Orchard CMS: Up and Running

Chapter 1. Getting Started with Orchard

We’re about to start building an Orchard website. We’ll create some content. We’ll manage some content. We’ll change the way our site looks and behaves. We’ll write some code to extend the functionality that’s available out of the box. Though we could perform all of these tasks without ever looking at the Orchard source, we’re .NET developers. We’re most comfortable in Visual Studio, so why wouldn’t we start there?

Prerequisites

Though it’s not entirely necessary, it’s my preference to build modules, create themes, and manage my Orchard sites all within the context of the full Visual Studio 2010 Orchard solution. Aside from being able to debug the site with Visual Studio, having the source handy also provides a great reference when creating your own Orchard extensions. We’ll learn how to develop extensions in the chapters ahead.

Development Environment

Orchard extensions are known as modules. Creating a module requires writing code, typically C#, but any .NET language will work. You could write that code in Notepad or any text editor of your choice, but that wouldn’t be the most efficient way to work. In this chapter and those that follow, I assume that you’ll be working with Visual Studio 2010 Professional or higher.

The Orchard documentation contains tutorials on how to perform tasks, such as creating modules, without Visual Studio. While it certainly is possible to do so, it’s impractical to consider this approach for all but the most basic ...