WebPart is an excellent feature in SharePoint. The webpart custom properties facilitates the webpart to extends its range in multiple websites. But that webpart editor have lack of feature like it doesn't have any fields like textarea, password,validation and event handler also is not available. It is very limited.
Here is a possible to extend its function by using custom editor. We develop our own editor for our webpart.
Steps 1. Create Webpart properties but that is not display to the user so put browsable feature to false like the following
[WebBrowsable(false)]
[Personalizable(PersonalizationScope.Shared)]
public string Content
{
get { return
_Content; }
set { _Content = value;
}
}
private string
_LinkUrl;
[WebBrowsable(false)]
[Personalizable(PersonalizationScope.Shared)]
public string LinkUrl
{
get { return
_LinkUrl; }
set { _LinkUrl = value;
}
}
Step 2 : Override the
CreateEditorParts Function and WebBrowsableObject
public override EditorPartCollection CreateEditorParts()
{
//Add
custom CheckBoxList editor for editing NewsSources Property
List<EditorPart>
editors = new List<EditorPart>();
editors.Add(
new CustomEditor
{ ID = "Content Editor" });
return new EditorPartCollection(editors);
}
public override object WebBrowsableObject
{
get { return this; }
}
Note: Here CustomEditor
is the custom class for the custom editor we must add in the same name space after that the webpart file is look like this.
using System;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
using Microsoft.SharePoint;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;
using Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages;
using System.Collections.Generic;
namespace BlackintonWebparts.MiddleBox
{
[ToolboxItemAttribute(false)]
public class MiddleBox : Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPart
{
// Visual Studio might automatically update this path when
you change the Visual Web Part project item.
private const string _ascxPath = @"~/_CONTROLTEMPLATES/BlackintonWebparts/MiddleBox/MiddleBoxUserControl.ascx";
private string
_Content;
[WebBrowsable(false)]
[Personalizable(PersonalizationScope.Shared)]
public string Content
{
get { return
_Content; }
set { _Content = value;
}
}
private string
_LinkUrl;
[WebBrowsable(false)]
[Personalizable(PersonalizationScope.Shared)]
public string LinkUrl
{
get { return
_LinkUrl; }
set { _LinkUrl = value;
}
}
protected override void CreateChildControls()
{
Control control = Page.LoadControl(_ascxPath);
Controls.Add(control);
}
#region
IWebEditable Members
//create an instance of each custom EditorPart control
//associated with a server control and return them as
collection
public override EditorPartCollection CreateEditorParts()
{
//Add custom CheckBoxList editor for editing NewsSources
Property
List<EditorPart>
editors = new List<EditorPart>();
editors.Add(
new CustomEditor
{ ID = "Content Editor" });
return new EditorPartCollection(editors);
}
//a reference to the associated server control
public override object WebBrowsableObject
{
get { return this; }
}
#endregion
}
}
The CustomEditor class look like this
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using Microsoft.SharePoint;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;
using System.Collections;
namespace BlackintonWebparts.MiddleBox
{
public class CustomEditor:EditorPart
{
private TextBox
txtContent;
private TextBox
txtLinkUrl;
protected override void OnInit(EventArgs
e)
{
base.OnInit(e);
txtContent = new TextBox();
txtContent.TextMode = TextBoxMode.MultiLine;
txtLinkUrl = new TextBox();
}
protected override void
CreateChildControls()
{
base.CreateChildControls();
this.Controls.Add(txtContent);
this.Controls.Add(txtLinkUrl);
}
public override bool ApplyChanges()
{
//call to make sure the check box list is set up
EnsureChildControls();
var wb = WebPartToEdit as
MiddleBox;
if (wb == null) return false;
wb.LinkUrl = txtLinkUrl.Text;
wb.Content = txtContent.Text;
return true;
}
public override void
SyncChanges()
{
//call to make sure the check box list is set up
EnsureChildControls();
// get a reference to the corresponfing web part
var wb = WebPartToEdit as
MiddleBox;
if (wb == null) return;
txtLinkUrl.Text = wb.LinkUrl;
txtContent.Text = wb.Content;
}
}
}
The Method Apply Changes Set the properties to the webpart and the method SynChanges retrive the data from the webpart properties.
Happy Coding :)
