14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is now allowing early adopters to test drive the second version of WebMatrix, a tool designed to streamline website development on top of Windows.
WebMatrix 2 Beta can be downloaded alongside WebMatrix 1, but not also deployed on the same machine.
Testers will have to choose between WebMatrix 2 Beta and WebMatrix 1, since the Redmond company is now allowing side-by-side installation.
“WebMatrix 2 Beta cannot be installed side-by-side with WebMatrix 1 – it will overwrite your existing installation. Do not install WebMatrix 2 Beta (which is a pre-release product and may contain bugs) if you are concerned about product deployments with WebMatrix,” the software giant warns.
For those not familiar with this offering from Microsoft, WebMatrix is a solution set up to help web devs create, customize and publish websites. WebMatrix 1 continues to be available free of charge, and most likely the same will also be the case with WebMatrix 2.
Customers leveraging WebMatrix can easily deploy a range of web applications, including open source projects such as WordPress, Joomla!, DotNetNuke and Orchard.
But they can also write their own code, and put together entirely new sites, or just customize existing apps as they see fit.
WebMatrix comes with an IDE that supports ASP.NET and PHP, but also offers devs resources such as IIS Express and SQL Server Compact Edition.
Microsoft’s Robert Lucero highlighted some of the new features which early adopters can already test in WebMatrix 2 Beta:
“• Remote Site Access and Editing - You can now quickly edit your remotely published files without having to pull-back and republish.
• Streamlined Web Application Installs - Database passwords and users are generated for applications making it faster to get up and running.
• .NET and PHP Intellisense - Major updates to the WebMatrix code editor which allows for both .NET and PHP intellisense along with HTML, CSS, and JScript
• Rich App Extensibility - Try out some of the WebMatrix extensions that are available in the Extensions Gallery or develop your own!”
There are also a range of new templates for customers to take advantage of, as well as integrated learning content.
In addition, WebMatrix 2 sports an overhauled UI for Database management and has the NuGet Package Manager experience integrated with ASP.NET apps.
WebMatrix 2 Beta is available for download here.