Chapter 5: Building Web Parts

Overview

Throughout our investigation of SharePoint Portal Server (SPS), we have used web parts to integrate systems and display information. Although SPS ships with a number of useful web parts, the included set is unlikely to handle every situation because each organization has a different set of systems to integrate. Therefore, you will inevitably have to create your own web parts.

In this chapter, we will examine the fundamental construction and deployment of web parts. Before we begin, however, you will want to make sure that you have all the required tools in place to create web parts. If you followed the instructions in Chapter 2, you should already have Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 installed on SPSPortal .

Along with Visual Studio, you should download and install the web part template for SharePoint Services. The template is available from msdn.microsoft.com and is named WebPartTemplatesforVSNetSample.exe . The templates provide both C# and VB.NET projects.

Although you do not have to have the template to create the web part, it simplifies the process by providing a new project type and some starter code. The examples in this chapter assume you are using the template, but I will explain all of the code requirements in detail whether they are generated by the template or coded by hand. Throughout the examples, I will use both C# and VB.NET so that you can get the fundamentals regardless of your language preference.