#h5yr!

I don't have an answer for you, but I am interested in whatever answers you get (I too am thinking of building a starter kit soon).

What version of Umbraco are you using (my assumption is the latest... 7.3.1)?

Also, since starter kits are really just a collection of files and a config file, I wonder if you might solve some of your issues by manually modifying the config file. Just a thought.

Also, perhaps it would be a good idea to create some tickets on issues.umbraco.org for each of the specific problems you've noticed. I would be interested in seeing a resolution as soon as possible, and that's one of the better ways of going about it (assuming the issues you are seeing are due to bugs).

Right!

Thanks to @LeeKelleher I've a solution for the first part of my question above:

Package Creation

Here's the snippet for any and all to use - please note, this will be updated in my instance yet it's the best start I can give back to the community!

  using System;
  using System.Linq;

  using Umbraco.Core;
  using Umbraco.Core.Events;
  using Umbraco.Core.Logging;
  using Umbraco.Core.Models;
  using Umbraco.Core.Models.EntityBase;
  using Umbraco.Core.Services;

  namespace KIT.Helpers
  {
    public class CreateKitExtensions : ApplicationEventHandler
    {
      protected override void ApplicationStarted(UmbracoApplicationBase umbracoApplication, ApplicationContext applicationContext)
      {
        ContentService.Saved += ContentService_Saved;
      }

      private static void ContentService_Saved(IContentService sender, SaveEventArgs<IContent> e)
      {
          //Make sure we're on Level 1 on all saves otherwise welcome to node hell
          if (e.SavedEntities.All(x => x.Level != 1)) return;
          //The ContentService acts as a "gateway" to Umbraco data for operations which are related to Content.
          var service = ApplicationContext.Current.Services.ContentService;
          //We always know the root is id -1 - let's find her children
          var rootNodeChildren = service.GetChildren(-1);

          // check if the root node's children has a node with the Control Panel's doctype
          if (!rootNodeChildren.Any(x => x.ContentType.Alias.InvariantEquals("KIT_Global__Options")))
          {
            // if not, then create the Control Panel node
            MakeControlPanel();
          }
      }

      private static void MakeControlPanel()
      {
        try
        {
          var service = ApplicationContext.Current.Services.ContentService;
          var controlPanel = service.CreateContent("Control Panel", -1, "KIT_Global__Options");

          service.SaveAndPublishWithStatus(controlPanel);

          // once saved/published, check that it has an ID...
          if (controlPanel.HasIdentity)
          {
            // ... then create the Site Settings node
            MakeSiteSettings(controlPanel);
          }
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
          LogHelper.Error<CreateKitExtensions>("MakeControlPanel", ex);
        }
      }

      private static void MakeSiteSettings(IEntity node)
      {
        try
        {
          var service = ApplicationContext.Current.Services.ContentService;
          var siteSettings = service.CreateContent("Site Settings", node.Id, "KIT_Global__SiteSettings");

          service.SaveAndPublishWithStatus(siteSettings);
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
          LogHelper.Error<CreateKitExtensions>("MakeSiteSettings", ex);
        }
      }
    }
  }

As I resolve these issues I'll post my solutions here for future reference - feel free to ask any questions but we did try to comment the niggly parts!

#h5yr

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