Understanding Web Parts

Understanding Web Parts

Web parts are the fundamental building blocks of SharePoint. A web part consists of a title bar, a frame, and content. Web parts are stored in two files, a web part description file with the extension of .DWP and a web part assembly file with an extension of .DLL. The web part description file is an XML file defining the property settings for installing the web part. Table 12.5 shows the DWP file for the web parts that are based on .NET web custom controls.

Table 12.5. Standard Web Parts

Group /Web Part	Description
Windows Server
HTML view of list	Simple listing of items
Content Editor	Controls for entering content on SharePoint web page
Page Viewer	Container for HTML page
DataView	Tabular view of data
XML/XSL	Viewer for XML data formatted with XSL
Office
Web Capture	Display contents of web page
Spreadsheet	Viewer for Excel spreadsheet
PivotView	Viewer for Excel pivot table
ChartView	Viewer for Excel chart
Grid view of List	Format data rows in grid

The web part architecture is a subset of .NET, as discussed in Chapters 4 and 5. Web part pages are nothing more than ASP.NET web custom controls. As a result, they are as extensible as .NET itself and can be scaled out with large server farms.

You can extend SharePoint with third-party web parts and by creating your own.