ASP.NET 2.0 Unleashed

The ASP.NET Web Part Framework enables you to build web applications that can be personalized by users at runtime. A Web Part application can be personalized by individual users or the application can be personalized by a single administrator for everyone.

You can take advantage of Web Parts to build personalizable portal applications like My Yahoo! (http://my.yahoo.com) or My MSN (http://my.msn.com). Users of these applications can customize both the content and appearance of the application by interacting with a web page. For example, you can select the content you want to see from categories of content such as News, Sports, and Weather (see Figure 27.1). You can also arrange the content on a page in the manner that is most relevant to you (see Figure 27.2).

Most large companies have internal website portals. You can take advantage of Web Parts to enable the individual employees of your company to customize the portal pages in the way that is most relevant to them. For example, a software tester might want a home page that displays a list of the most recent bugs. A marketing person, on the other hand, might want to see a news feed and stock ticker.

The Web Part Framework also can be used to build applications that can be customized by one or more administrators for everyone. Imagine, for example, that you want to build and sell a customized web store to your clients. If you build your application by using Web Parts, your clients can customize the application's appearance from their browsers without any technical knowledge.

In this chapter, you are introduced to the Web Part Framework. You learn how to build simple Web Parts and add the Web Parts to different zones in a page. You also learn how to enable users to edit Web Part properties from a Web Form page. Finally, you learn how you can connect Web Parts to communicate information from one Web Part to another.