What is the Microsoft Web Matrix?

Microsoft Web Matrix is a web development tool designed for creating ASP.NET web pages. A simple description, but it doesn't really tell you much, such as what it does, why you should use it, and why it's available in the first place. You might not think those are important questions, but the answers give you some ideas as to why you'd want to use Web Matrix.

When .NET was released, the main development tool promoted was Visual Studio .NET (VS .NET). As Web developers, we've been used to a plethora of tools, but more often than not, when coding old-style ASP pages, we've used Notepad. It's small and quick, but doesn't have any features specifically designed for web development. VS .NET brought a really rich design-time environment, including database support, drag-and-drop design, and so on. However, VS .NET is an advanced development tool, with many features not required by many people creating ASP.NET applications.

The Web Matrix Project on the other hand, was designed with ASP.NET in mind. It's very small (it fits on a floppy disk), has great design features, and best of all, it's free!

Web Matrix Features

Before we dive into the installation, let's take a quick look at the features of Web Matrix, to see why it's so compelling:

• It's small. This means it's quick to download, copy, or distribute to friends. It also means it doesn't take much memory or disk space.

• It has got great design features, such as a drag and drop page designer, templates for existing web pages, pre-supplied code, and so on. This makes it extremely easy to use.

• It doesn't require any other files. VS .NET uses a project-based system that creates extra files to manage a project. Web Matrix just uses a single file for each web page, and doesn't rely on any built in features. This means that you can edit the pages in any other code editor if you need to.

• Community support. There's built-in support for links to the ASP.NET community, including the news groups and mailing lists.

Oh, and did I mention it's free? You can (and are encouraged to) freely distribute Web Matrix. Let's now run through the installation so you get to play with Web Matrix as quickly as possible.