Sitefinity 4.0 now features a growing collection of Starter Kits tailored to specific areas and industries. More are being developed, with the goal of showcasing how Sitefinity can be used to quickly get a complete working site off the ground.
In this series of posts I'll be taking a closer look at each one, revealing what features and content are available out of the box and how they can help you get started with Sitefinity. Today we'll take a brief look at what you can expect in and from these kits.
Complete Project With Source
Starter Kits are available for download in your Sitefinity client account. These projects are ready to open in Visual Studio, including the full source code for any associated Widgets, User Controls, Modules, etc.
Not only can you use these to help you gain further understanding of how to develop your own custom projects, but you are free to extract the compiled controls for use in your own custom projects.
The projects are also ready to run. Simply build the project in Visual Studio, right click the SitefinityWebApp project and select the option for "View in Browser". The Visual Studio browser will launch your site and you can immediately jump in and get started.
Sample Content and Design
Each project is designed to represent a fully-functioning website, with all the typical sections, pages, controls, and features you'd expect from a live site in that industry. All of this content can be easily modified using the Sitefinity Administration Dashboard.
The websites are setup with professionally designed themes, in some cases with several theme options to customize your site based on the season or other user configurable settings. These themes can be easily modified, as they are simply standard CSS files and images.
Controls, Modules, and Widgets
Each starter kit comes with its own set of customizations including User Controls, Widgets, Modules and more. In most cases, these extensions are made available in separate assembly projects, allowing you to both review the code as well as mix, match and reuse them in other projects.
these controls demonstrate how Sitefinity can be quickly, easily, and powerfully customized and extended to serve any need. They integrate deeply into the system, offering a unified administration that ties directly into your existing Sitefinity dashboard.
Trial License
All projects of the Sitefinity Starter Kits can be activated with a FREE trial license. Upon first launch, you will be prompted to create a 30 day trial license, granting you full access to all Sitefinity features and resources. If desired, these projects can easily be upgraded to full working licenses when you are ready to launch and publish your site.
Need more time to evaluate before purchasing? Contact sales for more options.
Get Started
I'll be taking a closer look at each one of these Starter Kits over the next week, covering what each has to offer in more detail. However, you can start playing with these immediately by heading over to your Sitefinity account and downloading the kits now.
Remember to share your experiences, comments, and suggestions with us in the Sitefinity Discussion Forums.
Our next post will focus on the Charity Starter Kit, take a moment to download a copy from your Sitefinity Account and stay tuned for a closer look!