Microsoft Sharepoint Products and Technologies Resource Kit eBook

Chapter 31: Working with Web Parts 845
More Info The white paper “Technologies: Building an Online Web Part Gallery,”
by Nilly Banerjee (Microsoft Corporation, July 2003), details how to
create an Online Web Part Page gallery as a central location for deploying
Web Parts to multiple servers.
Web Part Assembly Deployment
You create Web Parts in C# or Visual Basic .NET by using the Web Part Library Template
in Microsoft Visual Studio .NET as described in Chapter 37. This will be necessary
if the built-in Web Parts do not meet your needs. These Web Parts are then
compiled into assemblies; however, Web Parts are more than just the assemblies. A
Web Part might have class resources such as images, JScript files, or Help files. These
files might also be localized and deployed in locations that are different from the location
of the Web Part. Additionally, the Web Part must be added to the SafeControl list
for the specific virtual server before users can take advantage of its functionality.
A Web Part package is a cabinet (.cab) file that contains the following items:
■ Manifest.xml (mandatory)
■ Web Part assemblies (optional)
■ Class resource files (optional)
■ .dwp files (optional)
Developers can use either of the following methods to create a .cab file:
■ Use Visual Studio .NET to create a CAB Project.
■ Use MakeCAB.exe, a command-line tool included with Windows 2000 and
later.
Visual Studio does not support creating .cab files with internal directories.
However, localized Web Parts might require a .cab file with internal directories.
Because of this, you must use a tool such as MakeCAB.exe or another third-party
CAB utility to deploy localized Web Parts.
Server Administrators can use the Stsadm.exe tool to deploy .cab files created
by developers. Stsadm.exe is a command-line tool that you can use to manage a
Windows SharePoint Services computer. The following three Stsadm.exe options
apply to Web Part package deployment:
■ AddWPPack
■ DeleteWPPack
■ EnumWPPacks