SubSonic .Net ActionPack Starter Kit Template

Having used SubSonic recently and found it an invaluable resource, reducing not only my development time, but code complexity too, I have created two Visual Studio 2005 Project Templates based on the SubSonic starter kit. I apologize if something like this already exists but I couldn\’92t find it in the official Starter Kit. I created these templates as I needed a quick way to create a new Web Site project in Visual Studio based on SubSonic with none of the example site content within.

Note, these templates are designed for running in Medium trust environments.

The two templates contain the bare minimum to get started. And have the following directory

structure:

/App_Code (empty)
/App_Data (empty)
/Bin (SubSonic.dlls)
/Dev (BatchClassGenerator, BatchScaffoldGenerator, VersionDB)
Default.aspx (With instructions to get started)
web.config

I have stripped out masterpages, themes etc, to keep the site as it would be if you created an ordinary website project. I have also modified the BatchClassGenerator to generate class files directly to the /App_Code directory and the BatchScaffoldGenerator to output to the /Dev directory by default.

Installation

If you are new to SubSonic, I recommend you download SubSonic’s own starter kit, which includes examples of use etc.

http://www.codeplex.com/actionpack

For the templates: Download one of the following files below:

C#: Subsonic Quick Starter Kit C# (Based on SubSonic build 1.0.6)
VB: Subsonic Quick Starter Kit VB.Net (Based on SubSonic build 1.0.6)

Updated 03/03/07: I have split the two templates into separate .zip files as most developers will not need both VB and C# templates. This will save bandwidth.

Unzip, then double-click the desired .vsi files to run the Visual Studio Installer. Please ignore the warning about the code not being signed.

Note: I have not tested this with Visual Studio Express but I am pretty sure VSE is compatible with third-party templates.

Getting started

1. Open Visual Studio. On the Start Page select ‘Create Web Site’, under ‘My Templates’ you will see the Sub Sonic Quick Start Starter Kit.

2. Create a database either in the App_Data or on a external Database and enter the connection string into the connectionStrings section of the web.config file. Note: The web config is set-up to use MS SQL, if you are using MySQL you will need to change the provider settings in the web.config file.

3. Build and Browse /Dev/BatchClassGenerator.aspx, select the desired table, click generate, et voila! You’re ready to reap the benefits of SubSonic in a medium trust environment.

Note: Subsonic Team: Please feel free to do as you will with these templates.

Regards,

Jon Milet Baker