Microsoft Sharepoint Products and Technologies Resource Kit eBook

Chapter 35
Building Applications
Using Windows SharePoint
Services Data
In this chapter:
Using Windows SharePoint Services Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 951
Sharing Windows SharePoint Services Component Data with ASP.NET . . . 952
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 986
Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services, released shortly after Microsoft Windows
Server 2003, has taken team services to a whole new level. With the built-in ability
to create websites by using document libraries, lists, and so on, Windows SharePoint
Services has become nearly as easy to use as Microsoft Office Word or Excel.
Windows SharePoint Services is also based on Microsoft .NET, thus extending the
functionality of Windows SharePoint Services components and enabling development
of Windows SharePoint Services sites by using Microsoft Visual Studio, Microsoft
FrontPage, or even Notepad. The built-in functionality is exceptional—users can create
and manage most of the common content themselves. This functionality is nearly the
same as in Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003, although security in Windows
SharePoint Services provides limited control over individual Web Parts. Unlike
SharePoint Portal Server 2003 sites, Windows SharePoint Services sites are intended to
be team sites—that is, they are completely independent of any other site. Even though
two or more sites can share the same database (and user authorization), the sites themselves
are distinct—even navigation between them is a manual process.
Using Windows SharePoint Services Components
Because Windows SharePoint Services (and SharePoint Portal Server) are built on
.NET, the entire object classes are made available to any ASP.NET application by
adding a reference to the assemblies. This means that you can add a Windows
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