SharePoint 2010 - Set the default Page Layout programmatically.

Goal - To set "CustomDefaultPageLayout.aspx" as the default page layout, so the next time when some one creates a "New Page" our custom page layout is applied to the page and not system's.


Follow the below given steps to achieve the goal.

• First of all make sure that the site we have to apply the page layout is a "Publishing Site."
• Create a Visual Studio Empty Project.
• Add a Feature Receiver
• Add new reference of "Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing".
• Apply this on the top of the class.
  

  using Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing;
  using System.Linq;

• On feature activation use the below given code.
  

  private void SetDefaultPageLayout(SPWeb _web)
  {
      PublishingWeb _pubWeb = PublishingWeb.GetPublishingWeb(_web);
      if (_pubWeb != null)
      {
          PageLayout _pageLayout = (from _pl in _pubWeb.GetAvailablePageLayouts()
                                      where _pl.Name == "CustomDefaultPageLayout.aspx"
                                      select _pl).FirstOrDefault();
          _pubWeb.SetDefaultPageLayout(_pageLayout, true);
          _pubWeb.Update();
      }
  }

• Call the function "SetDefaultPageLayout" from the Feature Activation event.