Install Community on site created via Visual Studio Episerver Extension

Wed, 15 Oct 2014 12:54:00 GMT

Preparing

I've had a lot of problems installing Community on the site created via Visual Studio Extension, therefore I posted a question on EPiServer World and Valdis Iljuconoks helped me. So I decided to create a post in case you face the same difficulties. You will be able to install EPiServer Community on this site after you have successfully followed my previous tutorial Create EPiServer CMS Site using Visual Studio
Note! The two optional steps (Move database to SQL Server, Create site in IIS) are obligatory when installing Community.

Add EPiServer Community via Deployment Center

If you have added your site to IIS you will see it in Deployment Center

Note! EPiServer install library is responsible for enlisting applicable sites in the site tree and it checks if EPiServer.Community.dll file isn't in the target app’s bin folder. There has to be with 7.5 version of EPiServer.dll. It means that in order to enlist your newly created site in EPiServer installation wizard’s site tree – you have to copy over EPiServer.dll file from some other application (preferably from app installed via Deployment Center). So you can see only sites with EPiServer.dll version 7.5 and without Community.

After you copied over older version of EPiServer.dll file you may receive following error message while installing Community for your site:

This paticular error may occur for the sites created via Visual Studio plugin that has element <episerver> without XML namespace in web.config file:

<episerver>
<workflowSettings>
<workflowHost type="EPiServer.WorkflowFoundation.AspNetWorkflowManager,EPiServer.WorkflowFoundation" />
<externalServices>
<externalService type="EPiServer.WorkflowFoundation.Workflows.ApprovalService,EPiServer.WorkflowFoundation" />
<externalService type="EPiServer.WorkflowFoundation.Workflows.ReadyForTranslationService,EPiServer.WorkflowFoundation" />
<externalService type="EPiServer.WorkflowFoundation.Workflows.RequestForFeedbackService,EPiServer.WorkflowFoundation" />
</externalServices>
</workflowSettings>
<applicationSettings httpCacheability="Public" pageValidateTemplate="false" uiShowGlobalizationUserInterface="true"
uiUrl="~/EPiServer/CMS/" urlRebaseKind="ToRootRelative" />
</episerver>

So lets move this section to new file (episerver.config) and now our <episerver> section in web.config file should looks like

<episerver configSource="episerver.config" />

Don't forget to add a namespace for <episerver> element in episerver.config file:

<episerver xmlns="http://EPiServer.Configuration.EPiServerSection">
<workflowSettings .....

Now you can install Community via Deployment Center

After installation you will see that your connectionStrings section in web.config file is converted to

<connectionStrings configSource="connectionStrings.config" />

You should include file connectionStrings.config to project. Right click on it and select "Include in project"

Now you can launch the site. But you may immediately receive an error:

You need to add assembly redirect under <runtime> section:

<dependentAssembly>
<assemblyIdentity name="EPiServer.Shell.UI" publicKeyToken="8fe83dea738b45b7" culture="neutral" />
<bindingRedirect oldVersion="0.0.0.0-7.8.2.0" newVersion="7.8.2.0" />
</dependentAssembly>

Now you can lounch the site one more time. You'll be able to login into admin panel using your Windows credentials through http://localhost:xxxxx/episerver
Then you will see Community module near CMS

Now you have site created via VS Extension with Community. I will wish you Happy communing, but I remember that Valdis Iljuconoks wrote about one more exception. I will copy it description from his blog:

After you have successfully installed Community on top of your site created via Visual Studio plugin accessing AdminUI you may receive an error blaming that there is noLocalSqlServer connection string:

Configuration Error

Description: An error occurred during the processing of a configuration file required to service this request. Please review the specific error details below and modify your configuration file appropriately. 

Parser Error Message: The connection name 'LocalSqlServer' was not found in the applications configuration or the connection string is empty.

Source Error: 


Line 250:        <profile>
Line 251:            <providers>
Line 252:                <add name="AspNetSqlProfileProvider" connectionStringName="LocalSqlServer" applicationName="/" type="System.Web.Profile.SqlProfileProvider, System.Web, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a"/>
Line 253:            </providers>
Line 254:        </profile>

Source File: C:/Windows/Microsoft.NET/Framework64/v4.0.30319/Config/machine.config    Line: 252

Things you need to do is pretty simple – just add clear element in theprofiles/providers section to clear out any other foreign providers and live just with EPiServer ones.

<providers>
  <clear />
  <add name="DefaultProfileProvider" type="System.Web.Providers.DefaultProfileProvider, System.Web.Providers, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" connectionStringName="EPiServerDB" applicationName="/" />
</providers>

Wish you Happy Communing !!!

Create EPiServer CMS Site using Visual Studio

Fri, 10 Oct 2014 16:41:00 GMT

Install the EPIServer Visual Studio Extension

One of the oldest way is using Deployment Center, but I like to use Visual Studio. So first of all download and install EPiServer CMS Visual Studio Extension We will use it to set up new project.

Create a new EPIServer project in Visual Studio

Start Visual Studio (I always run as administrator) and add a new project using the new EPIServer Web Site project template.

Step 1. Select EPIServer Web Site, set project Name, set project Location

Step 2. Select a template

This will set up a basic project structure as you can see here:

Start our new EPIServer Site

Now our new EPIServer site is ready. Press F5 in Visual Studio to start it on IIS Express. You will see next page:

You will be able to login into admin panel using your Windows local user credentials through http://localhost:xxxxx/episerver

Then you will see admin panel:

Move database to SQL Server (optional)

I prefer to use SQL Server for my EPIServer database. So you should open Management Studio, connect to your Database Engine and attach your database (*.mdf file which you can find in App_Data folder)

Now you should update <connectionStrings> section in Web.config file
For example:

<connectionStrings>

<add name="EPiServerDB" connectionString="Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=database_name;Integrated Security=False;User ID=Admin;Password=xxxxxxxx;MultipleActiveResultSets=True" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />

</connectionStrings>

Note! In connectionStrings I have User ID=Admin. I previously created user in Management Studio and added db_owner role to this user.
You can read more about connection Strings here SQL Server 2012 connection strings

Create site in IIS (optional)

By default your site runs on IIS Express when you build it. But I prefer to create site in IIS Manager. Open IIS Manager and add new Web Site as you can see below

Insert Site name.
Set Content Directory to your project folder.
Insert Port.

If you would like to be sure that AppPool will have access to Physical path of the site you should press “Connect as…” and add here your local Windows user

You can test setting, just press “Test Settings…” If you will see next one picture that’s mean that everything is ok

Now you should change settings in your project properties to use local IIS Web server. Open Properties, select Web tab, uncheck “Use IIS Express” and edit project url as you can see below.
Then press “Create Virtual Directory”

Now you can run project one more time. You will see the same error when you built previous time (because for now you don’t have start page), but you will see that now site runs on new port, in my case 17003. So now I am able to login into admin panel using next link http://localhost:17003/episerver

I hope this post will be helpful for new EPIServer developers :)

Blog posts by Oleh Ilnitskiy