, feature installed at the right scope, feature activates properly, etc.
Package the solution. Point to your Build > Package menu item. The WSP will be placed in the appropriate output folder for the active configuration. Test deploy to your SharePoint 2007 instance.
Check out "Build a SharePoint 2007 Web Part with a Visual Studio 2010 Visual Web Part Project" written by Adam Macaulay. I used this as a reference when I wanted to do the same, and the methodology works great. I've successfully converted a lot of our Visual Studio 2008 projects to 2010 projects, while maintaining compatibility with SharePoint 2007 environments.
I will make one suggestion: if you don't absolutely need the Visual Designer for your web part (i.e. your web part's output is made programmatically), then using the Visual Web Part template adds extra "junk" to your solution which I dislike.
Rather, in step 1 create instead an "Empty SharePoint Project", then right-click on your Project in the Solution Explorer and point to Add > New Item... and select "Web Part" (not "Visual Web Part"). You don't end up with the ASCX control and you can ignore the parts of Adam's tutorial that deal with updating the Register declarations.
This also has the added benefit of capturing the correct name for the web part files up front, so you don't have to rename a bunch of "VisualWebPart1xxx" files.