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Building Websites with the ASP.NET Community Starter Kit

Chapter 1. The ASP.NET Community Starter Kit

Everybody agrees that .NET brought in many improvements over previous development paradigms and technologies. The drawback with new technologies is that developers need time to master the new skills; the large code bases, solutions, techniques, and expertise that were available with older technologies are no longer applicable within the framework of new technologies. It is always more difficult to build a complex solution with a technology you haven’t yet mastered, no matter what that technology is.

In order to help developers become more efficient with ASP.NET, Microsoft has released a number of starter kits that help ASP.NET developers to create their own solutions in a faster and easier manner.

The ASP.NET Starter Kits are complete solutions that you can update and customize for your own needs. When building complex applications, designing the application architecture is often a time-consuming step. Borrowing the entire architecture from an existing solution can be of immense help if the job is done right.

At the time of writing, there were five starter kits available for download at http://www.asp.net/starterkits (visit the site for more information on these):

Time Tracker Starter Kit
Reports Starter Kit
Community Starter Kit
Commerce Starter Kit
Portal Starter Kit

The names of the starter kits are self-describing.

This book is exclusively dedicated to the Community Starter Kit (CSK), which is the most complex and powerful of all the starter kits. It provides a complete application that can be adjusted exclusively using the administrative interface included within the starter kit without touching a single line of code or knowing its internal working.

In the first five chapters, you’ll learn how to create your own customized solution by using the administrative interface that comes with the Community Starter Kit application. In Chapters 6 through 11, you will learn how to programmatically create new modules and plug them into the site.

What Can the Community Starter Kit Do for You?

The CSK helps you to create and administer online community websites by providing the complete source code for a carefully tested, scalable, and modular structure that can be reused and customized to suit your particular needs.

Note

Community websites are websites that support online communities. These can be regional user communities, developer resource sites, news sites, or other kinds of user‑group sites. Most community websites provide features such as presenting news and events concerning the community, photo galleries, links to other websites, discussion forums, and so on.

The CSK application itself is quite complex but can save you many hours of design and development efforts. It is built using powerful and flexible 3-tier architecture with reusable components and offers good performance. We’ll discuss the details of the architecture starting withChapter 6, but an example of its modularity is that the application, excluding the administration pages, has only two ASPX web forms. Each client page is dynamically built using separate web user controls and data gathered from the SQL Server database.

By default, the CSK comes with out-of-the box functionality that includes support for nine types of content including articles, books, events, photo galleries, downloads, user polls, and more. It also supports features such as moderation, upload quotas, comments, user polls, ratings, newsletters, advertisements, web services, and security. We’ll take a detailed look at each of these in Chapters 2 and 3.

Note

To see how these features work, you can preview the Lunar .NET community (the sample community that ships with the CSK) at http://www.asp.net/CommunityStarterKit/.

The CSK has built-in functionality for skinnable interfaces, which means you can change its appearance entirely through its administration interface and configuration files without modifying a single line of code.

An advantage of using the CSK is that a number of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) support automatic deployment of websites that are based on it. We’ll talk more about deployment techniques and strategies inChapter 11.

What Can the Community Starter Kit Do for You?

Note

To see how these features work, you can preview the Lunar .NET community (the sample community that ships with the CSK) at http://www.asp.net/CommunityStarterKit/.

Installing the Community Starter Kit

Before moving on to the installation details, make sure you have met the necessary system requirements:

.NET Framework version 1.0 or 1.1
Windows 2000, Windows XP Professional Edition, or Windows Server 2003
SQL Server 2000 or MSDE 2000
Internet Information Services (IIS)

Note

You can’t use the CSK with Windows XP Home Edition because it doesn’t include IIS.

Before installing the starter kit, make sure you have the appropriate software and hardware environment. If you don’t have SQL Server, you can install it from the Visual Studio .NET kit or from its official homepage, http://www.microsoft.com/sql/msde/. You can install IIS by going to the Windows Components Wizard located at Control Panel | Add/Remove Programs | Add/Remove Windows Components.

Once you have your system ready for the CSK, it’s time to download the starter kit from http://www.asp.net/starterkits.

Note

Before downloading the starter kit, you are offered the option to create a user account for the ASP.NET Forums. The CSK discussions provide useful insight about developing solutions using the CSK.

After you go to the Download Starter Kit link in the CSK section, you’ll need to choose what version of the starter kit to download.

There are six versions of the CSK available for download for the three standard .NET languages provided by Microsoft: C#, VB.NET, and J#. For each of these languages, you can download the SDK version or the VS (Visual Studio .NET) version. The SDK version doesn’t use code-behind files and is more appropriate for development environments like Web Matrix.

Note

Web Matrix is a free ASP.NET development tool that you can download from http://www.asp.net/webmatrix and its installer kit is only 1.3 MB. It doesn’t support all the features you can find in Visual Studio .NET, such as support for code-behind files, IntelliSense, or debugging, but can be very useful for developing small ASP.NET applications. For more information about Web Matrix, visit: http://aspnet.4guysfromrolla.com/articles/061803-1.aspx or http://www.aspnetpro.com/productreviews

There is no difference in functionality between the different versions of the starter kit. The only difference is the language they’re written in and the way they are packaged.

This book focuses on the CSVS version of the starter kit, which is a C# ASP.NET web application for Visual Studio .NET. The file download for this starter kit is named ASP.NET Community (CSVS) Installer v1.0.msi.

After downloading the MSI file, the installation shouldn’t raise any problems. At the beginning, you’re presented with some useful details about the system requirements and the installation location:

The actual web locations, admin name, and password may differ since you have the option to change them during installation.

After accepting the license agreement for Microsoft ASP.NET Starter Kit, you’ll have the option to specify:

1. The physical location on the hard drive where the CSK files will be installed:
2. The web location where the starter kit will install. For this book, we suggest that you leave the default virtual directory name (Community Starter Kit) unchanged, making it accessible through http://computername/CommunityStarterKit. However, changing the web folder name won’t make much of a difference.
3. The MSDE or SQL Server login information that will be used by the installer to create the necessary database objects. Obviously, the user account you specify must have permissions to create databases or objects in a specific database (if you’ll choose to use an existing database).
4. The name of the CSK database. You can choose to create a new database (which is the recommended option if you have the necessary privileges), or you can use an already existing database.
5. The login information that the CSK will use to access the CommunityStarterKit database. This doesn’t have to be the same as what you supplied earlier when installing the database. Here you can supply a username with rights only to the CommunityStarterKit database.
6. ISP admin username and ISP admin password data (which, by default, are ISPAdmin and ISPPassword respectively), and community admin username and community admin password (by default, both are Admin).

Note

A single CSK installation can support multiple communities. During the setup, the installer creates a single sample community whose administrator account is Admin. Admin is a local community account and has privileges only inside its community. The ISPAdmin account, on the other hand, is not part of any community. ISPAdmin is used to access the ISP administration pages, where you can manage the communities in the CSK installation.

That’s it—the CSK is now ready for action! The installer also populates the database with a sample community named Lunar .NET (an imaginary community for .NET programmers on the moon station) that you can see in action right away. If you haven’t changed the default virtual directory name, you can visit the Lunar .NET community at http://localhost/CommunityStarterKit:

Note

Generally, the installation process works well; however, there have been some reports on the ASP.NET forums with problems installing the kit. Typical problems are related to the connection string used to access the CommunityStarterKit database. The connection string is stored in the Web.Config file in the CSK project folder. Also, the CSK installer program creates a log file named install.log in the setup folder. This is also a good place to look for the root of your problem.

As mentioned earlier in the chapter, you can change the appearance of the website using the administrative interface. This is because the underlying architecture is based on skins. With only a few clicks, it’s possible to completely change the face of the site. The following screenshot shows one of the themes included in the starter kit:

Description

Microsoft's ASP.NET Community Starter Kit (CSK) is a powerful, freely available application that allows you to quickly create a fully featured community-driven website, complete with article and news management, downloads, forums, and user handling. Supported and tested by thousands of developers in the ASP.NET community across the world, the Community Starter Kit offers you the luxury of a scalable and extensible architecture, and the ability to brand your own site. This book will take you inside the Community Starter Kit, allowing you to harness its power for easily creating your own websites. The book is structured to help you understand, implement and extend the Community Starter Kit: Understand how the Community Starter Kit works. Build the skills to implement your own site. Develop the confidence to extend the system for your own needs. With this book, you will learn how to: Install and configure the CSK Find your way around the CSKs towering range of features Create and administer community websites Become familiar with the common CSK ASP.NET controls Customize your CSK site Discover the secrets of the CSK core architecture Explore the inner workings of CSK modules Extend the CSK by creating new modules Customize existing modules with Web controls Add an RSS feed to share your content with others Deploy your CSK website This book is for ASP.NET developers with a sound grasp of C# and access to Visual Studio .NET. This book uses the Visual Studio. NET version of the ASP.NET Community Starter Kit available from http://www.asp.net/StarterKits/

What you will learn

Learn .NET architecture through building real-world examples

Understand, implement, and extend the Community Starter Kit

Learn to create and customize your own website

For ASP.NET developers with a sound grasp of C#

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Janice Maloney Jul 26, 2004

Before I give my opinions on this book, I would like to state that though I have a background in Web Application Development, I had never worked with Microsoft's ASP.NET Community Starter Kit so everything I was able to accomplish with the CSK was entirely due to reading this book. With no prior CSK exposure, I was immediately impressed how methodically the authors introduced the reader to the subject. Required software, and basics for downloading, installation, and configuration were given in very concise instructions with plenty of screenshots to support the instructional dialogue. Easy to install, the CSK is a complete Website, and is one of a number of "Free" starter kits developed by Microsoft that you can update, and customize to suit you own Website needs, and can be used for either commercial/non-commercial Websites. It's quite impressive when you first see it, and frankly, hard to believe a Website so professional in appearance, and with so many complex features could be "Free." Everything is free, such as, the CSK, and MSDE2000 if you do not have access to SQL Server, but you do need to have Visual Studio .NET Professional, or higher in order to view the code-behind files. I downloaded the code examples that were generously made available, and found them to be an added teaching tool. Though CSK can be downloaded for C#, VB.NET, and J# languages, and each language version is equivalent, this book does use the C# language version. I think the authors might have short changed themselves a little with the statement that this book is for ASP.NET developers with a sound grasp of C# because I think this book can serve as a wonderful teaching resource for C#; especially because the book starts with a completed application, shows you all the functionality of CSK, then takes you behind the scenes to see the supporting code. This is a slender book of only a little over 250+ pages, but I found it highly informative, full of concrete easy to follow instructional information, smooth reading, and illustrated throughout (in fact, almost every page) with screenshots to help support the learning process. The presentation of the material was very well thought out, and left me with the opinion that undoubtedly these authors are experts on Microsoft's Community Starter Kit. I never felt burden, or bored with trying to navigate thru this book or the CSK, and never felt forced to read endless page after page of information before the authors made a point. This book contains an invaluable source of information about the CSK, and I felt I learned at an extremely rapid pace. I will note that don't expect just to read this book through one time. If you are doing development work with the CSK, you will definitely be reading this book more than once; there is just too much information about the CSK to absorb one time through. In the course of studying this book, I ventured out into some of the ASP.NET support forums found on the Internet, such as, [...] and looked for areas where the Community Starter Kit was being discussed. I also invite the readers of this review to do the same. Besides reading this book, I found some really good reasons why developers should purchase a book like this. The CSK is extremely complex. In reviewing the forums, I saw endless questions from developers who were having problems with the CSK. But, in reviewing all of the questions/problems, I couldn't help but feel that many of these developers were out there trying to build a CSK without first reading a comprehensive book that discusses in great detail the whole CSK architecture, as this book does. And, I should add, I could not find any other book on the market that covers the CSK architecture! There is so much material in this book that I would like to comment on, but here's just some items I'd like to highlight: *** Not only does the book cover everything from installation, navigation, customization, administration, but in the back of the book in Chapter 10, you learn how to add a "Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0 feed)" feature to the CSK because CSK does not come with the ability to expose content thru RSS. Having this RSS feed added sets up an alert system to let administrators know when new items are available because the news aggregator software periodically scan the RSS feed, retrieves the content, and sends an alert. *** I was personally delighted to see Chapter 11 "Deployment." Obviously, after spending time working hard on building your own new community, you do want to know how to get it deployed properly. The authors left no guess work here as they give you concise details for not only deploying to an in-house SQL Server, but also help you with the challenges of deployment to a hosting provider. *** Be sure to do all of your development work with the IE browser as it will duplicate all the configuration screens you see in this book; whereas, when I tried to use Netscape, there were differences in the screenshots. *** In Appendix A: CSK Controls, you will find a comprehensive outline of all of the skin files listed, and categorized which is an extremely helpful reference. I couldn't help but count the number of skins listed: 101 Skin Files Listed. This is just another indication of how very complex the CSK really is. *** Explained the complete core architecture of the CSK, and demonstrated in full details how to create your very own new community. *** Teaches about all the major classes found in the CSK, and instructions on how to build your own CSK modules *** Examines the CSK folder structure, and configuration files, such as, a complete breakdown, and discussion on Web.Config, and Global.asax *** Explains about: middle-tier classes; database structure, and coverage on stored procedures in the database; how the CSK engine builds client pages. Cristian Darie, one of the co-authors of "Building Websites with the ASP.NET Community Starter Kit" asked if I would review this book, and give an honest assessment of opinions I formed in reading this book. I should note that although I have never personally met Cristian Darie, I became interested in his work when I read his book "Beginning ASP.NET E-Commerce", and am also currently reading another one of his books entitled "Beginning ASP.NET 1.1 E-Commerce From Novice To Professional." What I enjoy so much about his books is his direct, and informative style of writing that shows a complete comprehension of the subjects he writes about. He has the ability to conceptualize, and articulate highly complex technical material into clear and concise sentences, and the best gift of all, he has the ability to "Teach."

Amazon Verified review

Stephen M. Redd Jul 11, 2004

The book is fairly short coming in at about 250 informative pages (excluding the tiny appendix and introduction). It is targeted at people that are familiar with ASP.NET and C# (code examples are from the CSVS version), but just beginning with the CSK. Fortunately it doesn't waste any time explaining basic ASP.NET or C# concepts and concentrates exclusively on just the CSK. This tight focus is very refreshing. The book uses the teach by example and step-by-step tutorial styles common in books targeted at beginners.This book is a fantastic way to get up to speed with the CSK and learn what it does and how to start coding modifications to it. It is well organized and covers topics of interest to every CSK developer and administrator; but stops short of going into deep technical detail or architectural analysis which could leave more experienced developers wanting more.The first 4 chapters are simply orientation covering what the CSK is, how to install it (a mercifully short chapter), and then a tour of each of the CSK's features, modules, and admin tools; and wraps up with an explanation of the skins and themes. This is basically the same stuff that the CSK's own documentation covers; but better written and more complete. A great set of information for someone completely new to the CSK.The weakest chapter would have to be chapter 5; which is mostly devoted to writing custom themes and skins. While it does cover an example of creating a very simple theme, it really didn't go into enough depth. It skipped over working with the various control and template skins completely. But it is a great start on theme writing, and anyone that gets through chapter 5 should be able to figure most of the rest without serious additional effort.The last 6 chapters are all programming, beginning with an examination of the CSK request and dynamic page creation (a line by line walk-through of the relevant code). Then an examination of the content module design. In chapter 8, 9, and 10 you actually get to write a new content module from scratch (a great chapter), then write some customization using the custom modules section type and adding new web boxes. and in chapter 10 you modify the core engine to support RSS 2.0 publishing (another great chapter).The book wraps up with a detailed look at publishing and deploying CSK sites manually from development to production systems... which is one of the best chapters, and probably the most frequently discussed topic on the forums.My major gripes with the book, aside from the weak chapter 5, would be that it didn't really discuss ANY of the CSK's serious flaws... and there are serious flaws. It kept a very positive tone about the CSK, which is good, but I thought developers could have learned a lot more if the CSK's mistakes were pointed out more often. It also should have discussed the database performance problem with the stock CSK and linked to the database performance fix.It also didn't really do enough to point the reader at the user community created custom mods, fixes, and other online resources. It did link to some ASP.NET forum posts, and even to my own web site (thanks!); but it seemed to avoid linking to the most popular community sites or the GotCommunityNet project. I feel that the developer community is one of the strongest aspects of the CSK and that talking about the works, tools, and code available on the various community sites and forums could easily have filled a complete chapter all by itself.Overall this is an excellent book, an easy 8 out of 10 rating in my opinion. The tight focus on just the CSK kept it on track without diverging into yet another generic "learn ASP.NET" book. The book also hits the target audience, developers just beginning to work with the CSK and the non-developer just wanting to know what the CSK is and what it can do. It does a lot to take information spread out all over the web and bring it all into a single book in a well organized manner.Great piece of work!

Bhasya Apr 21, 2024

CSK is not available for download. I am not sure how this book's content can be used. I am keep getting The page you are looking for is not available when I try to access the URL (http://www.asp.net/StarterKits/DownloadCommunity.aspx?tabindex=0&tabid=1) provided in the book.

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Building Websites with the ASP.NET Community Starter Kit: A comprehensive guide to understanding, implementing, and extending the powerful and freely available application from Microsoft.

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Building Websites with the ASP.NET Community Starter Kit

Chapter 1. The ASP.NET Community Starter Kit

What Can the Community Starter Kit Do for You?

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What Can the Community Starter Kit Do for You?

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The License Agreement

Installing the Community Starter Kit

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