Customer Reviews

ASP.Net 2.0 Web Parts in Action: Building Dynamic Web Portals

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Although SharePoint 2003 allowed us to create Web Parts, it was tedious and you couldn't use it outside of SharePoint. Microsoft upped the ante with the release of ASP.NET 2.0. You can create Web Parts in ASP.NET 2.0 and use them in both ASP.NET web sites and SharePoint 2007.

Darren has written a very solid book on Web Parts. This book covers different areas of the Web Part framework and the author does a very good job of explaining the subject in a clear manner. Darren starts at the beginning (explaining portals and web parts) and moves to more advanced areas. Darren also covers areas such as SharePoint, AJAX, and discussing other portals such as Live.com (including how to build a gadget).

I did run into a few issues with the book's source code but after posting the issues on the book's forum, Darren had a fix for me within 12 hours. This book also covers some areas which I have not seen before such as splitting out the catalog into a separate web page. There are numerous extensions discussed where I said out loud: "I didn't know it could do that!".
[...]

This book introduces and explains a lot of concepts with Web Parts. This book SHOULD BE your starting point if you want to do any kind of web part development.

Key concepts:
- Web Part Connections
- Zones and how web parts behave inside them
- Tips & Tricks to get web parts to behave like they look in SharePoint
- Page Life cycle with web parts
- AJAX and web parts (little light on that topic)

I have done some basic web part development and read other articles on the web. This book by far brought a lot of concepts together and allows you to build a portal based on web parts.

A must buy book if your working with webparts. Darren (The author) is also extremely helpful if you post web part related questions on his forum. The book is clear, concise and well organised. You will not be disapointed!

Ps. I have bought many many tech reference books from Amazon over the years. This is the first time I have ever posted a review. This book has been an invaluable reference for a large project I am currently working on.

Paul Hale (Domainscanners)

I was unable to get the AdventureWorks Web Portal running. The code was downloaded from the publisher's website.

It would not execute. The following exception was thrown,

"SQLExpress database file auto-creation error:
The connection string specifies a local SQL Server Express instance using a database location within the applications App_Data directory. The provider attempted to automatically create the application services database because the provider determined that the database does not exist."

The instructions provided in the Appendix for creating & running this application did not mention how this problem was to be handled.

The great thing about the book is that it gets you going on Web Parts by chapter 4 and everything beyond that is good information. Its a good way to start using web Parts.

En particular me gusta mucho el diseño web pero también la programación, me llamó mucho la atención el libro debido a que fusiona las dos partes permitiéndome crear sitios mucho mas interactivos, debido a que los sitios estáticos están pasando de moda y debido a esto nos brinda la oportunidad de crear sitios web con funciones interesantes tanto al diseñador como a los usuarios.

Haendel Jose Morales E.

When I began to work on a web portal using .NET 2.0 in mid-2006, I found out about this book and anxiously awaited it's publishing. I wasn't disappointed. The material covered in this book goes into such great detail and is so full of great ideas that I recommended the re-writing of our portal using Darren's book as a basis of our new design. This was money well spent.

This a very thorough and complete guide to ASP 2.0 Web Parts. After reading this book, I gained more knowledge than reading countless internet articles, numerous blogs and a few cumbersome books on subject. This book is a MUST Buy for anyone who needs to understand and/ or implement ASP 2.0 Web Parts. One added new value is the concepts outlined
in his book also work on ASP 3.5.

An all in one great introduction to web parts and even to some advanced techniques.

Web parts are a strong web UI element and this book has done a great job of talking about ALL the things that are necessary for proper web parts development.

When I first started looking at Web Parts I couldn't quite grasp how they were different from other web technology. Darren was able to clearly describe how individual parts are created, and how to integrate them into a cohesive whole and helped me enormously in building modern websites.