Installing Commerce using Visual Studio extensions

We have received a lot of feedback from developers requesting an easier way of creating an empty EPiServer Commerce project without using Deployment Center. Update 48 of EPiServer with Commerce 8.6 includes the possibility to install a new EPiServer Commerce site from Visual Studio, using an extension package for Commerce.

About the features

Key points about the new features:

• The EPiServer.Commerce NuGetpackage is responsible for adding the correct Commerce configuration and installing the Commerce database. It does not install any CMS configuration or database.
     
• The installed database is in the form of a local mdf file. Please make sure the parent folder where you are installing has write permissions since Local Database does not respect the Administrators group. If you want to move the database, just attach the file to an SQL server instance.
     
• There is an SQL file in the tools folder of the EPiServer.Commerce.Core package that contains the install file for the current version of Commerce. This can be used to create a new database for automation tasks.

Note that installed website will not have any templates. Furthermore, the installation does not include Commerce Manager (the Commerce administration interface), however most parts of Commerce can be accessed from code.

Creating a project

Follow the steps below to create an empty Commerce project:

1. In Visual Studio, create an empty website with CMS.
2. Right-click on References in your project, and select "Manage NuGet Packages".
3. Select "EPiServer" under Online and click "Install" for the EPiServer.Commerce package. This will add all the latest Commerce components to your project.
4. In the Package Manager Console in Visual Studio, run the command "update-epidatabase".
5. Build your solution and open the website in a browser.
6. Verify that the site is working and that you can log in to the user interface (default path is http://yoursite/episerver).