Part Discovery Service

This content is no longer actively maintained. It is provided as is, for anyone who may still be using these technologies, with no warranties or claims of accuracy with regard to the most recent product version or service release.

The Part Discovery service makes it possible for Web Parts to detect other Web Parts on the dashboard at run time. This makes it possible for Web Parts to customize their functionality depending on whether other Web Parts are present.

While the Part Discovery service can be used to find and manipulate other Web Parts directly through DHTML, a better way to do this is through the Notification service.

The following sections list the objects, methods, properties, and parameters used in Web Part discovery.

In This Section

• DDSC Object (Part Discovery Service)
  During page construction, a single Digital Dashboard Services Component (DDSC) object is inserted into the page by the dashboard factory, making the services this document describes available to Web Parts on that page.
• Dashboard Object (Part Discovery Service)
  This Dashboard object is the encapsulation of the current dashboard. It contains the collection of all Web Parts on the dashboard and makes it possible for Web Parts to modify the dashboard state.
• Part Object (Part Discovery Service)
  The Part object is the encapsulation of the services the Digital Dashboard Services Component (DDSC) provides for Web Parts in the current dashboard.
• PartCollection Object (Part Discovery Service)
  The PartCollection object makes it possible for Web Parts to be registered, unregistered, and retrieved by index or enumeration.
• Part Discovery Service Example
  This example illustrates the Parts method.

Related Sections

• Digital Dashboard Services Component
  The Digital Dashboard Services Component (DDSC) is a client-side component that is included in every dashboard page as a hidden object.
• Notification Service
  Through the Notification service, Web Parts can indicate interest in an event, providing a handle to a function that will be called when the event runs.
• Session State Management Service
  Through the Session State Management service, Web Parts can share data with other parts (even if the Web Parts are located on other dashboards) through name-value pairs associated with the browser session.
• State Management Service
  State management is a simple but essential feature of dashboard applications. The state of a Web Part or dashboard is the combination of standard Web Part and dashboard schema properties and any user- or system-defined extensions.
• Item Retrieval Service
  The Item Retrieval service makes it possible for Web Parts to retrieve items, such as Web Parts and dashboards, from the store, even if they do not reside on the current dashboard.