I upgraded HydrogenCMS for it's second release to asp.net mvc preview 2 tonight, and updated the HydrogenCMS.net site.  Overall, it was not a difficult exercise.  I had a hiccup or two because I had a view unfortunately named "View", and with the renaming of the RenderView method to View, it caused some problems.

Another issue was simply changing ViewData to ViewData.Model for the strongly typed pages.  Simple enough.

And, finally, there were some routing changes.  Routing, apparently, is not my strong suit, so it took a little effort to get it lined up because I am trying for the super seo friendly url of just the slug of the page, so there is a little kung fu in there, but not much.  The biggest routing issue was how Default.aspx actually gets called now, so you have to put a redirect in the codebehind, where the old version just never got called.  I don't know what the reason for that is, but a little research can fix that.

All in all, considering how much effort the .net people are putting into asp.net mvc, and how much they are listening to the community, the changes were minimal.  If you have a project in preivew 1 or 2 (I upgraded from the first preview), then I suggest upgrading.  It is mostly painless, and it will keep you from having to drop a big chunk of updates in when the library goes rtm.

Jesse Foster | jf26028

Well, at least an early version was released. 

HydrogenCMS is a fully functional, extremely minimalist, open source, cms using asp.net mvc, linq2sql, linq2xml, and a bunch of code/ideas from BlogEngine, Kigg, and a ton of other places.  It started out as an experiment on some of the new technologies floating around in the asp.net world, but it also fills a need. 

Most of us, at one time or another, have had that relative or client who needs a simple, tiny web site that just has a few pages.  Something easy to stand up, configure, skin, and turn lose so they can do their own updates.  There aren't many apps like that, especially in asp.net.  Hopefully, HydrogenCMS can help fill that gap.  With the simple xml providers, you just deploy the site, change the admin username/password, and tell your client the metaweblog api url, and you are good to go.  They can use Live Writer or some other blogging utility to manage the whole site.  It doesn't get much simpler than that.

I will produce a set of blog entries in the next few days to help document the system, and give some insight into some of the features and design points that may not be obvious up front.  If you have any comments, feel free to drop me a line here, on my contact page, or at the CodePlex site.

Jesse Foster | jf26028