Using SPWebPartManager and Sharepoint WebParts in standard ASP.NET page

Question

I have a server with WSS 3.0 installed and a functional team site. But I want to build a series of pages on a seperate site that are standard asp.net 2.0 type pages but include web parts and will display some summary information and links back to the WSS site (like to the documents). The pages will be added to an existing site that will not be converted to a WSS site.

I have attempted to include the SPWebPartManager (and WebPartZones) to the page but am getting a "Object reference not set to an instance of an object." even though I have done the "Register Tagprefix="SharePoint" on the page and included the Microsoft.Shareoint reference in the project.

Does anyone know where I can get a minimal environment for a page to do this type of thing?

Thanks

Answer 1

you know asp.net has it's own web part manager. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.ui.webcontrols.webparts.webpartmanager.aspx

although what it sounds like to me you are trying to do is simply read documents from a sharepoint list. In which case you dont need sharepoint web parts you just need to call the sharepoint web services.