2 Building your first application

In the last chapter, you learned how the Razor Pages web development framework, as part of ASP.NET Core, fits within the overall .NET Framework. You have discovered the types of applications you can build with Razor Pages and also, importantly, when it is not the best solution to use. You have been introduced to the tools you need to be productive with Razor Pages and, hopefully, downloaded and installed Visual Studio or VS Code along with the latest version of the .NET SDK. Now that you have your development environment set up, it’s time to start working with code.

In this chapter, you will create your first Razor Pages application, using both Visual Studio and the CLI, so you can follow along on the operating system of your choice. Most web development frameworks provide a starter kit or project—a simple application that forms the starting point for your own application. Razor Pages is no different. The application that forms the starter kit only has three pages, but it includes a basic configuration that you can build on to create your own more complex application.

2.1 Creating your first website

2.1.1 Creating a website using Visual Studio

2.1.2 Creating a website using the command-line interface

2.1.3 Running the application

2.1.4 Adding a new page

2.1.5 Modifying to include dynamic content

2.1.6 Adding the page to the navigation

2.2 Exploring the project files

2.2.1 The WebApplication1.sln file

2.2.2 The WebApplication1.csproj file

2.2.3 The bin and obj folders