WebMatrix 2 Beta

Soon after starting work on WebMatrix engineering, I got an opportunity to launch WebMatrix 2 Beta at //build.  For those who are not familiar with WebMatrix it is all in one web development tool which is inspirational as well as functional at the same time.  It is lightweight enough that you get a web development tool, framework, db, web server and more under 50MB and based on our testing it installs in around 2 mins on a 2GB RAM, Windows 7 machine with .NET Framework pre-installed.  Typically such tools cost $50-100 but WebMatrix is yours for free

I was involved with WebMatrix 1 project which we launched on Jan 13th 2011 and it has only been few months since release of WebMatrix 1 that we have WebMatrix 2 Beta out.

If you have not installed WebMatrix 2, you should install it now:

There are bunch of NEW features in WebMatrix 2 Beta on top of WebMatrix 1, but I wanted to just call out few top items:

• Even more seamless and awesome integration with Application Gallery where now you will not have to fill in the standard application installation parameters
• OSS Application specific code completion which means users of popular apps like WordPress can get help customized to their applications
• Custom look and feel for each Web Application which means if you are editing Umbraco you will feel like WebMatrix is designed for Umbraco with specific contextual actions called out by application authors.
• Intlellisense for HTML, CSS, JS, C#, VB, ASP.NET Razor as well as PHP.
• Support for HTML5, CSS3 as well as jQuery constructs.
• New awesome tools like color picker.
• Completely revamped Database workspace where you can now execute multiple queries.
• Extensibility support by which you can write your own extension for WebMatrix.  And trust me it is so easy that you can whip out a ribbon button to do something cool just within minutes.
• NuGet integration to allow you to build your app with community by your side.
• Remote tools which will allow you to see the server files and even edit them within seconds.
• Integrated learning experience with learnable, pluralsight and appendto
• And more and more…

You can read all about it at http://webmatrix.com/next

  As I mentioned earlier I gave the WebMatrix 2 launch talk at //build/ in September 2011.  This talk was recorded and is now available for you to view below.  Hope you will enjoy it.

 

-Vishal

More web stuff at Microsoft

It has been pretty busy lately and I never really got an opportunity to come out and post a fresh update on the blog but better late then never.

I wanted to share that after working on Visual Studio, Visual Web Developer,  and ASP.NET for couple of  major releases like VS 2010, VS 11, ASP.NET 4.0, ASP.NET 4.5,  MVC etc, I am now starting to work on Windows Azure, WebMatrix,  Web Platform Installer, Microsoft.com/web, Web Hosting Gallery, Web Application Gallery and several related projects.  It is all big happy family so it is going to be fun as everything is web after all.  As you can imagine it is a blast working on this team and I have ever thankful for having such a great and talented team around me.

Some time I can share how it feels like working on all these different projects but for now I at least wanted to come here, say hello and let you all know I am alive and kicking.  Thanks!!

-Vishal