An Example Web Portal in .NET framework

Maker UPC Symbol in .NET framework An Example Web Portal

Figure 5-1 shows part of my custom page at wwwmsncom, co-branded with Sympatico, a nationwide Internet Service Provider (ISP) This portal includes all the features that make portals valuable to users and, in this case, to advertisers as well As we walk through the features, keep in mind that you can implement everything you see in this portal site using Web parts in ASPNET 20

The Sympatico/MSN portal site uses Microsoft s Passport authentication service, as shown in Figure 5-2 I must sign in before I can reach my custom content Most Internet Web sites can t afford Passport but get along very well with forms authentication For more on authentication, see 1 of this mini-book Intranets often use Windows authentication for security where employees log on to the network which passes their authentication to any portal that asks for it

As they sang in the theme song for the old TV series Cheers, You want to go where everybody knows your name Once the Sympatico/MSN portal knows who you are, it displays your name in the upper-left area of your page Figure 5-3 shows some personalization options, and Figure 5-4 shows a window in which you can give the page a new name

As we see in the sections that follow, personalization is everywhere in this portal from the language and color scheme to the content selection and page layout

As a Canadian portal, Sympatico/MSN operates in both of Canada s official languages As you can see in Figure 5-5, clicking the fran ais link switches the standard content, including links and the search function, to French It s often corporate policy and sometimes the law to localize portal information In the Sympatico/MSN site, it s easy to mix English and French content on the same portal page

The Sympatico/MSN portal provides a cornucopia of choices from news, sports, entertainment, business, weather, shopping, lotteries, and much more In many cases, the portal acts as only an aggregator by showing only the headlines and then linking to the Web site of the content owner for details

The numerous Add Content links on the portal page lead to the Web page dialog box, as shown in Figure 5-6 Users can add or remove content by selecting or unselecting the check boxes They can also search for information on other Web sites For example, Figure 5-7 shows the addition of a syndicated news feed (RSS) from a popular ASPNET bloggers site The RSS Web part is easy to use: Add the part to the page and point it to the URL of the RSS feed

The Sympatico/MSN portal site organizes information modules into columns Users can add more columns to the layout and use the mouse to reposition the column Because each information module is independent, users can drag a module and drop it above or below another module in any column Figure 5-8 shows a module in motion The mouse grabs the module using a grip in the module s upper-right corner Note how the text in the module dims to show the module s transient state It s moving from the center column to the left column In the section Letting the User Move Web Parts Around, later in this chapter, you get to create a Web part that can be moved around like this

Just as with the windows in Windows, you can expand and collapse (okay, restore and minimize in Microsoft-speak) portal modules to save space Figure 5-9 shows a column with one module expanded for viewing

The Sympatico/MSN portal site is fully themed, offering users the choice of seven color decors and 23 graphical themes The themes range from Windows XP styles to seasonal treatments and holidays, such as Canada Day For more on creating ASPNET themes, see 4 of this mini-book