ASP.NET Core developer starter kit

Ready to build amazing 'xperiences? This starter kit covers everything you need to know about developing websites in Kentico Xperience with ASP.NET Core. Grab a coffee and find out how you can develop applications using the latest, fast, cross-platform framework.

Discover Xperience

.NET Core replaces Portal Engine

Since version 8, Kentico has supported two different development models, Portal Engine and MVC. The MVC, or Model-View-Controller, offers more flexibility and support for modern technologies, and it is replacing Portal Engine based on the legacy ASP.NET Web Forms. Xperience supports application development on .NET Framework 4.8 using ASP.NET MVC and ASP.NET Core 3.1 or later.

Are you new to ASP.NET Core?

Get started with Microsoft's guide to MVC design pattern and separation of concerns and ASP.NET Core Fundamentals.
Take the ASP.NET Core Fundamentals course on Pluralsight and learn the absolute basics of .NET Core.
Create a simple MVC web app with an ASP.NET Core application using the MVC approach in a Microsoft tutorial.
Is Dependency Injection pattern (DI) in .NET Core new to you? Check out this course on Tutorials Teacher, or look into Microsoft’s overview of the DI pattern and their take on DI in controllers and views.
Are you new to the options pattern? Start with a short overview in Options Pattern in .NET Core or deep dive into a must-read tutorial Options pattern in ASP.NET Core from Microsoft.

Are you migrating a Portal Engine website to .NET Core?

Are you investigating how to migrate your Portal Engine website to ASP.NET Core? The approach is similar to migrating the Portal Engine website to ASP.NET MVC 5, which many Kentico Xperience developers undertook earlier. The resources below will address your concerns and help you build awesome Xperience .NET Core websites.

Use the MVC Transition guide
Get the basics from the MVC frequently asked questions.
Read Matt Nield’s blog post about migrating from Portal Engine.
Hear how a partner planned their transition to MVC
Check out how an agency boosted performance with a new website built in MVC.
Get inspired by other MVC related blog posts.
Migrate basic objects, such as custom tables, media libraries, or custom classes, with the Import/Export feature.
The Import Toolkit will save you time when importing data from external SQL databases, CSV, and XML files.

Get familiar with Xperience .NET Core MVC.

Start by installing Xperience on your local machine. The Dancing Goat Core sample site will give you an idea of setting up an Xperience project. You can use it for reference while investigating the features mentioned on this page.
The Getting started with Kentico Xperience video will walk you through setting up your computer, the database, and installing the application.
A Kentico Xperience website runs the live site(s) and the administration applications separately and connects them through a database. Read the documentation for a detailed explanation of the MVC development model.
Leverage the Xperience's content tree-based routing, which automatically generates and matches pages' URLs based on their position in the website’s content tree.
Take a look at how Xperience content managers edit rich text content using the built-in WYSIWYG Rich text widget and Rich text field editor.
Investigate the Xperience’s navigation feature that allows your website editors to create navigation menus dynamically from the administration interface.
See how the Xperience security model allows you to configure user permissions and how you can use ASP.NET Core Identity to allow users to manage their data on the live site.
Learn more about the Xperience digital marketing features in the Resource hub for marketers.

Learn about supported .NET frameworks.

Kentico 12 and previous versions only support the full .NET Framework.
Xperience supports application development on .NET Framework 4.8 using ASP.NET MVC and on ASP.NET Core 3.1 or later. For new projects, .NET Core is the recommended platform for front-end application development.
20 things developers should know about Xperience 13.
Be aware of the features no longer supported in Kentico Xperience.

Are you migrating from ASP.NET MVC 5 to ASP.NET Core?

Learn about the fundamental changes between the Xperience ASP.NET MVC 5 and ASP.NET Core development models.
See how is the Xperience integrated into the application startup.
Take a look at how Xperience uses Core's built-in IoC container.
Investigate the differences in developing page and form builder components.

Developing websites in Xperience .NET Core

Before you start developing your first Xperience website, follow our online training courses and learn best practices and recommended approaches.

The Xperience ASP.NET Core Developer tutorial will help you grasp the absolute basics of Xperience with ASP.NET Core. You will learn how Xperience stores website content and how you can display it on a live site.
The LearningKit-Core is a small, functional website which shows how you can implement different features on an Xperience website built with ASP.NET Core.
Xperience customization for developers will teach you how to customize the administration application’s built-in features and create your functionality. Though the course is currently available only for version Kentico Xperience 12, however, it will teach you the necessary skills to customize the Xperience 13 administration application.
Finally, go through Kentico Advantage. The project guide covers key concepts and best practices you need to know to navigate the process of building a project on Kentico Xperience. Kentico Advantage presents real-world scenarios to help you plan, develop, deploy, and maintain Kentico Xperience application.

Short on training time?

If you don't have time to go through the training courses, we suggest you start with the Xperience ASP.NET Core developer tutorial and then investigate resources that introduce advanced features, such as Page Builder and Form Builder.

Building a page with widgets

Check out how easy it is to create a landing page using Widgets in Xperience.

Page Builder features.

Page Builder’s widgets and sections allow website administrators to edit page content and layouts in a WYSIWYG style. Find out what building pages with the Page Builder looks like in this short video.

Creating pages with editable areas

To allow website admins to use Xperience widgets, your pages (their views) need to have the page builder registered and contain areas for the widgets.

See how editable areas are implemented in the Dancing Goat .NET Core sample project in the Home’s Index.cshtml and HomeController.cs files.

Learn how to create pages with editable areas

Page Builder sections

Editors use sections to define the layout of the widget zones where they insert their widgets. Editors can layout widget zones in editable areas within pages—or use them to build entire pages.

See how the sections feature is implemented in the Dancing Goat Core sample project in the _DancingGoat_SingleColumnSection.cshtml file.

See what the development of Page Builder looks like

Page Builder widgets

Widgets are predefined, configurable, and reusable pieces of content editors use to manage content in the page builder. They are represented by partial views or view components.

See the two approaches to coding the page builder widgets as well as various widget samples in the Dancing Goat Core project, e.g., a simple Testimonial widget in the TestimonialWidget.cshtml file registered through PageBuilderComponentRegister.cs, or a more complex _HeroImageWidget.cshtml view with a dedicated HeroImageWidgetViewComponents.cs class.

Learn about developing MVC widgets

Page Builder View Components in ASP.NET Core

Want to learn more about building widgets and sections using View Components? Then don’t miss this short article on what view components are and how you can use them to create your page builder components.

Page Builder View Components in ASP.NET Core

Page Builder Tag Helpers in ASP.NET Core

Xperience Core supports using the new ASP.NET Core Tag Helpers feature, which abstracts server-side code behind the HTML-like elements. Check out how the CultureLinkTagHelper.cs class in Dancing Goat Core project helps create culture-specific links in _Layout.cshmtl view.

See the detailed reference to Xperience Tag Helpers

Page Builder dos and don'ts

Read Kentico’s MVP Brian McKeiver’s excellent tips for building an Xperience website with Page builder in the dos and don’ts article.

Page Builder dos and don'ts

Xperience Core page templates

With page templates, editors can create pages with a different layout without developers.

See how the templates are implemented in the _Article.cshtml with the ArticlePageTemplateService.cs and the _ArticleWithSidebar.cshtml and ArticleWithSidebarPageTemplateService.cs files in the Dancing Goat Core sample project.

Learn more about developing page templates

Form Builder features

Editors on Xperience websites use Form Builder to create online forms. Learn more about the feature and how you can create custom form components in the Xperience documentation.

Check out how Form Builder is implemented in the Dancing Goat Core site:

The Contacts page shows how to display the Contacts form. The page is implemented in the Index.cshtml file and the ContactsController.cs file.

The custom form component in the ContactGroupSelector.cshtml / ContactGroupSelectorComponent.csfile.

Check out Form Builder

Dancing Goat ASP.NET Core sample site

It’s already been mentioned, but here is the Dancing Goat Core site again: it comes out-of-the-box with Xperience, and it will help you see the individual elements from above in the context of the whole site that is implemented.

You’ll also see how it implements other features like digital marketing and commerce. Diving deep into the sample site is definitely worth your time!

Install the Dancing Goat .NET Core sample site

Other resources

You’ve gone through the absolute essentials, and you should now have a basic understanding of what it’s like to develop a live site with ASP.NET Core in Kentico Xperience. These resources will help you on your development journey:

Xperience Documentation
API Examples
Xperience DevNet - articles, questions and answers, documentation, and other useful developer resources
Xperience Marketplace - downloadable third-party components and modules