Widgets introduce a support for the personalization of pages. The enhancement allows users and editors to edit the structure of page templates.This personalization is saved within the system and can be invoked from the live site by authorized users or through the CMS Desk in case of website editors. From the designer's point of view the widgets are basic building blocks of page templates in the same way as web parts.
There is a predefined set of widgets in the default CMS Kentico installation. As all widgets are based on existing web parts, you can alternatively create your own widgets. Widgets are created and managed in the Site Manager -> Development -> Widgets. The details are given in the Developing widgets section.
As mentioned above, widgets provide the same functionality as ordinary web parts. However, users with appropriate rights can modify widgets' properties, their placement on the web page, add and remove widgets from their pages and so on. Users are divided into four different groups:
• | Site developer/Administrator - defines the placement of widget zones and their default content, selects web part properties available for personalization in widgets and manages all available widgets. |
• | Page editor - defines the content of the widget zones created in the page templates by the site developer/administrator. |
• | Group administrator - defines the design of group pages (personalized properties). |
• | Website user - defines the design of their home page or another page which can be personalized on the live site. |
The details about this topic are given in the Using widgets section.
Security issues, definition of rights for different types of users and roles related to widgets are discussed in the Security section.
Page url: http://devnet.kentico.com/docs/devguide/index.html?widgets_overview.htm