Reusable Modern Web Parts (shared between pages)

Brass Contributor

I feel there's a necessary component missing from SharePoint's modern layout:  Reusable/Shared web parts.  Maybe there's another approach (driven by lists?) that I'm not fully thinking through.  

 

Desire:  A Quick Links (or similar) section on multiple pages.  When I update it once, I'd like it to update for all.  

 

 

7 Replies

@kduck Great Idea.

There are a few community driven web parts that are list driven. So that when you make changes to the list, it will be reflected in the links web part.

The one I like is the Hub and Link Web parts https://github.com/SharePoint/sp-dev-solutions/tree/master/solutions/LinksAndHandlebarsTemplate

You can upload the hub-web-parts.sppkg file to your app catalog to start using.

@kduck Yes, this is a needed feature for SharePoint. All other mature CMS platforms allow you to do this easily. I should be able to use a standard,  existing web part, fill it with content and customize, then make it useable anywhere on my site. This is standard practice for other CMS systems AND web programming in general.

 

 

PnP Modern Search web parts are great for this and very customisable - though will required digging into formatting code to get customised looks.

Essentially point the search at a list with all the content and format as you wish. You can even put in smarts to only show specific items depending on page/user metadata
There is a strong business case for this need. Not only will it avoid errors when updating in one location and accidentally missing another, it will be a HUGE time saver at the time of building the web part itself. Build once, and re-use on other site pages when necessary.
This is ridiculous that I can't create a reusable web part. Just as simple as wanting to use the same QuickLinks webpart on the same 10 pages as a menu of sorts. But I have to maintain the links separately 10 times?
I do agree this is an area that it would be great to see improved by Microsoft, essentially we just want to copy the configuration of a webpart (link items + styling config) and same to a central "saved webparts" list where we can select from rather than the default config. One day maybe, only option currently is SPFx dev, PnP Search Webpart of a Formatted List View