Anatomy of a Custom Part

The following depicts the basic anatomy of a custom part. You define a custom part by creating two standard ASP.net user controls, one for editing the content of your part and one for rendering the part's content on a NetCommunity web page.
 

 
Each user control is derived from the corresponding base class found in the BBNCExtensions.dll assembly of your NetCommunity installation (in the \bin folder under your NetCommunity installed directory).  Each control has the same two properties: API and Content. So each control will have full access to the NetCommunity API as well as the content stored for your part. 
 
Your editor control will offer the user interface for editing the part's content, while your display control will provide the code and markup for rendering the part's content on the page. While the NetCommunity framework will take care of offering up the correct user control at the correct time, it will be up to your two user controls to have common knowledge about the type of content they are editing, storing, and rendering. The framework will do the dirty work of persisting your content for you and handing it to each control when its needed, so you can focus on custom functionality and leave the mechanics to the platform.
 
Because NetCommunity and your custom parts are built on the Microsoft ASP.net platform, your custom parts will have a wealth of standard APIs and services from the .net framework as well as large variety of 3rd party .net based components to take advantage of.
 
Next: To get started creating custom parts check out Quick Start: Creating a Custom Part
 
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