SharePoint Programming

Choosing Between ASP.NET 2.0 Web Parts and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Web Parts

Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 are built on top of the ASP.NET 2.0 Framework. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 uses the ASP.NET 2.0 Web Part infrastructure to take advantage of features such as master pages and custom Web Part development while providing a complete set of Windows SharePoint Services features, such as document services, events, workflow, search, site columns, content types and more.

You can build Web Parts for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 in two ways:

* Create custom ASP.NET 2.0 Web Parts.

* Create SharePoint-based Web Parts.


Decision matrix for creating Web Parts

Create a custom ASP.NET 2.0 Web Part

• For most business needs.
  
  
• To distribute your Web Part to sites that run ASP.NET 2.0 or SharePoint sites.
  
  
• When you want to reuse one or more Web Parts created for ASP.NET 2.0 sites on SharePoint sites.
  
  
• To use data or functionality provided by Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. For example, you are creating a a Web Part that works with site or list data.

Create a SharePoint-based Web Part

• When you want to migrate a set of Web Parts using the SharePoint-based Web Part infrastructure to Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.
  
  
• To create cross page connections.
  
  
• To create connections between Web Parts that are outside of a Web Part zone.
  
  
• To work with client-side connections (Web Part Page Services Component).
  
  
• To use a data-caching infrastructure that allows caching to the content database.

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