Sharepoint with ASP.Net Web Application

Question

What I need to do is create a web application that can run inside SharePoint. It needs to be more involved then a web part and include many pages and a database. I know you can create a SharePoint application that goes under the Action bar, but I would like to create something that is run like how a site is. I would want a few tabs to show different sites, each running the same application, just showing their own data.

It looked like creating a site definition would be the best route to achieving this, but I have not been able to get it to become like an ASP.Net Web Application. Anyone know of any other project type or method that can be done to develop an ASP.Net Web Application that simply shows up in SharePoint? I know I can do it in a page viewer webpart, but that just seems like a cheap hack to create an IFrame and not the optimal solution. I don't need any true integration with sharepoint, other then using it for Authentication and a display mechanism. Our corporate intranet is setup using SharePoint, so anything that I build has to exist within it.

If anyone has any guidance, I would love to hear your suggestions.

Thanks!

Answer 1

It's actually pretty straightforward, at the basic level:

• Create your ASPX pages with codebehinds in your own assembly - just like normal.
• Use the Sharepoint master pages (look at the existing ones to mimic their styles and markup)
• Create a Feature which adds a link to your "entry point" page(s) to the SP menu
• Deploy your assembly to the GAC