Web Parts Overview

Some of the real power of SharePoint as a content management system is its use of lists and web parts working in tandem to manage the display of information on web pages.  The articles linked to here discuss some of the particular web parts and relationships to lists as we use them in the Oregon.gov web site.

Note: For the most part, Oregon.gov authors need to stick to the web parts that are offered in the 'Oregon' category when looking at the web part insertion tool. These web parts have the Oregon.gov look and feel applied to them and have a higher level of accessibility to them than out of the box SharePoint web parts.  The out of the box web parts may work for your purposes, but keep the styling and accessiblity in mind and consider the trade off if they are chosen for use on a page.

The exception is the 'Content Editor' web part which has its place in embedding content from other sources on the page.  An example would be including an instructional video from YouTube on an Oregon.gov web page.  Since the content editor embeds content from other sources, the accessibility of it's contents will match that of the source content.

Web parts are accessed via the ribbon.

Insert > Web Part then choose the category and the part.

 

What's a Web Part?

Web parts are essentially a set of instructions to SharePoint about how to display a body of data or content on a page.  The data or content exists independent of the page and is called on to the page by the web part instructions.  Some of the instructions in each web part are adjustable in the web part settings window.  That's where authors get to tell the web part what list to look at, which view to use, and in some cases, which columns to use for certain display items.  There are also feature options available in many web parts.

Notice in the image to the right how some items in web parts are optional and how the behavioral settings may be toggled either on or off and the web part will still function as designed.

Sometimes, looking at the web part settings screen helps to construct a list that will naturally populate the web part.  Lists that are built without a web part or how they will be consumed by a web page in mind can wind up having a somewhat clunky or disjointed appearance when displayed on the page.

Suggested Viewing

If you are not familiar with building lists and views, you may want to watch these.  Web parts look to well formed lists for thier content.

• Build a List
• Create a View of a List

Web Part Articles

These articles and videos concentrate on individual web parts in the Oregon category.

• Accordion
• Calendar
• Data Tables
• FormBuilder
• Map
• Newsroom
• Site Map
• Task Box

Still have questions?  

You can:

• Search the Knowledge Base for what you are looking for: 

• You can find more articles in the V4.x Article Index
• You can submit a question to the Oregon E-Government Service Desk