Help with source code: A newbie could use a little help :/

[abradley]

Hi everyone, Im a bit embarrassed by needing this assistance but I just need to get rolling asap instead of wasting time.

So far I had our site running directly in IIS 7 on Server 2008. I was using just text editors.

So, since, we have bought the source code for Able and also bought a copy of Visual Studio. I am wanting to know if anyone could provide some insight into what steps I need to take to basically bring my dev environment to an ideal state.

Particularly, I need to insert the source code that we bought into our site, and also import the site into Visual Studio to begin development again, hopefully in a more productive manner. I still feel uncomfortable on this entire stack (i am getting better) but I feel like I could use a kickstart to my productivity.

[Katie]

Both the source code and Ablecommerce downloads have an SLN (solution) file in the root folder. After you have VS installed, you can right-click on the SLN file and open it in VS. A localhost website will automatically be created and you can install the software locally. After it's up and running, then you will want to copy any customization from your production site back to your development site to keep them in-sync.

I hope I was able to answer your question.
Katie

[abradley]

Thanks Katie, I think I overlooked a solution file for the whole site, Ill look for that again or grab one off a fresh download.

Should I have two separate projects, one for ablecommerce, and one for the CommerceBuilder source?

Thanks for the help Katie!

[abradley]

I was indeed missing a solution file completely, I grabbed a fresh one and am rolling onward.

I am going to play around with the projects. Im sure I can maintain two separate projects and just copy in the compiled dll's from the commercebuilder source to the main project. Is there a better way to do this?

[nadeem]

When you open AC8.sln, your solution will contain 6 projects (all will open in a single solution file in this case). You just need to compile each project and the dll's will be copied automatically. However, you need to follow the sequence e.g. if you have modified some code in CommerceBuilder project, you will have to first compile CommerceBuilder and then compile Ablecommerce website to reflect the changes. Similarly, you can compile entire solution at once as well.

For setting up your development environment locally, it is better to configure your application on IIS. Here are the steps to do this:

- Open Internet Information Services (IIS)
- Right click Default Web Site node from IIS Manager
- Provide application Alias e.g. myapp
- Select Application pool e.g. .Net v4.5
- Provide application physical path e.g. D:\LocalCopy\Able\Website

After configuring application to IIS, open browser and access your website like this http://localhost/myapp. Your local environment is now setup and you will be able to make changes and view those changes locally. Happy Programming

[abradley]

Thanks Nadeem! I will post here if I need any more help!

[nadeem]

Sure, you are welcome Austin.

[abradley]

So I am a bit confused on how to manage these projects with Visual Studio. Right now on my dev machine I have the website hosted in IIS. Everything runs great, I am still using a text editor and the site is WSP so it compiles itself. I have tried opening the solution for the site which works but I don't understand how it relates to the site running in IIS.

One particular case is how do I debug my application? I opened the solution, set a breakpoint somewhere, and tried to start debugging. Breakpoint says it will never be hit, and indeed it never is.

I have the CommerceBuilder source in a directory alongside the website. I was able to compile the CommerceBuilder source with a change made successfully. But I had to copy the changed dll's from the Lib/ folder of the source code to the bin/ folder of our website.

I can get things done, but I feel like I am still struggling with the IDE and how all the projects are managed.