In this article we can explore Content Type Inheritance, its advantages and example.
Content Type Inheritance
Content Type Inheritance allows creation of new content type from an existing one. This allows reusing of existing content type & metadata columns.
Advantages
Following are the advantages of Content Type Inheritance:
1. Reusability
2. Maintainability
Base Content Type
The Base Content Type is System of ID 0x. All the content types will be inheriting from System as the ultimate parent.
Creating an Inherited Content Type
Now we can try creating an inherited content type. In this expense submission scenario, we are trying to create a content type that inherits from Document. We will be adding additional metadata columns for capturing Amount.
Choose Site Settings > Site content types page > Create option.
Enter Name for the content type & Select the Parent Content Type as Document. Click OK button to continue. In the appearing page choose Add from new site column.
Enter the name of the column as Amount and type as Currency.
Click OK button to continue. Now you can attach the content type to a document library.
Create a Document Library and choose Library Settings > Advanced Settings > Allow management of content types > Yes > Click Ok
Again choose Library Settings page & you should be able to see the content types section. Choose the following option.
In the page choose Custom Content Types and add our Expense Content Type to the add box. Click OK button to continue.
Now try to add a new document to the library. Choose the Expense Content Type from the drop down and you will be able to see the Amount column as shown below.
References
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/eigilm/archive/2007/09/04/inherit-content-types.aspx
Summary
In this article we have explored content type inheritance, advantages and example.