Quick site development with .NET Forge CMS and Web Platform Installer, Part 1

More recently, 1C-Bitrix announced the release of a new content management system called .NET Forge CMS , which is presented in two editions, including a free community version. This system has powerful tools for creating modern, fast, functional sites for commercial and other activities on the Internet.

Among other advantages of the new CMS, the following can be noted: ASP.NET platform, templates for an online store, corporate site, blog, community site, visual editor, Hermitage interface, website advertising management system, ratings, polls, galleries, forums, blogs , proactive protection against threats and hacking attempts, morphological search and built-in update system.

I am pleased to announce that .NET Forge CMS is now available for quick, automated installation through Web Platform Installer, among many other content management systems. And this means that installing and configuring your own site has become much easier and is now available to any user.

The following describes how to use the Web Platform Installer in the shortest possible time to deploy and configure a fully finished own corporate website.

Installation

To automatically install .NET Forge CMS, you must have the Web Platform Installer installed. The recently released final version is available for download at the following link . Here you can choose the localization of the product (14 languages ​​are available) and the version that matches your operating system: 32-bit or 64-bit. There is another way to download the latest version of WebPI - this is the official product page, available at http://www.microsoft.com/web/downloads/platform.aspx . On this page you can get a little more information about the product and download the current version for your version of the operating system.

After the Web Platform Installer is installed on your computer, click on the following linkto the .NET Forge CMS web application template page in the gallery. Here you can find a description of the project, leave feedback and find out information for a friend (Figure 1).


Fig. 1. .NET Forge CMS page in the web application gallery

Launch the .NET Forge CMS template using the Download button at the bottom of the page. The project template will automatically start in the Web Platform Installer and will be ready for installation (Figure 2).


Fig. 2. Project template ready for installation

Click the “Install” button and in the window that appears with a list of installed components and the license text, click the “I Agree” button (I Accept). The automatic download and installation of components of the content management system will begin. After a while, you will be asked to specify the parameters for placing the site on the computer (Figure 3).


Fig. 3. A window with entering site parameters

you can leave these parameters unchanged and click “Continue”. After a few seconds, you will receive a window with a proposal to enter the initial settings of the content management system for working with the database (Figure 4).


Fig. 4. Entering database parameters

After entering the data, click the “Continue” button. After a few seconds, you will receive a notification that the content management system has been successfully installed (Figure 5).


Fig. 5. Confirmation of the successful installation of .NET Forge CMS

It took several minutes to complete the work.

Launch

To go to the already installed .NET Forge CMS content management system package, you can click on the link provided. Following this, the primary configuration of the site for work will open before you (Figure 6).


Fig. 6. Initial configuration of the .NET Forge CMS site

Due to the installation through the Web Platform Installer, the initial setup does not require much effort, you are required to agree to the license agreement and, if you wish, register on the site. After that, you will be prompted to enter the parameters of the site administrator and enter the optional data of the mail server (Figure 7).

 
Fig. 7. Entering administrator and mail server parameters

By clicking on the next page, you will be taken to the page for selecting a template for your site (Figure 8).

 
Fig. 8. Choosing a site template and its theme

Choose what your site will be: a personal site, a corporate site with a profile in the service sector, a corporate site with a profile in production or a community site. Then set the design theme for the solution and enter some site parameters, such as the company logo. In a few seconds, your corporate website is ready for use and filled with content (Figure 9).


Fig. 9. Ready to work corporate website

Conclusion

The company "1C-Bitrix" presented to developers an excellent new powerful product for creating functional sites. .NET Forge CMS has a lot of advantages and rich functionality. A free community version of this content management system makes it available to all levels of developers. Remaining free, this version does not lose functionality and allows you to create sites based on both ready-made templates and your own code.

The availability of .NET Forge CMS through the installation of the Web Platform Installer makes working with this CMS even easier and faster. It’s enough to spend only a few minutes of time to start working with an already finished site!

In future articles in this series, I’ll try to talk more about how to set up and develop sites using the .NET Forge CMS content management system.