Chapter 1. Introducing portals and web parts
This chapter covers:
ASP.NET 2.0 introduces many exciting and important features for web developers. One of the most powerful is the portal framework. You can use the portal framework’s new Web Parts technology to build dynamic web portals. Sounds great, but there’s a catch. Depending on whom you ask, a portal may be anything from a generic home page to a complex information dashboard. In this book, we’ll take a close look at how to build portals using the ASP.NET 2.0 Web Parts. Along the way, you’ll get a better picture of what goes into a true portal and see practical examples of useful ASP-driven portal design.
By the time the ASP.NET 1.0 framework burst onto the scene in January 2001, its users had built up high expectations. ASP.NET is a web framework that was built from the ground up with a vision of providing the most advanced platform for creating dynamic, modern web applications. Using the framework freed developers from many of the time-consuming and most error-prone operations in existing frameworks, and set them free to focus on meeting application requirements. Newly eliminated operations included common coding tasks as well as more complicated coding for security, web services, and deployment.