Create New Orchard Website Using WebMatrix - Orchard Web Development

Earlier we mentioned how one can use Microsoft's free web IDE, WebMatrix, to develop Orchard Websites. You will miss out on intellisense as well as some of your Visual Studio Productivity Tools, like JetBrains ReSharper, but other than that, creating and customizing Orchard Websites, Orchard Themes and Orchard Modules using WebMatrix is possible. In addition to developing Orchard Websites with WebMatrix, one can also download and install Orchard CMS right within WebMatrix using the Web Gallery!

Creating a New Orchard Website using WebMatrix

WebMatrix currently gives you three options for creating a new website: 1) Site From Web Gallery, 2) Site From Template, and 3) Site From Folder.

The Site From Web Gallery Option is a portal into a number of Web Applications based on the .NET Framework. You will find some really nice ASP.NET Content Management Systems ( CMS ) that you can use to power your website. Of course, in this case we are interested in our favorite ASP.NET CMS, Orchard!

Once you choose Orchard CMS from the Web Gallery and give your new Orchard Website a name, click the next button to continue the process of installing Orchard CMS on your PC.

The next step is to confirm the download location and accept the Orchard CMS license. Click on I Accept to begin the download and installation of Orchard CMS on your PC.

WebMatrix will begin to download and install Orchard CMS into the My Websites Directory under the name you called your new Orchard Website. Once download and installation is complete, you will be greeted with your final step.

Click OK! Congratulations, you have now successfully installed Orchard onto your PC.

Your New Orchard Website

You can now run your new Orchard Website within WebMatrix for the first time and begin configuring it based on your needs.

Enter a name for your new Orchard Website as well as an administrative password. For now just accept the default Orchard Configuration settings, because you can always come back and migrate SQL Server Compact to SQL Server for that extra bit of performance your website may need. Choose Finish Setup.

You'll be greeted with Orchard's Default Theme, Theme Machine, when you run Orchard for the first time! Click on the Dashboard Administration Link to see the new Orchard Administration Layout in Orchard 1.1 and begin familiarizing yourself with this powerful content management system by creating your first page in Orchard!

Need Help?

If you have decided Orchard is the right content manage system but could use assistance with creating your new Orchard Website, contact us. We would love to help you!