Getting started with Orchard Core as a NuGet package

In this article, we are going to see how easy it is to create a CMS Web application using the NuGet packages provided by Orchard Core.

!!! tip Do you just want to test drive Orchard Core, without creating a .NET application? Check out this guide.

Create an Orchard Core CMS application

!!! note This guide follows a manual process so you can have a deeper understanding of what's happening. You can also use our code generation templates for a quicker start if you create a brand-new application. Check out this guide.

In Visual Studio (or any other .NET IDE), create a new empty .NET web application, e.g. Cms.Web. Do not check "Place solution and project in the same directory", because later when you create modules and themes you will want them to live alongside the web application within the solution.

!!! note If you want to use the preview packages, configure the OrchardCore Preview url in your Package sources.

To add a reference to the package, right-click on the project and click on Manage NuGet packages..., check Include prerelease if required. If you added the preview source above, select this from the Package Source selection in the top right. In the Browse tab, search for OrchardCore.Application.Cms.Targets and Install the package.

Getting Started with Program.cs Only Using .NET 6 and later?

!!! tip When starting a new project using .NET 6, you'll notice that the created project does not have a Startup class as it did in previous versions of .NET.

Open Program.cs file. Remove the following line "if exists"

builder.Services.AddRazorPages();

Add the following line

builder.Services.AddOrchardCms();

Additionally, remove the following lines

app.UseHttpsRedirection();
app.UseRouting();
app.UseAuthorization();
app.MapRazorPages();

Lastly, add the following line to the request pipeline

app.UseOrchardCore();

When you are done, the Program.cs file will something like this

var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

builder.Services.AddOrchardCms();

var app = builder.Build();

if (!app.Environment.IsDevelopment())
{
    app.UseExceptionHandler("/Error");
    app.UseHsts();
}

app.UseStaticFiles();
app.UseOrchardCore();

app.Run();

Getting Started Using Program.cs file?

Open Program.cs file, then add the OrchardCore CMS services by adding this line:

builder.Services.AddOrchardCms();

After building the WebApplication, replace this line:

app.MapGet("/", () => "Hello World!");

with this line:

app.UseOrchardCore();

Finally, remove the default Pages and/or Views folder to allow OrchardCore to render the views from the active theme.

Setup your application

Launch your application (Ctrl+F5). The setup page is displayed.

Enter the required information about the site:

• The name of the site. Ex: Orchard Core.
• The theme recipe to use. Ex: Agency.
• The timezone of the site. Ex: (+01:00) Europe/Paris.
• The Sql provider to use. Ex: SqLite.
• The name of the admin user. Ex: admin.
• The email of the admin. Ex: [email protected]
• The password and the password confirmation.

Submit the form and your site is generated after a few seconds.

Then, you can access to the admin using the /admin url. Enjoy.