After playing with WebSlices in the run up to MIX08 and the IE8 Beta1 launch I thought I might give it a try here.

Turns out it is as easy as the IE8 told us ;)

I use BlogEngine.NET as my blogging platform but if you can edit your template the following rules should hold true… (it’s fully documented on the IE8 site as well)

<div class="hslice" id="1">

<h1 class="entry-title"><%=BlogSettings.Instance.Name %></h1>

<div class="entry-content">

<blog:RecentPosts runat="Server" />

</div>

</div>

The first line with the hslice div defines the block of code that will be presented to the browser as a WebSlice. You can have more than one on a page, but each must have a unique ID.

The addition of the class=”entry-title" to the title determines what will be displayed in the browser toolbar

The content of the entry-content div determines what will actually be polled/displayed in the slice.

You can see the code as displayed on the right hand side of the blog below the calendar… or if you’re running IE8 add it to your slices.

In my instance it’s not very pretty at the moment as the default “RecentPosts” functionality in BE.N isn’t optimized for WebSlices…. but I’ve asked how to improve it and when I get an answer the slide should magically improve.

So there you go. WebSlices. So easy even an Offbeatmammal can work out how to use them.