ASP.NET 3.0: Compelling scenarios for combining Master Pages and Web Parts?

[Michael Herman \(Parallelspace\)]

1. What are some compelling solutions for using Master/Content pages with
Web Pages?

2. If a content area has a web part zone with web parts, what is the user
experience like when "editting" the web part page? Does it take place at
the page level? ...or the content area level?

3. Where is the Web Part Manager instantiated? ...in the Master Page?
....Content Page? ...elsewhere?


--
Michael Herman
Parallelspace Corporation
Developers of Advanced Business Collaboration Solutions for Microsoft
SharePoint, Microsoft Live Communications Server, Active Directory and
Groove Workspace
Portal and Content Migration Specialists:
http://www.parallelspace.net/sharepoint
SharePoint Migration Knowledge Center:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sharepointmigration

 

[Juan T. Llibre]

Why are you calling ASP.NET 2.0 "ASP.NET 3.0" ?

re:

1. What are some compelling solutions for using Master/Content pages with Web Pages?

What is the problem you see ?

re:

2. If a content area has a web part zone with web parts, what is the user experience
like when "editting" the web part page? Does it take place at the page level? ...or the
content area level?

Users are able to customize the layout and appearance of content of pages
according to their individual preferences, and personalize page content to
display most relevant information.

re:

3. Where is the Web Part Manager instantiated? ...in the Master Page? ...Content Page?
...elsewhere?

Check out : http://beta.asp.net/QUICKSTART/aspnet/doc/webparts/default.aspx

 

[Michael Herman \(Parallelspace\)]

Thans Juan,

"3.0" was a Freudian slip ...I meant ASP.NET 2.0 (and may have been of the
next version of SharePoint).

The problem is that I've never seen a PPT or sample where Master Pages and
Web Parts are used together.

When I see situations like this, it is usually an indication that is it is
often a scenario the various product groups haven't thought through.

Hence, I'm unable to understand what the user experience is expected to be
or where the Web Part Manager component needs to be instantiated (e.g. in
the top-level Master Page, any Master Page or the Content Page instantiating
a Web Part Zone component)?

Michael.

 

[Juan T. Llibre]

Hi, Michael.

The problem is that I've never seen a PPT or sample where Master Pages and Web Parts are
used together.

You shouldn't have problems running Web Parts and Master Pages together,
although they do seem to be at odds with each other.

Master Pages, essentially, provide a way to control the "look and feel"
for many pages using a master page "look and feel" pattern.

Web Parts, essentially, provide a way to control
what the *content* of a page will be.

re:

When I see situations like this, it is usually an indication that is it is often a
scenario the various product groups haven't thought through.

That's not unusual, is it ?

ASP.NET is a very complex ISAPI application, and just listing
all the ways its components could possibly interact with each other
would be a daunting task, never mind describing how they would interact.

ASP.NET 2.0 is *still* a Beta product.
We can't expect it to be fully documented quite yet.

re:

where the Web Part Manager component needs to be instantiated (e.g. in the top-level
Master Page, any Master Page or the Content Page instantiating a Web Part Zone
component)?

Not in any Master Page.
Anything placed in a Master Page will run in all content pages.

Content, which a Web Part is, goes in Content pages.

I'm not sure what the objective would be in running a
Web Part Framework inside a Master Page framework.

If the purpose of Web Parts is customization of content, and the purpose of
Master Pages is the *normalization* of content, putting a customization
feature inside a normalization feature would be counterintuitive, wouldn't it ?

For a good Web Parts tutorial, see :
http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/beta2/ui/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnvs05/html/webparts.asp

For a good Master Pages tutorial, see :
http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/b...ll=/library/en-us/dnvs05/html/masterpages.asp

 

[Michael Herman \(Parallelspace\)]

Thanks Juan,

Re: I'm not sure what the objective would be in running a Web Part Framework
inside a Master Page framework.

I would hope/expect to use Master Pages for:
a) overall theming of the ASP.NET 2.0 solution that uses Web Parts
(including the theming of the contained Web Parts), and
b) being able to compose mini-dashboards (a specific collection of Web
Parts) into a single (master) page.

Thoughts? ...particularly wrt to a).

Michael.

 

[Juan T. Llibre]

re:

a) overall theming of the ASP.NET 2.0 solution that uses Web Parts (including the
theming of the contained Web Parts)

Michael, Web Parts are, basically, user controls.

Following the same procedure used to include *any* user control
in a content page which inherits theming from a Master Page
will work the same way.

However, I *still* don't see much use in combining Web Parts and Master Pages,
since with the use of Zones you can lay out Web Parts controls on a page,
and provide a common UI for the controls, which is all that Master Pages do.

In other words, you'd be skinning the cat twice, when only once is enough.

See : http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/hhy9ewf1(en-us,vs.80).aspx