<uber:ASP.Net> - Build a news or blog site in five minutes with CliqueSite® NewsBlog

Build a news or blog site in five minutes with CliqueSite® NewsBlog

posted by Jeff

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Sunday, July 03, 2005 3:11:18 PM

This simple ASP.NET v2.0 application allows the site owner to post news or blog entries, categorize them, syndicate them and allow for comments.

CliqueSite® NewsBlog is a simple ASP.NET v2.0 application that allows the site owner to post news or blog entries, categorize them, syndicate them and allow for comments. The design goal for this application was to make it "hackable" and easy to maintain and alter.

You can install and begin using NewsBlog in about five minutes or so, but you'll need the following on your Web server:

v2.0 or later of the .NET Framework.
SQL Server Express 2005 or SQL Server 2000
A way to FTP the files to the Web server

To start, download the zip file from http://newsblog.cliquesite.com and extract the folder from inside it.

Find the web.config file and open it in Notepad, or Visual Studio 2005, or Visual Web Developer 2005. There are several changes we need to make here. First of all, if you don't have SQL Server Express installed on the server, and intend to use a SQL database elsewhere, edit the connection string to reflect this.

If you're using an external SQL Server database, run the included SQL script included in the /App_data folder of the zip with Query Analyzer. This will setup the database tables, indexes and such to get you rolling.

Next, work through the few appSettings key/value pairs. They're simple enough, but in case you're wondering:

SiteTitle: This is what appears in the title bar and the header of the pages.
SiteDescription: This appears in the RSS feeds.
TimeOffset: NewsBlog stores all times UTC, so you'll need to set this to something appropriate for you. Eastern time in the US, for example, is -5. Keep in mind that positive values should not include a + in front of them.
DaylightSaving: Put true here if your time zone uses Daylight Saving Time, and false if it does not.

Hey wait, why don't you have a custom configuration setting? Glad you asked. One of the primary design goals here was to keep the application simple. We're not processing thousands of bank transactions per hour here, we're rotating some simple text content. There's a time and place, as they say.

Finally, you'll need to edit the user name and password in the authentication/forms/credentials section. You can add as many of these user elements as you'd like.

Again, we're not using the fancy capabilities of ASP.NET v2.0 here, namely Membership, because we want to keep it simple. This really simple FormsAuthentication stuff has been in there since the start, so we're using it here.

Now you're ready to upload the files. If you're using your own SQL Server instance, you don't need to upload the /App_data folder. Be sure to upload the files into the root of an IIS application. If you're not sure what that means, check with your Web host or Google it. Once uploaded, and your database setup and connection string are correct, the application should just work.

If you click the login link in the top navigation, you can login using the name and password you setup in web.config. That will take you to the admin area, which has just two pages. If you'd like to set up categories for your content, you can do that using the simple UI. Each category will have its own RSS feed on the RSS page. Then you can begin adding content. The plain text window accepts HTML. If you're clever, you can add something like FreeTextBox to it instead. That's all there is to it!

The "about" and "contact" pages are intentionally blank, so if you'd like to add static content to those, or some spot of code to do something, feel free. If not, you can remove the links right out of the Main.master page template.

If you need more help, we have a forum dedicated to NewsBlog right here! Have fun!