Getting Started with FunnelWeb - ASP.NET MVC based Blog Engine

Recently I updated my blog and now it's running on the magic of FunnelWeb, an open source blog engine. Previously, I have worked few days to get the first run of my blog on the Internet -- setting up a Web Application + Database and the addition logic for adding comments functionality. It's not that I was not aware of any blog engine earlier. At that time, I knew, things like Dasblog, Subtext and many others exists but it was ASP.NET MVC that attracted me to do my Blog. So I started doing blog using MVC and way back then I was not aware that something like FunnelWeb exists.

Was pretty happy the way things were working and never thought of upgrading blog. But then one day, I searched my blog in Google and it gives me a Bad Bad message! - "This site may harm your computer.". And I said What, When and How did that happen. There are many reasons that could happen. I did what I could and Yes, after trying things with Google Webmaster and this upgrade, the error message is gone and I am happy :), What a Relief!!

That all gave a new birth to the blog and it is now Powered by FunnelWeb. It only took me a few hours to get it up and running and migrate all the previous posts.

• From the official website downloaded the latest stable release (.zip).

• Extract the zip to a folder and you are 20% done :).

• First things first, FunnelWeb requires you to have a Sql Server database instance(Standard or Compact Edition). This is required to execute database scripts required for storing blog related information.

• If you meet this pre-requisite, you may proceed to update the My.config (rename my.config.sample to my.config if required) configuration file. The file is to be updated with Database connection string, FunnelWeb Administration panel login username and password.

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
  <funnelweb xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <setting key="funnelweb.configuration.database.connection" value="initial catalog=[Database name];server=[Server Instance name];user id=[Username];password=[Password];" />
  <setting key="funnelweb.configuration.database.schema" value="dbo" />
  <setting key="funnelweb.configuration.authentication.username" value="[Login User]" />
  <setting key="funnelweb.configuration.authentication.password" value="[Password]" />
  <setting key="funnelweb.configuration.database.provider" value="sql" />
  

• You are now all set now to host the application in IIS. To do this, Create a new folder in wwwroot folder and name it say "TestingFunnelWeb". Now copy all the files of FunnelWeb application to this new folder. Additionally if you don't already have an App_Data folder in there, go ahead and create it and give the ASPNET user account ([UserName]\IIS_IUSRS) Read/Write access to this folder to get it working right.

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• After doing this, Open the website and you are 80% done. Don't worry if you are already thinking about the design and CSS issues. It should look like this

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• If everything is set up correctly in the my.config file and a connection to the Sql instance is established successfully, scroll down to see an "Upgrade" button. If the connection string is not working, update it and try again (Note that the database must be created in the Sql server before doing this) Click on this button will execute the set of database scripts required for FunnelWeb to work.

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• After executing the scripts it says Woohoo! and Yes!, the blog is set. Create a new post using the New Post link. This is how i got started quickly setting up my blog. Hopefully you will too :)