his walkthrough is a hands-on demonstration of the essential components and tasks for creating Web pages that use Web Parts controls in Visual Studio. In many Web applications it is useful to be able to change the appearance of the content, as well as to allow users to select and arrange the content they want to see. ASP.NET Web Parts enable you to create Web pages that present modular content and that enable users to change the appearance and content to suit their preferences. For a general introduction to Web Parts, see ASP.NET Web Parts Overview. For an overview of the Web Parts control set, see Web Parts Control Set Overview. During this walkthrough, you create a page that uses Web Parts controls to create a Web page that user can modify, or personalize. Tasks illustrated in this walkthrough include: Adding Web Parts controls to a page. Creating a custom user control and using it as a Web Parts control. Enabling users to personalize the layout of the Web Parts controls on the page. Enabling users to edit the appearance of a Web Parts control. Enabling users to select from a catalog of available Web Parts controls. Prerequisites In order to complete this walkthrough, you will need: A site that can identify individual users. If you have a site already configured with ASP.NET membership, you can use that site for this walkthrough. Otherwise, the walkthrough provides instructions on how to configure your site to identify you by your Windows user account name. A visual design environment for creating Web pages. This walkthrough uses Visual Studio 2005. A configured personalization provider and database. Web Parts personalization is enabled by default, and it uses the SQL personalization provider (SqlPersonalizationProvider) with Microsoft SQL Server Express Edition to store personalization data. This walkthrough uses SQL Server Express and the default SQL provider. If you have SQL Server Express installed, no configuration is needed. SQL Server Express is available with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 as an optional part of the installation, or as a free download from Microsoft.com. To use a full version of SQL Server, you must install and configure an ASP.NET application services database, and configure the SQL personalization provider to connect to that database. For details, see Creating and Configuring the Application Services Database for SQL Server. Creating and Configuring the Web Site This walkthrough requires that you have a user identity, so that your Web Parts settings can be keyed to you. If you already have a Web site configured to use membership, it is recommended that you use that site. Otherwise, you can create a new site and use your current Windows user name as your user identity. Note Note You do not need to do anything to enable Web Parts personalization; it is enabled by default for the Web Parts control set. When you first run a Web Parts page on a site, ASP.NET sets up a default personalization provider to store user personalization settings. For more information about personalization, see Web Parts Personalization Overview.