Developing web parts

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Web parts are components that provide a combination of content and functionality. They are the basic building blocks of Portal Engine page templates used for the Xperience administration interface. You can use web parts to create the content of page templates in the Administration interface application, using the Page templates -> Edit -> Design interface.The term “web part” covers items on three levels:

Code files

On a technical level, web parts are user controls (.ascx files) that inherit from an appropriate base class. 

System objects

Web parts must be registered as objects in the system. The purpose of the objects is to:

  • Specify the path to the user control source file
  • Define the web part’s properties and store other configuration options

Template components

Web parts placed onto templates are called web part instances. You can create any number of instances of a single web part.

Instances must be inserted into web part zones, which are defined within the layouts of page templates.

Xperience contains a number of web parts by default. You can develop your own web parts or modify existing ones.