A SharePoint Developer Introduction Hands-On Lab

Lab Manual SPCHOL200 Building Visual Web Parts VB.NET

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Contents
SPCHOL200 BUILDING VISUAL WEB PARTS ............................................................................................... 2 Lab Objective .................................................................................................................................................. 2 Additional Resources ....................................................................................................................................... 2 Getting Started ................................................................................................................................................ 3 Logging into the Virtual Machine .................................................................................................................. 3 Locations..................................................................................................................................................... 3 Lab Pre-requisites ....................................................................................................................................... 3 Copying code samples from Word document ............................................................................................... 4 Code Snippets............................................................................................................................................. 4 Task 1 - Create a new SharePoint Project ................................................................................................... 5 Task 2 - Generate LINQ-to-SharePoint proxy class to access list data ......................................................... 8 Task 3 - Access the SharePoint list data in Visual Web Part ...................................................................... 11 Task 4 Build and Deploy the Visual Web Part ......................................................................................... 13 Exercise 2 Connecting Web Parts ............................................................................................................... 18 Task 1 Create a new Empty SharePoint Project ...................................................................................... 19 Task 2 Create the Web Part Connection Interface................................................................................... 21 Task 3 Create the Provider Web Part...................................................................................................... 24 Task 4 Create the Consumer Web Part................................................................................................... 27 Task 5 Build and Deploy the Web Parts .................................................................................................. 30 Task 6 Connect the Web Parts ............................................................................................................... 37 Task 7 Verify the Web Part Connection................................................................................................... 39 Lab Summary ................................................................................................................................................ 41

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SPCHOL200 Building Visual Web Parts

Estimated time to complete this lab: 30 minutes Visual Studio 2010 and SharePoint Foundation 2010 are required for these exercises. These are installed on the Virtual Machine used in this lab.

Lab Objective
Web Parts are an essential component of ASP.NET technologies used by SharePoint to present dynamic information to users. Web parts are the most common customization created for SharePoint. A Web Part is a reusable component that exists on a Web Part Page and can present any type of webbased information. The objective of this lab is to learn about how to utilize enhancements available in SharePoint 2010 to build Visual Web Parts and connect web parts for use in the SharePoint system. Work with existing web parts and Linq. Connect two web parts.

Additional Resources
This lab includes the following additional resources: This Lab Manual Source Code SPCHOL200_Manual_VB.docx Completed\VB\Ex1 Completed\VB\Ex2 Resources Resources\VB This document. Completed lab source code in VB.NET. Various other resources used throughout this lab.

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Getting Started
Logging into the Virtual Machine Please log into the virtual machine as the following user: Username: Administrator Password: pass@word1 Locations This Hands-On Lab contains a number of additional resources in fixed locations. By default, it is assumed that the base HOL directory is C:\Content Packs\Packs\SharePoint 2010 Developer Labs 1.0\SUPPORTING FILES\SPCHOL200\Resources. The default working folder for this lab is C:\SPHOLS\SPCHOL200 Lab Pre-requisites Browse to the base HOL directory Supporting Files\SPCHOL200\Resources and execute the optimize.ps1 PowerShell script: 1. Right click on optimize.ps1 and select Run with PowerShell:

Figure 1 - Execute the PowerShell script

2. This will open a PowerShell window to execute the script. Click Open if you get a security window. Please wait until the PowerShell script completes executing the script and closes the PowerShell window (this may take a minute):

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Figure 2 - PowerShell Window executing the script

Copying code samples from Word document Copying and pasting code from this Word document to Visual Studio is only safe for the sections of formatted code, e.g.:
Console.WriteLine("This is safe code!");

Code not in these sections may contain Unicode or other invisible characters that are not valid XML or C#/VB code, e.g.: Console.WriteLine This is NOT safe code !! Code Snippets You can also use Code Snippets to insert the appropriate code in the lab. To use the required code snippet for this lab: Right-click on the code file where you want to insert the code snippet. Select Insert Snippet:

Figure 3 - Insert Code Snippet

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Select the required code snippet(s) from My Code Snippets gallery.

Exercise 1 Web Part and Linq Walkthrough Estimated time to complete this exercise: 10 minutes In this exercise, you will develop and deploy a Visual Web Part that reads data from a list and displays in a DataGrid. In this exercise, you will: 1. Create a Visual Web Part. 2. Generate Linq proxy code. 3. Use a Linq provider to read data from a SharePoint list. 4. Render the data using the SPDataGrid web control. Task 1 - Create a new SharePoint Project In this task, a solution and project will be created. It will contain the rest of the development work in Exercise 1 of this lab. 1. Open Visual Studio 2010 by going to Start Menu | All Programs | Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 | Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. 2. From the menu, select File | New | Project. 3. In the New Project dialog window, choose Visual Basic | SharePoint | 2010 from the Installed Templates. 4. Select Visual Web Part from the Project Items.

Figure 4 - SharePoint 2010 Visual Web Part Project

5. Enter SPCHOL200-Ex1 in the Name textbox Page 5

6. Enter C:\SPHOLS\SPCHOL200\VB\Ex1 in the Location textbox. 7. Uncheck Create directory for solution. 8. Click OK. 9. In the SharePoint Customization Wizard: Enter http://intranet.contoso.com/ for the local site. Set the trust level to Deploy as a farm solution. Click Finish button.

Figure 5 - SharePoint Customization Wizard

10. Visual Studio will create the new SPCHOL200-Ex1 project and add the necessary files.

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Figure 6 - SPCHOL200-Ex1 Project

11. Notice that Visual Studio also creates a Visual Web Part named VisualWebPart1. Within the Solution Explorer, expand VisualWebPart1 and open VisualWebPart1.webpart.

Figure 7 - Visual Web Part

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12. Change the value of the property element with the name attribute value of Title to SPLinqDemoTitle and the value of the property element with the name attribute value of Description to SPLinqDemoPartDescription. (See the code sample below.) This will change the Title and Description property of the Visual Web Part once it is deployed. Save the file.
<properties> <property name="Title" type="string">SPLinqDemoTitle</property> <property name="Description" type="string">SPLinqDemoPart Description</property> </properties>

Task 2 - Generate LINQ-to-SharePoint proxy class to access list data In this task, you will use the new spmetal.exe code generation utility and generate the Linq-toSharePoint proxy code. 1. In the Solution Explorer, right-click on SPCHOL200-Ex1 and select Open Folder in Windows Explorer. 2. Hold Shift key and right click anywhere in the Explorer Window and select Open Command Window Here to open the command prompt window in the current project directory:

Figure 8 - Open Command Window Here

3. Type the following command in the command prompt and press Enter to set the path to the SharePoint 2010 folder: set path=%path%;c:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\14\bin 4. Type the following command in the command prompt and press Enter to generate the Linq-toSharePoint proxy code. spmetal.exe /web:http://intranet.contoso.com /namespace:SPCHOL200_Ex1.VisualWebPart1 /code:SPLinq.vb Page 8

Note you may get warnings about content types for list Form Templates. You can safely ignore this warning and continue 5. Close the command window and switch back to Visual Studio. 6. In Visual Studio, right click on SPCHOL200-Ex1 project and select Add | Existing Item.

Figure 9 - Add Existing Item

7. Select SPLinq.vb from the Add Existing Item dialog window and click Add:

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Figure 10 - Add SPLinq.vb File

8. In the Solution Explorer, right click on SPCHOL200-Ex1 and select Add Reference. 9. Switch to Browse tab and enter C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\ISAPI in the File Name text box. Press Enter to change directories. Your Add Reference window should now look like Fig. 11. 10. Select Microsoft.SharePoint.Linq.dll.

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Figure 11 - Add Reference

11. Click OK to add the reference to your project. Task 3 - Access the SharePoint list data in Visual Web Part In this task, you will add code to your solution that will allow the Visual Web Part to retrieve SharePoint list data. 1. In Solution Explorer, expand VisualWebPart1 and double-click on VisualWebPart1UserControl.ascx. 2. Visual Studio will open the Visual Web Part User Control. 3. Add the following code to the user control to construct your grid view.

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<%@ Import Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls" %> <SharePoint:SPGridView id="spGridView" runat="server" AutoGenerateColumns="false"> <HeaderStyle HorizontalAlign="Left" ForeColor="Navy" Font-Bold="true" /> <Columns> <SharePoint:SPBoundField DataField="Title" HeaderText="Title"></SharePoint:SPBoundField> <SharePoint:SPBoundField DataField="JobTitle" HeaderText="JobTitle"></SharePoint:SPBoundField> <SharePoint:SPBoundField DataField="ProjectTitle" HeaderText="ProjectTitle"></SharePoint:SPBoundField> <SharePoint:SPBoundField DataField="DueDate" HeaderText="DueDate"></SharePoint:SPBoundField> </Columns> </SharePoint:SPGridView>

Code Snippets: ASP.NET | spchol200_ex1_spgridview 4. The Visual Web Part user control should look like this after adding the code above:

Figure 12 - Visual Web Part User Control

5. In the Solution Explorer, right click on VisualWebPart1UserControl.ascx and select View Code. 6. Add the following import statements to the code behind:
Imports Imports Imports Imports Microsoft.SharePoint.Linq Microsoft.SharePoint System.Linq SPCHOL200_Ex1.SPCHOL200_Ex1.VisualWebPart1

Code Snippet: My Code Snippets | spchol200_ex1_namespaces

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7. Insert the following code inside the Page_Load method:

Dim dc As New SPLinqDataContext(SPContext.Current.Web.Url) Dim Employees As EntityList(Of EmployeesItem) = _ dc.GetList(Of EmployeesItem)("Employees") Dim empQuery = From emp In Employees _ Where emp.Project.DueDate < DateTime.Now.AddMonths(6) _ Select emp.Title, emp.JobTitle, ProjectTitle = emp.Project.Title, _ DueDate = emp.Project.DueDate.ToString() spGridView.DataSource = empQuery spGridView.DataBind()

Code Snippet: My Code Snippets | spchol200_ex1_pageload Task 4 Build and Deploy the Visual Web Part 1. In the Solution Explorer, right click on SPCHOL200-Ex1 and select Deploy. This will build and deploy the Visual Web Part to the local SharePoint site: http://intranet.contoso.com

Figure 13 - Deploy VisualWebPart

2. Open Internet Explorer and browse to the following site: http://intranet.contoso.com 3. If prompted for authentication, enter the following details. Username: Administrator Password: pass@word1 4. Click the Edit icon in the top menu to open the SharePoint Ribbon to the Editing Tools.

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Figure 14 - SharePoint Edit Icon

Figure 15 - SharePoint Ribbon - Edit Page

5. Switch to Insert tab in the Ribbon and click on Web Part to insert a Web Part to the page.

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Figure 16 - SharePoint Ribbon - Insert WebPart

6. Under Categories, Select Custom. 7. Under Web Parts, select SPLinqDemoTitle web part.

Figure 17 - Selecting SPlinqDemoTitle Web Part

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Put your cursor in the area of the page where you want the Web Part to appear. This must be a zone that accepts Web Parts. In this case put your cursor in the zone below the Shared Documents control.

Figure 18 - Layout Zones

8. Click Add to add the web part to the page. This will add the SPLinqDemoTitle web part to the selected layout zone, as shown in the figure below.

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Figure 19 - SPLinqDemoTitle Web Part added to the layout zone

9. Click on Page, click the down arrow on the Save & Close button, and select Stop Editing to save the page and stop editing. Click Yes when prompted to save the changes you made.

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Figure 20 - SharePoint Ribbon - Stop Editing

10. Close Internet Explorer. 11. Close Visual Studio 2010. In the past exercise, you built and deployed a Visual Web Part that uses Linq to SharePoint to retrieve data from a SharePoint list.

Exercise 2 Connecting Web Parts

Estimated time to complete this exercise: 20 minutes In this exercise, you will: 1. Build two basic SharePoint Web Parts. 2. Configure a web part to participate in a web part connection as a provider. 3. Configure a web part to participate in a web part connection as a consumer. Page 18

Task 1 Create a new Empty SharePoint Project In this task, you will create a new Empty SharePoint Project. 1. Open Visual Studio 2010 by going to the Start Menu | All Programs | Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 | Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. 2. From the menu, select File | New | Project. 3. In the New Project dialog window, choose Visual Basic | SharePoint | 2010 from the Installed Templates. 4. Select Empty SharePoint Project from the Project Items. 5. Enter SPCHOL200-Ex2 in the Name textbox. 6. Enter C:\SPHOLS\SPCHOL200\VB\Ex2 in the Location textbox.

Figure 21 - Visual Studio New Project Dialog Window

7. Make sure Create directory for solution and Add to source control are both deselected. 8. Click OK.

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9. In the SharePoint Customization Wizard: Enter http://intranet.contoso.com for the local site. Set the trust level to Deploy as a farm solution.

Figure 22 - SharePoint Customization Wizard

10. Click Finish to complete the wizard. 11. Visual Studio will create the new SPCHOL200-Ex2 project and add the necessary files.

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Figure 23 - SPCHOL200-Ex2 Project

Task 2 Create the Web Part Connection Interface In this task, you will create the web part connection interface IProject responsible for exchanging connection information between a provider and consumer web part. 1. In the Solution Explorer, right click on SPCHOL200-Ex2 and select Add | New Item

Figure 24 - Add New Item

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2. In the Add New Item dialog window, select Common Items | Code from the Installed Templates. 3. Select Interface from the available templates. 4. Enter IProject in the Name textbox and click the Add button.

Figure 25 - IProject Interface Creation

5. Visual Studio will add the new IProject.vb file to the project. 6. In the Solution Explorer, double-click on IProject.vb file to open it.

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Figure 26 Interface added

7. Insert the following code block inside the IProject interface:

ReadOnly Property Id() As Integer ReadOnly Property Name() As String

Code Snippet: My Code Snippets | spchol200_ex2_iproject 8. The IProject.vb file should look like this after adding the above code block:

Figure 27 - IProject Interface

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Task 3 Create the Provider Web Part In this task, you will create a web part to participate in a web part connection as a provider. 1. In the Solution Explorer, right click on SPCHOL200-Ex2 and select Add | New Item 2. Select Common Items | SharePoint | 2010 from the Installed Templates. 3. Select Web Part from the available Item Templates. 4. Enter ProviderWebPart in the Name textbox and click Add.

Figure 28 - Adding the Provider Web Part

5. Visual Studio will add the new ProviderWebPart to the solution.

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Figure 29 - Provider Web Part

6. In the Solution Explorer, double-click on ProviderWebPart.vb to open the code behind file. 7. In the ProviderWebPart class declaration make the ProviderWebPart implement IProject using the Implements keyword
Implements IProject

Code Snippet: My Code Snippets | spchol200_ex2_provider_class 8. The ProviderWebPart class declaration should like this after making the above code change:

Figure 30 Implement the IProject interface

9. Replace the ID and Name property implementation in the ProviderWebPart class declaration. This code block implements the IProject web part connection interface and adds a local variable to the web part:
Private _projectPicker As DropDownList = Nothing ReadOnly Property IdProp() As Integer Implements IProject.Id Get Return Integer.Parse(_projectPicker.SelectedValue) End Get End Property

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ReadOnly Property Name() As String Implements IProject.Name Get Return _projectPicker.SelectedItem.ToString() End Get End Property

Code Snippet: My Code Snippets | spchol200_ex2_provider_properties

10. The ProviderWebPart class should look like this after making the above code change:

Figure 31 - IProject Interface implemented and DropDownList Variable

11. Insert the following code in the CreateChildControls method, just after the MyBase.CreateChildControls method call:
Try _projectPicker = New DropDownList() Using spSite As New SPSite(SPContext.Current.Web.Url) Using spWeb As SPWeb = spSite.OpenWeb() Dim projectsList As SPList = spWeb.Lists("Projects") For Each project As SPListItem In projectsList.Items _projectPicker.Items.Add(New ListItem(project.Title, project.ID.ToString())) Next

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End Using End Using _projectPicker.AutoPostBack = True Me.Controls.Add(_projectPicker) Catch ex As Exception Me.Controls.Clear() Me.Controls.Add(New LiteralControl(ex.Message)) End Try

Code Snippet: My Code Snippets | spchol200_ex2_provider_createchildcontrol

12. Insert the following ConnectionProvider property below the CreateChildControls method. This provides the Connection Provider interface point for the ProviderWebPart:
<ConnectionProvider("Project Name and ID")> _ Public Function NameDoesNotMatter() As IProject Return Me End Function

Code Snippet: My Code Snippets | spchol200_ex2_provider_connection

13. Do a build in Visual Studio 2010 by going to the Build menu and selecting Build Solution. If youve done everything correctly you will get a successful build message. In the past few minutes, you saw how to create a provider web part and add a connection provider interface point so that the consumer web part can receive messages from a provider web part.

Task 4 Create the Consumer Web Part In this task, you will create a web part to participate in a web part connection as a consumer. 1. In the Solution Explorer, right click on SPCHOL200-Ex2 and select Add | New Item 2. Select Common Items | SharePoint | 2010 from the Installed Templates. 3. Select Web Part from the available Item Templates. 4. Enter ConsumerWebPart in the Name textbox and click Add.

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Figure 32 - Adding the ConsumerWebPart

5. Visual Studio will add the new ConsumerWebPart to the solution.

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Figure 33 - ConsumerWebPart

6. Insert the following code below the ConsumerWebPart class declaration:

Dim _provider As IProject = Nothing Dim _lbl As Label = Nothing

Code Snippet: My Code Snippets | spchol200_ex2_consumer_variables 7. Insert the following code in the CreateChildControls method just after the MyBase.CreateChildControls method call:
Try _lbl = New Label() If _provider IsNot Nothing Then If _provider.Id > 0 Then _lbl.Text = _provider.Name & " was selected." Else _lbl.Text = "Nothing was selected." End If Else _lbl.Text = "No Provider Web Part Connected." End If Me.Controls.Add(_lbl) Catch ex As Exception Me.Controls.Clear() Me.Controls.Add(New LiteralControl(ex.Message)) End Try

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Code Snippet: My Code Snippets | spchol200_ex2_consumer_createchildcontrol 8. Insert the following ConnectionConsumer property below the CreateChildControls method. This provides the Connection Consumer interface point for the ConsumerWebPart:
<ConnectionConsumer("Project Name and ID")> _ Public Sub ThisNameDoesNotMatter(ByVal providerInterface As IProject) _provider = providerInterface End Sub

Code Snippet: My Code Snippets | spchol200_ex2_consumer_connection

In the past few minutes you saw how to create a consumer web part and create a new connection consumer interface point, so that the consumer web part can receive messages from a provider web part.

Task 5 Build and Deploy the Web Parts In this task, you will build and deploy the provider and consumer web part and also create a new Web Part Page to add the web parts. 1. In the Solution Explorer, right click on SPCHOL2-Ex2 and select Deploy.

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Figure 34 - Deploy SPCHOL200-Ex2

2. Open Internet Explorer and browse to the following site: http://intranet.contoso.com 3. If prompted for authentication, enter the following details. Username: Administrator Password: pass@word1 4. Click on Site Actions menu and select More Options

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Figure 35 - Site Actions - More Options

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5. Select Web Part Page from the Pages list, and click Create.

Figure 36 - Create a new Web Part page

6. In the New Web Part Page: Enter spchol200-wp in the Name: textbox. Choose Full Page, Vertical as the Layout Template. Select Customized Reports from the Document Library drop-down menu. Click Create button.

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Figure 37 - New Web Part Page Options

7. SharePoint will create the new Web Part page and open the page in Edit mode. 8. Click on the Web Part zone (the blue box that says Add a Web Part).

Figure 38 - Web Part Zone

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9. Select Custom from Categories. 10. Select ConsumerWebPart and click Add.

Figure 39 - Add Consumer Web Part

11. You should see the ConsumerWebPart added to the page.

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Figure 40 - Consumer Web Part added to the page

12. Click on Add a Web Part in the main body of the screen (see Figure 41). 13. Select Custom from Categories. 14. Select ProviderWebPart and click Add.

Figure 41 Add Provider Web Part

15. You should see the ProviderWebPart Title added to the page.

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Figure 42 - Provider Web Part added to the page

Task 6 Connect the Web Parts In this task, you will connect the provider and consumer web parts. 1. Hover over the ProviderWebPart, and a drop-down menu arrow will appear on the right side of the window. Click on it to open the drop-down list, and move down to Connections..

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Figure 43 - Provider Web Part Edit Button

2. Hover your mouse to Connections | Send Project Name and ID to | ConsumerWebPart and click on ConsumerWebPart.

Figure 44 - Web Part Connection Menu

3. This will create a web part connection with the ConsumerWebPart web part, and the text of ConsumerWebPart will now say Writing more sample code was selected.

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Figure 45 - WebPart connection complete!

4. Click on Stop Editing in the SharePoint Ribbon.

Figure 46 - Stop Editing

Task 7 Verify the Web Part Connection In this task, you will verify the web part connection between the provider and consumer web parts added to the web part page in Task 6. 1. In the ProviderWebPart web part, select Building more developer tools from the drop-down list.

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Figure 47 - Selecting a Project

2. You should see the page being refreshed and ConsumerWebPart web part updated with the project selected (Building more developer tools) in the ProviderWebPart drop-down list.

Figure 48 - Updated Consumer Web Part

In the past few minutes, you saw how to connect two web parts and send a message from the provider web part to the consumer web part.

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Lab Summary
In this lab, you performed the following exercises: Created a Visual Web Part Project. Generated Linq-to-SharePoint proxy code. Created Linq query to retrieve SharePoint List data. Created two basic SharePoint Web Parts. Configured a web part to participate in a web part connection as a provider. Configured a web part to participate in a web part connection as a consumer.

In this lab, you learned how to create a SharePoint Visual Web Part from scratch. You also learned how to write a Linq-to-SharePoint query using the new Linq-to-SharePoint mode. You also learned how to create and configure web parts for web part connections.

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