The Ins and Outs of WebMatrix: An Introduction

Microsoft Team on Jun 22nd 2011 with 58 comments

Tutorial Details

Subject: WebMatrix
Difficulty: Beginner

This entry is part 1 of 2 in the The Ins and Outs of WebMatrix Session
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This tutorial introduces Microsoft WebMatrix, a free web development technology that delivers one of the best experiences for web developers.

What You'll Learn:

What is WebMatrix?
How to install WebMatrix.
How to get started creating a simple website using WebMatrix.
How to create a dynamic web page using WebMatrix.
How to program your web pages in Visual Studio to take advantage of more advanced features.

What is WebMatrix?

WebMatrix is a free, lightweight set of web development tools that provides the easiest way to build websites.

It includes IIS Express (a development web server), ASP.NET (a web framework), and SQL Server Compact (an embedded database). It also includes a simple tool that streamlines website development and makes it easy to start websites from popular open source apps. The skills and code you develop with WebMatrix transition seamlessly to Visual Studio and SQL Server.

The web pages that you create using WebMatrix can be dynamic—that is, they can alter their content or style based on user input or on other information, such as database information. To program dynamic Web pages, you use ASP.NET with the Razor syntax and with the C# or Visual Basic programming languages.

If you already have programming tools that you like, you can try the WebMatrix tools or you can use your own tools to create websites that use ASP.NET.

This tutorial shows you how WebMatrix makes it easy to get started creating websites and dynamic web pages.

Installing WebMatrix

To install WebMatrix, you can use Microsoft’s Web Platform Installer, which is a free application that makes it easy to install and configure web-related technologies.

If you don't already have the Web Platform Installer, download it from the following URL:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=205867
Run the Web Platform Installer, select Spotlight, and then click Add to install WebMatrix.
Note If you already have a WebMatrix Beta version installed, the Web Platform Installer upgrades the installation to WebMatrix 1.0. However, sites you created with earlier Beta editions might not appear in the My Sites list when you first open WebMatrix. To open a previously created site, click the Site From Folder icon, browse to the site, and open it. The next time you open WebMatrix, the site will appear in the My Sites list.

Getting Started with WebMatrix

To begin, you'll create a new website and a simple web page.

Start WebMatrix.
Click Site From Template. Templates include prebuilt files and pages for different types of websites.
Select Empty Site and name the new site Hello World.
Click OK. WebMatrix creates and opens the new site.
At the top, you see a Quick Access Toolbar and a ribbon, as in Microsoft Office 2010. At the bottom left, you see the workspace selector, which contains buttons that determine what appears above them in the left pane. On the right is the content pane, which is where you view reports, edit files, and so on. Finally, across the bottom is the notification bar, which displays messages as needed.

Creating a Web Page

In WebMatrix, select the Files workspace. This workspace lets you work with files and folders. The left pane shows the file structure of your site.
In the ribbon, click New and then click New File.
WebMatrix displays a list of file types.
Select CSHTML, and in the Name box, type default.cshtml. A CSHTML page is a special type of page in WebMatrix that can contain the usual contents of a web page, such as HTML and JavaScript code, and that can also contain code for programming web pages. (You'll learn more about CSHTML files later.)
Click OK. WebMatrix creates the page and opens it in the editor.
As you can see, this is ordinary HTML markup.

Add the following title, heading, and paragraph content to the page:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
	<head>
		<meta charset="utf-8" />      
		<title>Hello World Page</title>
	</head>
	
	<body>
		<h1>Hello World Page</h1>
		<p>Hello World!</p>
	</body>
</html>

In the Quick Access Toolbar, click Save.
In the ribbon, click Run.
Note Before you click Run, make sure that the web page you want to run is selected in the navigation pane of the Files workspace. WebMatrix runs the page that's selected, even if you're currently editing a different page. If no page is selected, WebMatrix tries to run the default page for the site (default.cshtml), and if there is no default page, the browser displays an error.
WebMatrix starts a web server (IIS Express) that you can use to test pages on your computer. The page is displayed in your default browser.

Installing Helpers with the Administration Tool

Now that you have WebMatrix installed and a site created, it's a good idea learn how to use the ASP.NET Web Pages Administration tool and the Package Manager to install helpers. WebMatrix contains helpers (components) that simplify common programming tasks and that you'll use throughout these tutorials. (Some helpers are already included with WebMatrix, but you can install others as well.) In the appendix you can find a quick reference for the included helpers and for other helpers that you can install as part of a package called the ASP.NET Web Helpers Library. The following procedure shows how to use the Administration tool to install the ASP.NET Web Helpers Library. You will use some of these helpers in this tutorial and other tutorials in this series.

In WebMatrix, click the Site workspace.
In the content pane, click ASP.NET Web Pages Administration. This loads an administration page into your browser. Because this is the first time you're logging into the administration page, it prompts you to create a password.
Create a password.
After you click Create Password, a security-check page that looks like the following screen shot prompts you to rename the password file for security reasons. If this is the first time you're seeing this page, don't try to rename the file yet. Proceed to the next step and follow the directions there.
Leave the browser open on the security-check page, return to WebMatrix, and click the Files workspace.
Right-click the Hello World folder for your site and then click Refresh. The list of files and folders now displays an App_Data folder. Open that and you see an Admin folder. The newly created password file (_Password.config) is displayed in the ./App_Data/Admin/ folder. The following illustration shows the updated file structure with the password file selected:

Rename the file to Password.config by removing the leading underscore (_) character.
Return to the security-check page in the browser, and click the Click Here link near the end of the message about renaming the password file.
Log into the Administration page using the password you created. The page displays the Package Manager, which contains a list of add-on packages.
If you ever want to display other feed locations, click the Manage Package Sources link to add, change, or remove feeds.
Find the ASP.NET Web Helpers Library package. To narrow down the list, search for helpers using the Search field. The following image shows the result of searching for helpers. Notice that several versions of this package are available.
Select the version that you want, click the Install button, and then install the package as directed. After the package is installed, the Package Manager displays the result.
This page also lets you uninstall packages, and you can use the page to update packages when newer versions are available. You can go to the Show drop-down list and click Installed to display the packages you have installed, or click Updates to display available updates for the installed packages.

Note The default website templates (Bakery, Calendar, Photo Gallery, and Starter Site) are available in C# and Visual Basic versions. You can install the Visual Basic templates by using the ASP.NET Web Pages Administration tool in WebMatrix. Open the Administration tool as described in this section and search for VB, and then install the templates you need. Website templates are installed in the root folder of your site in a folder named Microsoft Templates.
In the next section, you'll see how easy is it is to add code to the default.cshtml page in order to create a dynamic page.

Using ASP.NET Web Pages Code

In this procedure, you'll create a page that uses simple code to display the server date and time on the page. The example here will introduce you to the Razor syntax that lets you embed code into the HTML on ASP.NET Web Pages. (You can read more about this in the next tutorial.) The code introduces one of the helpers that you read about earlier in the tutorial.

Open your default.cshtml file.

Add markup to the page so that it looks like the following example:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">

<head>
	<meta charset="utf-8" />
	<title>Hello World Page</title>
</head>

<body>
	<h1>Hello World Page</h1>
	<p>Hello World!</p>
	<p>The time is @DateTime.Now</p>
</body>
</html>

The page contains ordinary HTML markup, with one addition: the @ character marks ASP.NET program code.

Save the page and run it in the browser. You now see the current date and time on the page.
The single line of code you've added does all the work of determining the current time on the server, formatting it for display, and sending it to the browser. (You can specify formatting options; this is just the default.)

Suppose you want to do something more complex, such as displaying a scrolling list of tweets from a Twitter user that you select. You can use a helper for that; as noted earlier, a helper is a component that simplifies common tasks. In this case, all the work you'd otherwise have to do fetch and display a Twitter feed.

Create a new CSHTML file and name it TwitterFeed.cshtml.
In the page, replace the existing code with the following code:
```
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
	<meta charset="utf-8" />
	<title>Twitter Feed</title>
</head>

<body>
	<h1>Twitter Feed</h1>
	<form action="" method="POST">
		<div>
			Enter the name of another Twitter feed to display: &nbsp; 
			<input type="text" name="TwitterUser" value=""/> &nbsp;
			<input type="submit" value="Submit" />
		</div>         
		
		<div>
			@if (Request["TwitterUser"].IsEmpty()) 
			{
				@Twitter.Search("microsoft")
			}
			else 
			{
				@Twitter.Profile(Request["TwitterUser"])
			}
		</div>
	</form>
</body>
</html>
```
This HTML creates a form that displays a text box for entering a user name, plus a Submit button. These are between the first set of <div> tags.
Between the second set of <div> tags there's some code. (As you saw earlier, to mark code in ASP.NET Web pages, you use the @ character.) The first time this page is displayed, or if the user clicks Submit but leaves the text box blank, the conditional expression Request["TwitterUser"].IsEmpty will be true. In that case, the page shows a Twitter feed that searches for the term "microsoft". Otherwise, the page shows a Twitter feed for whatever user name you entered in the text box.
Run the page in the browser. The Twitter feed displays tweets with "microsoft" in them.
Enter a Twitter user name and then click Submit. The new feed is displayed. (If you enter a nonexistent name, a Twitter feed is still displayed, it's just blank.)
This example has shown you a little bit about how you can use WebMatrix and how you can program dynamic web pages using simple ASP.NET code using the Razor syntax. The next tutorial examines code in more depth. The subsequent tutorials then show you how to use code for many different types of website tasks.

Programming ASP.NET Razor Pages in Visual Studio

Besides using WebMatrix to program ASP.NET Razor pages, you can also use Visual Studio 2010, either one of the full editions or the free Visual Web Developer Express edition. If you use Visual Studio or Visual Web Developer to edit ASP.NET Razor pages, you get two programming tools that can enhance your productivity—IntelliSense and the debugger. IntelliSense works in the editor by displaying context-appropriate choices. For example, as you enter an HTML element, IntelliSense shows you a list of attributes that the element can have, and it even can show you what values you can set those attributes for. IntelliSense works for HTML, JavaScript, and C# and Visual Basic (the programming languages you use for ASP.NET Razor pages.)

The debugger lets you stop a program while it's running. You can then examine things like the values of variables, and you can step line by line through the program to see how it runs.

To work with ASP.NET Razor Pages in Visual Studio, you need the following software installed on your computer:

Visual Studio 2010 or Visual Web Developer 2010 Express
ASP.NET MVC 3 RTM.

Note You can install both Visual Web Developer 2010 Express and ASP.NET MVC 3 using the Web Platform Installer.

If you have Visual Studio installed, when you are editing a website in WebMatrix, you can launch the site in Visual Studio to take advantage of IntelliSense and the debugger.

Open the site that you created in this tutorial and then click the Files workspace.
In the ribbon, click the Visual Studio Launch button.
After the site opens in Visual Studio, you can see the site structure in Visual Studio in the Solution Explorer pane. The following illustration shows the website opened in Visual Web Developer 2010 Express:
For an overview of how to use IntelliSense and the debugger with ASP.NET Razor pages in Visual Studio, see the appendix item ASP.NET Web Pages Visual Studio.

Creating and Testing ASP.NET Pages Using Your Own Text Editor

iisexpress.exe /port:35896 /path:C:\BasicWebSite

For help with IIS Express command line options, enter iisexpress.exe /? at the command line.

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http://marioplanet.com Zach
It really seems Microsoft’s web technologies have evolved into a great development platform. I think MVC 3 and razor are quite nice, really.
Although, after playing around with node for a while – it seems like it would be so hard to go back! And even if I did, I feel like I would be regressing into something a little clunkier.
Either way, it’s nice to have options and maybe I’ll take a look at m$ again.
Martin
You should have also mentioned that WebMatrix let’s us work with PHP, WordPress, Drupal etc. It’s not limited to Microsoft technologies, which is weird coming from…well…Microsoft.
However, it also lacks any real customization options. You can, for example, forget about color schemes or even something as simple as changing a font. If only it was more flexible, I would be inclined to use it.

http://www.waleedeissa.com Waleed Eissa
I just had the same problem with changing the colors but then came across the ColorThemeManager extension. It was probably not released yet when you posted your comment, but I’m not completely sure.

http://www.graphicrating.com Andy Gongea
I’ve tested WebMatrix a couple of months ago and the thing that I loved most was the overall speedy feeling. It doesn’t have a lot of features but than again, it doesn’t load in 3 minutes like Visual Studio.
It is a free good alternative, although it would be nice to have some keyboard shortcuts for code manipulation and productivity. Cheers!
http://thedevelopertuts.com Bratu Sebastian
The “Microsoft Team” ? Really ? :)
I find it hard to believe that after node js and php web development people would want to learn asp and IIS. ( Some companies do believe that having a 10000$ server would help them have bigger productivity )
Interesting tutorial, altrough I believe Microsoft keeps on reinventing the wheel all the time.

Nate
I don’t get all the hatred for Microsoft products.
I have a strong feeling these comments are going to be filled with comments about how PHP is greater than ASP.NET–as was the case with the entire ASP.NET From Scratch series.
I think it’s important to note that PHP fails in terms of scalability on a commercial scale. Have you ever tried inserting 1 billion rows in MySQL. Well, it’s not happening. Oracle’s DBs on the other hand can handle the scalability. And I know you can use Oracle with PHP’s PDO_OCI but everyone will agree (I think Oracle has a warning on their website) that these objects aren’t nearly as mature as they should be.
@Bratu Sebastian
I’ve started learning ASP.NET and the more I use it, the more I fall in love with the framework. You can deploy applications with more structure and ability to scale. I also like the structure, object orientation, and strong typing a language like C# or VB offers.
@Shane
I find your comments to be very hypocritical.

PixelTunnelVision
Feel free to correct me if I am at all wrong, but doesn’t Facebook, one of the biggest and most high-traffic sites in history, mainly use PHP? They admit it’s hard to scale, but they obviously manage.
Tyrone
@Nate, I could not agree with you more. There is absolutely no competition for Visual Studio. It is one of Microsoft’s greatest developments and no IDE even comes close to it.
I have moved from php mvc frameworks to the C# MVC 3 framework. I am in love with programming all over again. Together with NuGet, MVC 3 is a force to be reckoned with. I honestly think people should give it a try. As mentioned in the post, you can get the free versions of the Microsoft products, but if you need the full version of SQL and Visual Studio, the products are WELL worth the price. Expensive but brilliant.
Dont take my word for it though, ask the StackOverflow team!
Yeah
“I think it’s important to note that PHP fails in terms of scalability on a commercial scale”
I really don’t want to get into a platform war (and I’m sure that Microsoft web solutions are great for those who prefer them), but… Really? You honestly think that PHP doesn’t scale? Facebook, Yahoo and a ton of other huge sites use PHP (and, mind you, Facebook didn’t introduce their HipHop PHP-to-C++ compiler until they had around 500 million users. In other words, Facebook was able to scale their highly dynamic and un-cacheable site up to 500 MILLION users by using just the normal PHP interpreter. And they still use PHP today, just with their own HipHop compiler which they’ve open-sourced and made available to everyone).
http://abderrahmane-tj.co.cc Abderrahmane TAHRI JOUTI
I’ve tried inserting 10.000 rows in MySQL once, and I thought that MySQL faild me. then it hit me: Why would I do it all at once !?
do you think that SQL Server does allow you to insert one billion request at a time ? Noo !
I bet he may be handling it as I did: I build a script that take my too-much-large-request, and only executes 200 rows at a time.
Mark Sinkinson
@PixelTunnelVision I believe Facebook is built on a custom PHP/C++ compiler, nothing like your standard PHP
http://8gramgorilla.com 8 Gram Gorilla
It completely boggles my mind how people like to point out “scalability issues” with non-MS products like PHP, MySQL and Ruby on Rails and then use examples like Facebook and Twitter, two of the most heavily trafficked sites on the planet! The fact that these sites not only deal with this obscene amount of use yet also thrive in the face of it is a testament to the power of the open source software they run.
I think the fact that there are so very few high use sites built upon MS web technologies is very telling.
http://www.ssiddharth.com Siddharth
You do know that StackOverflow and the rest of the StackExchange sites run on an MS stack, right?

Aaron
Why is it that Microsoft is the only one to have a crappy looking tutorial?
http://www.logic52.com Shane
WebMatrix is a free, lightweight set of web development tools that provides the easiest way to build websites…. you must be joking, this makes everything seem like you have to follow these steps or perish. You lost me at “by the Microsoft Team”.
http://www.wordimpressed.com Devin Walker
I use to love MS but now it seems like I’m much happier in my PHP world. Interesting read, although all I did really was look and the pictures.

Michael
@Devin Walker, @Thomas Jane: It´s also possible to use a PHP 5.2/5.3 environment (IIS instead of Apache) inside WebMatrix.

http://8gramgorilla.com 8 Gram Gorilla
It’s indeed possible to run PHP on IIS but I wouldn’t recommend it as Microsoft won’t support it.

Steveorevo
Ditto. IIS7 does do permalinks with WP. Is way too fat (you get MS SQL Reporter and engine alongside your MySQL), .NET beast, and all the trimmings. Forget it. Stick with lean and mean Apache or Nginx.

Steveorevo
Rather it DOES NOT do permalinks. It’s bloatware.

http://sallar.ir Sallar Kaboli
You’ve got to be kidding me. Microsoft Team?
You seriously call this crap DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT?

http://www.wdonline.com/ Jeremy McPeak
Yes. It’s an entry level IDE for entry level developers.

http://www.caiobianchi.com Caio Bianchi
Something is terribly wrong with the formatting of this page. Perhaps because someone forgot to close h2 tags at the beginning. Chrome looks fine, but in Safari looks horrible!!!

Aaron
That someone would be “The Microsoft Team.”

http://www.caiobianchi.com Caio Bianchi
Very Likely.

http://net.tutsplus.com Jeffrey Way
Nope – just a 2 minute error on my part. :)

The Open Mind Dude
Great tut! More ASP.NET Tuts, please!
Jesse
Personally, I really enjoy developing in the ASP.NET MVC Framework, though I’m not a big fan of Web Matrix. What I don’t get is all this platform bashing. It’s just pointless…of course, I don’t get fanboy-ism at any level so maybe it’s just me. All platforms have their pros and cons. Some are universal and some aren’t (I, for example, prefer the explicitness of C# over the dynamic nature of something like PHP or Ruby and others see it as a drawback). Big deal. Make good stuff, no matter what you develop on, just make it good.

http://about.me/krimo.hafsaoui Krimo
Right there with Jesse on this one. The platform bashing tends to get a bit old. Applications/Websites should be platform agnostic, as long as they work well for the end-user.
Criticizing the platform on which a website is built would be much like criticizing the language a book has been translated into. The message is the same, the function(ality) is the same, but just because it’s written in a language I don’t like, I ain’t gonna endorse it. A bit ludicrous.
Brett
I also don’t get the platform bashing. 95% of the people bashing platforms are really not good enough on any platform to be either bashing it or promoting it.
It’s hard enough keeping up with the platforms as they develop – I’ve been in online, business application development since ’95. There’s so much choice nowadays with regards platforms, and the theoretical limitations are constantly being pushed.
I don’t focus on platforms. I prefer to make my choices around proprietary, or open-source, procedural, or object-orientated, MVC or close-coupled, server-side processing, or JSON driven, REST implementation or not. Each project may indicate a different implementation. Perhaps jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none applies to me.
None of these huge, traffic intensive sites are built on stock code. They develop the code to handle the requirements, and then they provide it – open-source or otherwise – to the larger community. Similar to how advancements in racing cars find their ways into commercial vehicles years later.
I like ASP.NET MVC, although I think simplifying the syntax for embedded logic into the presentation code will just mean that more logic finds its way there. Could be bad…

http://www.techendeavour.com Rahul Aggarwal
I opine that MS has experimented with this tool and am sure the PC giant will upgrade the tool for better. Similar to the WP 7, this technology might not have appealed to its users but there will be a improved version soon or at-least I expect it. Thanks for the tutorial.
Thomas Jane
I am more than happy in my PHP, Apache world. I am not gonna learn ASP.NET and leave PHP behind.
TedT
I´ve used WebMatric a few times for local WordPress theme development. It´s a nice tool although a bit basic (eg where are the character encoding options?).
When I read the title of this post, I was hoping for a more in-depth tutorial. I suppose the readers of this site are able to create a new file by themselves without screenshots and explanation (“click New and then click New File”).
Mark Sinkinson
To be fair, there would probably be a lot less MS bashing on this thread if we had been given an impartial review not written by Microsoft.
I tried WebMatrix and hated it so stopped using it. I do quite like the Web Platform Installer though….when it works!
http://thomaswornall.com tom wornall
for those of you who really want to know the joys of microsoft
https://www.dreamspark.com/default.aspx
you need an .edu email though. YAY I HAVE ONE!
Kristian
WebMatrix has a lack of Mac and Linux support. Lost me at the first step. Sorry MS.
w1sh
Although I appreciate the fact MicroSoft is finally making any effort whatsoever to make designers/developers come to The Dark Side, I can’t help but think it’s because we’ve all been huddled around under a bridge talking about how we’re going to stop supporting your stupid browsers and how only old, stupid institutions with old, stupid, tech un-savvy, jerk, bosses (people that most talented coders would never work for) use .NET.
In short, The Era of Pain you caused by choking out your competition and offering inferior products so that you could profit off the computer illiterate is close to an end. And now you’re reaching out to us for support…
Yeah… friggin’… right…
I think anything with the MicroSoft logo on it will forever be shunned by real developers who understand you’re a bunch of half-wit monkey coders with no sense of cohesion and only dollar signs in your eyes.
Please… go peddle your crappy IDE to some fat businessman. Us real designer/developers are through with you.

Eastern Block
Have you ever used ASP.NET MVC 3?
I have programmed on Mac, Windows, and Linux. At the end of the day I love .NET, but I had fun with Ruby, PHP, PERL, and all the others I had to work with as well.
However, I am not a zealot. I am not going to bash Microsoft because I like over glossy UI encapsulated in a shiny metallic box. I understand that everything has a purpose and it’s not about being “cool” in the development world.
Most people just sound ignorant and lame when they bash Microsoft because most do so because of Vista or IE (both products that have been mishandled). However, Microsoft programming has always been a shining light in the company. The tools Microsoft has been providing developers for years and years has in-hydrated the industry that we work in. Most companies could care less if you know Node.js or Ruby.
Real developers will not shun Microsoft due to past mistakes, rather learn from them and still see if they can be productive and successful with what they have new to offer. Have fun being closed minded, if they market turns even more than it does now you can have fun making WP themes for a living.

Kristian
“Most companies could care less if you know Node.js or Ruby.”
oh rly?
http://blog.nodejs.org/2011/06/23/porting-node-to-windows-with-microsoft%E2%80%99s-help/
Eastern Block
YES RLY!
Search Node.js on Dice.com and then search ASP.NET.
WeaselSpleen
Instead of comparing ASP.NET, an entire platform, with node.js, which is a small chunk of code, how about comparing it to something more relevant, like Java, or PHP, or heck even Javascript.
Yeah I know this is a year old but logical BS like this pisses me off. It’s like saying pizza is more popular than hamburgers because Dominos is hiring more delivery drivers than McDonalds.

zyrg
ASP.NET and friends can go to hell.
thx.

Dolph
It’s a programming language bro…

http://www.elimcmakin.com Eli McMakin
I tried WebMatrix a month ago. It has some interesting features. I like the fact that a Web server is pre-installed and running while you are developing. The templating system is also nice.
Unfortunately, I had problems with local host testing. I previously had IIS and XAMPP installed at the same time on my computer with no problems. I installed WebMatrix and this caused serious problems with my ports.
If you install WebMatrix, please beware of this current issue. Even after I uninstalled WebMatrix, there were background programs using port 80 and nothing I could do about it. Even changing the ports in IIS didn’t work.
If you are having this problem, and WebMatrix has blocked your ability to use Apache on port 80:
Search for “services” in the search bar in Windows. A list of services that are running will pop up. You can look at the services that are running and enable or disable the services. Through trial and error, you can discover the service that is hoarding port 80.
For me, I think the problem was with the “Web Management Service” if I remember correctly. Just disable this service, and you should be good.
I’m sure that Microsoft will improve WebMatrix (there are compatibility and user interface issue). It is tough to get everything right in version 1.0 of a major project.
I think that whether you like Microsoft or not, some of the good ideas will filter out to other editors, which will improve all developer’s lives. So stop the fanboyism. It only shows ignorance of the real world.
Clyde
Um, has anyone developed anything with WebMatrix? If so, maybe post a link to the site so we can see what this thing’s capable of?
Just a thought.
http://adevtus.com Adevtus
The biggest problem for Web Matrix is it’s older brother Visual Studio, which is more suitable for .NET projects and it’s also free. As for PHP, I still haven’t met a developer that doesn’t use WAMP/LAMP/XAMPP and some sort of text editor.
Seriously, it took me a whole day to get wordpress to work on SQL server/IIS only to find out that my webhost doesn’t have the SQL Server PHP extension, thus rendering all my work useless.
http://www.patrickrogan.net Patrick
I actually use webmatrix, and it’s pretty lightweight, yet very featureless, much like a Notepad++ with a flare of UI enhancement.
Pros:
Intuitive and simple UI with simple separations of languages like Html and Css in a ribbon style.
Okay suggestions for markup.
Integrated everything, almost.
Web Publishing is okay
Cons:
Not many features.
No Code-Folding.
No other OS support.
IIS servers only? Realistically… Nobody uses IIS Sites!
Code hints only work whenever they want to…
Web Publishing is not that okay…
Sugesstions:
Look at Espresso M$~ At Coda… Copy some features, put them on here, and get user feedback, that’s what makes you sucessful, not “innovating” on a whim… Users are what matters, see what they want, get what they want. C’Mon! If you just listen to what we want in a product, this whole OS wars wouldn’t be going on…
Anyways… Enough ranting~
doe_ro
What are you going to do if you use WordPress, Joomla, Drupal or any CMS that use PHP?

http://www.elimcmakin.com Eli McMakin
@doe_ro – It has built in support for WordPress, and some other PHP CMSs. That’s more than a lot of IDEs can say.

http://edwinhollen.com edwinhollen
Microsoft, I have been using WebMatrix for most of my coding today and would like to point out a few things.
- The user cannot move tabs. Why would you have a tab browsing system that the user can’t arrange?
- I should be able to see a thumbnail or preview of images in the “Files” pane.
- There are no existing options for changing the appearance of the editing window.
- Code completion is awful. Insert a basic HTML tag and it adds this: That is not how the tag works, guys. This needs serious work.
- The code suggestion tooltip window picks up arrow key movements. It’ll pop up when I’m trying to navigate the CSS with the arrow keys and is a pain, consistently in my way. I should be able to either disable this, or make it less intrusive.
- The application itself does not grab focus on downclick. This makes highlighting text require more than one click when the application is in the background. A minor issue, but heck, Notepad++ grabs focus on first click regardless of focus.
Wouter J
This is almost the same as the asp.net documentation: http://www.asp.net/webmatrix/tutorials/1-getting-started-with-webmatrix-and-asp-net-web-pages
kankuro
enough of your stupid comments… use a tool that you think is best for you. don’t compare it… software have their own capability, look @ our self can we program all the programming languages? can we have the capability? may 1, 3, or 5… oh common guys… don’t forget all of us has a limitation :(
Mike
“Everything has its beauty but not everyone sees it.”
“Men’s natures are alike, it is their habits that carry them far apart.”
Confucius
“Try all and hate none.”
Me
Wes
Sigh. Just went I thought I would never have to deal with frontpage again.
http://www.thetechhub.com geekonweb
I have used webmatrix for some of my small web projects ( asp.net with razor syntax) and quite satisfied with it. It can be used as tool for rapid prototyping. Limitations of the webmatrix IDE can be overcome by using the same project in VisualStudio Express edition, which is free of cost.
http://templates.thetechhub.com ( blogger template showcase developed using webmatrix )
Mateus
hi
I have project in ASP and I want to migrate to another language
I studied the WebMatrix (vbhtml), but advised me to migrate to asp.net
What do you think?
http://alinesullivan.webstarts.com/ AnikaSimmons
The greatest issue for Web Matrix is it’s mature sibling Graphic Facilities, which is more appropriate for .NET tasks and it’s also no cost. As for PHP, I still haven’t met a designer that doesn’t use WAMP/LAMP/XAMPP and some kind of written text manager.
http://twitter.com/jeff_pz_cr Jeffrey Briceno
WebMatrix is a free, lightweight set of web development tools that provides the easiest way to build websites.But is not sublime text 2 everybody love sublime text and have a huge community

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The Ins and Outs of WebMatrix: An Introduction

Tutorial Details

What You'll Learn:

What is WebMatrix?

Installing WebMatrix

Getting Started with WebMatrix

Creating a Web Page

Installing Helpers with the Administration Tool

Using ASP.NET Web Pages Code

Programming ASP.NET Razor Pages in Visual Studio

Creating and Testing ASP.NET Pages Using Your Own Text Editor

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By Microsoft Team

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The Ins and Outs of WebMatrix: An Introduction

Tutorial Details

What You'll Learn:

What is WebMatrix?

Installing WebMatrix

Getting Started with WebMatrix

Creating a Web Page

Installing Helpers with the Administration Tool

Using ASP.NET Web Pages Code

Programming ASP.NET Razor Pages in Visual Studio

Creating and Testing ASP.NET Pages Using Your Own Text Editor

Enjoyed this Post?

By Microsoft Team

Hello!

Premium Members

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