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Web Parts without SharePoint, ASP.NET 2.0

I've been watching the classes in ASP.NET 2.0 for quite some time and working with the betas to see how we might build applications today so we're positioned for the changes next year (check out the Visual Studio 2005 Beta Documentation site here for all the gory details on the new classes). Something that intrigued me was the WebPart classes they introduced.

Living in the SharePoint space, web parts are the staple at to how to get information out to the presentation layer. In SharePoint they're a little ugly to write, but none the less are effective because the end consumer of the web part can choose how to display it (based on preferences through SharePoint for that particular instance of the web part). This includes appearance, what options they want to display, where they want it on the web page, etc. All of this fits into a nice framework and even allows you to have multiple copies of the web part with them pointing at different views or data sources. One persons way of using a web part may be different then someone else, either by design or organization. For SharePoint, this was the innovation that allows us to build applications on that platform with little effort and target content to specific audiences.

When I saw the WebPart classes introduced in the 2.0 framework I started salivating. Bringing the capabilities of web parts to regular ASP.NET apps meant that I could introduce things like personalization and customization to apps without having to have to do a lot of work. Web Parts are similar to web user controls but provide the functionality to allow users to customize the website by adding, deleting, and moving controls around the page based on WebPartZones. Any ASP.NET server control can act as a Web Part but by creating a custom control derived from the WebPart class you gain access to advanced features.

You can check out the new MSDN paper on Web Parts here. Something to look forward to with your apps and something to keep in mind on how to design your apps today as these new capabilties roll into the framework and enable you to start leveraging more features with less code.

1 Comment

  • Does anyone know what the resultant html looks like if you were to use the web part framework? I found this to be the one thing I really dislike about the current version of sharepoint: code bloat on the client. The main sharepoint javascript include adds something like a couple 100kb to your page for one thing, a noticeable delay on dialup. It also does not work particularly well on more evolved browsers such as Firefox, and adds a whole stew of table tags etc into your markup.



    I'm definitely excited about it though - I know that we will likely be using the Web Parts framework a lot in the future at my company.



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