Chapter 8. Web Parts and the Portal Framework

Customization is a big topic in application development. Users like to be able to change the layout, appearance, and behavior of their applicationsfine-tuning them to better suit their business practices and working preferences. However, while this has become common in mainstream applications like the Microsoft Office programs and Windows itself, it has been rare to find Web sites that support this type of feature.

But all that changes in ASP.NET 2.0, as you've seen with the personalization features in earlier chapters. In this chapter, you'll see even more ways that users can customize their views of your Web applications and Web pages. We'll be looking at:

• The portal framework that is now a fundamental part of ASP.NET 2.0

• What Web Parts are and how you can use them in your pages

• Interacting with Web Parts using server-side code

• How the new version of Visual Studio will support these features

We start with a look at what Web Parts and the portal framework actually are and how they relate to building portal-style applications with ASP.NET 2.0 (and on different software platforms as well).