One of the fundamental components of a SharePoint site is a Web Part. Web Parts are "gadgets" that can be added to a
page to perform a specific function. Although you may purchase or develop your
own Web Parts to meet a specific need in your organization, SharePoint provides
many Web Parts out of the box. In this article, I explore some of the built in Web
Parts that you should get to know.
InfoPath Form Web
Part
The InfoPath Form
Web Part is brand new to SharePoint 2010. It is available only
in the Enterprise edition of SharePoint 2010. What the Web Part allows you to
do is to customize the default forms for a SharePoint list. When you create a
list in SharePoint, three pages are created for you automatically:
DispForm.aspx, EditForm.aspx, and NewForm.aspx. As the names suggest, these
forms are used to display items, edit items and add items to a SharePoint list.
If you want to use InfoPath 2010 to customize the default pages for a list rather
than using SharePoint Designer 2010, all you need to do is click the InfoPath
icon on the List tab of the Web page. InfoPath will open on your desktop and
you can customize the form for the SharePoint list the same way that you
customize an InfoPath Forms Library form. You can add images, insert tables,
move fields, add validation rules, and include functions all through an easy to
understand interface. One thing that you cannot do is add .NET managed code to the form, but
this is a great way for power users to make a form look and function the way
they need it to without writing program code.
Content Query Web
Part
The Content Query
Web Part is available for pages on sites in which the
publishing infrastructure feature has been activated. Probably the most common
use of the Web Part is to roll up information from multiple lists into a single
view. You can apply filters and styles to make the content look the way you
want. Imagine you have a publishing page that displays a certain article and
you want to display a list of related stories next to it on the page. Using the
Content Query Web Part, you can search all the lists on the site that use the
same keywords as the keywords for the featured article, and display them in a
list.
XSLT List View Web
Part
You create an XSLT List View Web Part in SharePoint Designer 2010.
The benefit of an XSLT List View Web Part is that it allows you to customize
the out of the box list views. You can rearrange fields, hide them, or apply
special formatting. Much of the customization can be done in the design view,
but if you want to use special functions you can convert the entire view to XSL
and manipulate the XSL code directly.
Chart Web Part
The Chart Web Part is also new to SharePoint 2010. It is
included in the Enterprise edition of the server. The Chart Web Part allows you
to build charts or graphs easily through a wizard interface – pulling data from
a variety of sources. Power users are able to use it to create graphical
dashboards from SharePoint lists with no knowledge of programming. Creating a
chart in SharePoint with the Chart Web Part is as simple as creating a chart in
Excel.
Content Editor Web
Part
The Content Editor Web Part has been included in
SharePoint for multiple releases. It was originally designed to be a content
placeholder for text, rich text or embedded HTML on a SharePoint page.
Functionality has been added to allow the Content Editor Web Part to pull in
content from text files or rich text format files. A popular use for the
Content Editor Web Part now is to use JavaScript (often jQuery) to customize
the look and functionality of a SharePoint page. You can manipulate the style
of a page, or you may perform transactions using the SharePoint REST Web
Services. This has been an ideal customization approach for web designers and
developers who do not have .NET development skills, and for others who use
SharePoint in a hosted environment where managed code is not allowed.
