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Web Part Galleries

  • Article

Web Parts that are available to users at run-time are contained in Web Part galleries. Depending on which site groups users are assigned to, and depending on the rights assigned to those groups, users can have varying levels of freedom to add and modify Web Parts and Web Part Pages.

The four galleries supported by Microsoft® Windows® SharePoint™ Services are:

  • Virtual Server gallery

    The Virtual Server gallery lists Web Parts that are available to all sites on the server. This gallery provides a way for a server administrator to deploy Web Parts.

  • <Site Name=> gallery

    The <Site_Name> gallery contains Web Parts that are available to a particular site. By default, when you run Stsadm.exe to install a Web Part, Stsadm.exe adds the Web Part to the Virtual Server gallery. This gallery provides a way for the SharePoint Administrator to deploy Web Parts.

  • Online gallery

    The online gallery is a set of Web Parts that are available over a Web service. This permits many servers to share access to a common, centrally maintained gallery of Web Parts. The URL for this Web service is specified in the OnlineLibrary element of the web.config file for a site. This gallery provides a way for the IT administrator to deploy Web Parts.

  • Web Part Page gallery

    A Web Part Page gallery contains Web Parts that are already added to the current page. This gallery is different from the other galleries in that it is dynamically generated. It contains Web Parts that are added to the page but are closed (the IsIncluded property is false). The Web Part is still associated with the page by an entry in the SharePoint database, which also stores any shared or personalized property settings for the Web Part. To bring back a closed Web Part, select it from the Web Part Page gallery.

    Note  To truly delete a Web Part from a page, you must click the Modify My Page menu (or the Modify Shared Page menu in shared view), and then click Design this Page to add the Delete command to the drop-down menu of the Web Part. To remove the Web Part from the page without adding it to the Web Part Page gallery, click the Edit arrow on the right side of the Web Part title bar, and then click Delete.

For more information about importing Web Parts into galleries, see Importing and Exporting Web Parts Using DWP Files.