Web Parts

Web parts are some of the most versatile components in SharePoint 2010 development. They are a fundamental building block in SharePoint that allow you to reuse component. You can add components to many different pages in a SharePoint site. One of the differences in working with web parts as compared to more traditional styles of ASP.NET development is this component reuse. In ASP.NET development, typically pages are constructed to be somewhat static in that they do not depend on the user to add functional components to the page. Of course, some modular ASP.NET products such as DotNetNuke are the exception to this, but on a large scale, ASP.NET development is a “build once” type of situation.SharePoint 2010 development is not like this. While it is possible to develop application pages and site pages, many times the framework of choice within SharePoint is the web part due to its versatility.

Web parts are typically deployed into web part zones in SharePoint 2010. There are many different kinds of web parts that come out of the box in SharePoint. Some of the standard web parts that are available to use on a SharePoint 2010 publishing site used for extranets include the following:

• Lists and Libraries—Types of web parts showing information stored in standard

SharePoint lists and libraries.

• Documents—A web part listing documents used in pages on your site.

• Images—A web part listing images used in pages on your site

• Pages—Pages created on your site.

• Workflow Tasks—Listing of workflow tasks on your site.

• Content Rollup—aggregation of content in a web part.

• Content Query—A web part for showing rollups of content on subsites, lists, or

specific areas of your web site. Provides easy navigation into areas.

• Relevant Documents—A web part showing a table of documents last modified by

you.

• Summary Links—A web part for adding pertinent links.

• Table of Contents—A web part that contains navigational links to your site.

• Web Analytics Web Part—A web part for tying into web analytics.

• XML Viewer—A web part with which you can provide an XML file and an XSLT

transform file to apply to the XML. Useful for such things as formatting

syndicated content from RSS feeds.

• HTML Form Web Part—A web part for HTML form inputs for sending to other

web parts

• InfoPath Form Web Part—A web part for rendering an InfoPath browser-enabled

form.

• Content Editor Web Part—A web part allowing the user to edit and save rich

content.

• Image Viewer—A web part for displaying a specific image.

• Media Web Part—Allows for embedding audio and video files into a page.

• Page Viewer—Renders another site page in an iFrame.

Picture Library Slideshow Web Part—a slideshow web part that displays all the

pictures in a picture library.

• Silverlight Web Part—A web part container for a Silverlight .xap file.

• Social Collaboration—Content media such as a note board, organization browser,

or tag cloud.

• Site Users—Displays a list of other site users and their status.

• User Tasks—Displays tasks assigned to the current user.

The Publishing Site is a site template in SharePoint that is focused on a particular task. Web parts that are available on a Team Site intranet portal include many more categories, including:

• Business Data—External LOB systems web parts

• Excel Web Access—Exposing Excel documents to your intranet

• Filters—Aggregates or filters from multiple children web sites

• Outlook Web App—Integration with your Exchange mail servers

• Search—Content and people search

• Social Collaboration—content media such as a note board, organization browser,

or tag cloud

These built-in web parts are available on certain types of sites and depending on whether or not different services are set up within SharePoint 2010. There are also tons of web parts that are available from third-party vendors, from CodePlex, and from many other sources for SharePoint 2010.One thing of note that is different about the behavior of web parts in SharePoint 2010 is that in previous products, pages provided a web part zone for you to add your web part into. In SharePoint 2010, there still are zones, but they are rich content zones. In each of these, you can intermix free-form text with images as well as instantiating your web part. The web part itself is stored in a hidden web part zone on the page, and its place in the content is stored in a div tag that contains the GUID identifying the web part.