How to map Visual Studio web project to Sitecore

Once you installed Sitecore then next step is to create and map your Visual Studio Web project to Sitecore.

It’s good to install software in sequence of IIS, SQL Server, Visual Studio and then finally Sitecore.

For this tutorial we will create Welcome page in Visual Studio and show Welcome <Employee Name> message where Employee Name should retrieve from Sitecore Content item. Final screen should look like

My Sitecore instance is running at “C:\inetpub\wwwroot\NewInstance2\Website” and I will create my visual studio project at “D:\MyTestApp”.

So we have all the necessary details. Let’s do mapping now.

Here are steps to map your project with Sitecore.

1.    Create ASP.NET Empty Web Application project in C# having name like “SitecoreWebApp” as below

2.    Delete Web.config file from newly created project.

Add folders like “layouts”, “sublayouts”, “upload” and “xml” to this application.

Add “welcomepage.aspx” page in layouts folder.

Copy “Sitecore.Kernel.dll” from Sitecore instance [i.e. from C:\inetpub\wwwroot\NewInstance2\Website\bin] to project bin directory [i.e. to D:\MyTestApp\SitecoreWebApp\SitecoreWebApp\bin] through file system.

Add reference of this “Sitecore.Kernel.dll” to current project and set its property CopyLocal = false.

After all these steps your solution should look like this

3.    Login to Sitecore and create “Employee” template as below

4.    Also create standard values for this template by selecting Employee Template -> Select Builder Options Menu -> Click Standard Values as below

5.    Enter token in Employee Name field as “$name” so that content item name should filled by default as below

6.    Create Layout having name “welcomepage” as below

7.    Create content item with name “Surendra Sharma” as below. Check Employee Name field filled automatically as per the item name.

8.    Our content is ready but we need layout to display this information. So map this content with layout by selecting content item “Surendra Sharma” -> Presentation Menu menu -> Details -> Click Edit link from Default section -> Select Layout -> Select “Layouts\welcomepage” as below

9.    Now go to Visual Studio project and design and code “welcomepage.aspx” page as below

10. Till this step we mapped everything. It’s time to publish our Web application from Visual Studio. So right click your project from Solution Explorer and select Publish. Create profile and select publish method as “File System”. Select Target Location as your Sitecore instance website folder. In my case it is “C:\inetpub\wwwroot\NewInstance2\Website” as shown below

11. In next step select Release configuration only and uncheck Delete checkbox as shown below

12. After successful publishing, we can Preview the content item. So select “Surendra Sharma” from content tree -> Publish Menu -> select Preview as shown below

13. Your browser should show screen like this

14. Bazinga!!!! Congrats, if you are reading this line, you successfully mapped your project with Sitecore.

Please leave your comments or share this guide if it’s useful for you.