Introduction

I have been working with Community Server for some time now and most of my installations require that Community Server integrates with existing applications. This article will walk you through the process of setting up your own ASP.NET application under the Community Server installation.

Step 1: Setup your Community Server website

There are multiple ways to complete this step. For the purposes of this article, I will assume that you have downloaded the Community Server 2.1 (Web Install) - ASP.NET 2.0 package and followed their instructions on setting up a database. I will also assume that you placed the Community Server web directory at C:\myCS\web.

Create a new website called myCS in IIS and point it to the home directory of C:\myCS\web.

Step 2: Create your Web Project

Open Visual Studio 2005 and create a new website project. Be sure to give it a creative name like "del.icio.us" or "Delicious_Library". Seeing that those names are already taken I will call the example project "vicious". I will assume you created this project under C:\viciousProject\viciousWeb.

Add the following references to your newly created web project:

• CommunityServer.ASPNet20MemberRole.dll
• CommunityServer.Components.dll
• CommunityServer.Reader.dll
• CommunityServer.SqlDataProvider.dll
• CommunityServer.Blogs.dll

The above files can be found in the C:\myCS\web\bin folder. Adding the above files as references will pull in all dependant DLL's. If you now look in the C:\viciousProject\viciousWeb\bin folder, you will notice that several other DLLs have been added automatically, in addition to the four indicated above.

• communityserver.config
• SiteUrls.config

Step 3: Create the Virtual Directory

Open IIS and browse to the Community Server site you just created (myCS). Right click myCS to open the context menu. Click on New > Virtual Directory.

At this point a helpful Virtual Directory Creation Wizard window should display. When prompted, type vicious for the alias, browse to C:\viciousProject\viciousWeb, and set the Access Permissions to allow Read and Run Scripts.

Step 4: Add some Community Server code

Let's add some code to your web project that will give us a quick taste of what we can do with an app that is properly configured to run as a virtual directory of a Community Server site.

If your web project did not automatically create a Default.aspx file in the root of the project for you, then you should create one now. Open the Default.aspx webform and add a Label control to the page. Next, open the Default.aspx.cs and add the following code to the Page_Load function.

protected void Page_Load(object 

sender, EventArgs e)
{
  CommunityServer.Components.User currentUser =
    CommunityServer.Components.CSContext.Current.User;
  Label1.Text = currentUser.Username;
}

The above code will display the username of the currently logged in user when the page loads. For this to work properly, your application's authentication mode must be set to "Forms" in your Web.config. The line should like similar to this:

<authentication mode="Forms" />

Step 5: View Frankenstien's Monster

Browse to your functioning (hopefully) Community Server 2.1 web site. After you have logged in, browse to the /vicious subdirectory which contains your Default.aspx page. Once the page finishes loading, you should see your Community Server username displaying on the page.

Summary

In this article you have seen how to create an asp.net application under the Community Server application. I hope that you are able to use this article to assist you with harnessing some of the features of Community Server in your own ASP.NET 2.0 applications.

About Tod Birdsall

Like many software developers, my love of video games kindled an interest in programming. I eventually realized that playing games and writing code for games are two completely different things and have resigned myself to business application programming. I enjoy writing and sharing knowledge wit... View complete profile here.