Community Starter Kit Quick Start

This document describes the minimum steps necessary to customize a community. For a more detailed description of the features of the Community Starter Kit, please see the full Community Starter Kit Documentation.

Opening the Community Starter Kit Home Page

Installing the Community Starter Kit installs a sample community named Lunar .NET (The sample community represents a fictional .NET User Group located on the moon). The sample community contains sections for articles, events, downloads, links, discussions, and a photo gallery.

By default, the sample community is located at:

http://localhost/CommunityStarterKit/Default.aspx
You can open the Community Starter Kit any time in the future by typing this address into a browser located on the same machine that contains the Community Starter Kit.

Opening the Community Admin Pages

You can customize the appearance of your community by taking advantage of the Community Admin Pages. Before you can access the Community Admin Pages, you must first login to your community. Follow these steps:

  1. Login to your community using a Community Administrator account by clicking the Login link and entering the username Admin and password Admin.

  2. After you login using a Community Administrator account, a link to the Community Admin pages will appear in the page menu. Click the Admin hyperlink to go to the Community Admin Pages.

Selecting a Theme

You can use the Community Admin Pages to customize the appearance of your community by selecting a theme. A theme determines the layout and general appearance of your community. Follow these steps to select a theme.

  1. In the Community Admin Pages, click the link labeled Edit Sections.

  2. Click the Edit link next to the Home section.

  3. Click the Appearance tab.

  4. In the section labeled Theme, choose a skin and a style from the dropdown list boxes. For example, select the Professional skin and style to select a professional looking layout or select Robotico to select a more outlandish appearance for your community.

  5. Scroll to the bottom of the form and click Apply Changes. Clicking Apply Changes will return you to the main Community Admin Pages menu.

  6. In the Community Admin Pages menu, click the Return to Site Link to view the new theme that you applied to your community.

Customizing the Sections in a Community

You also can use the Community Admin Pages to add, remove, and edit the sections in your community. For example, to add a new Articles section to your community, follow these steps:

  1. In the Community Admin Pages, click the link labeled Edit Sections

  2. At the bottom of the Edit Sections page, click the link labeled Add New Section.

  3. Enter a Name, Title, Menu Title, and Description for the new section. For example, "CSArticles", "C# Article Section", "C# Articles", "This section contains C# articles". Notice that the pound sign # is not used in the name of the section since the name of the section is used to form the URL for the section.

  4. Under the section labeled Section Type, select Articles Section.

  5. Scroll to the bottom of the form and click the Add Section button. This will return you to the main Community Admin Pages menu.

  6. Click the link labeled Return to Site to view the new section.

After you complete the steps above, your community will contain a new section named My Articles. You can navigate to the new section by clicking the My Articles link in the section menu.

You can follow the same set of steps to add a downloads, links, photo gallery, discuss, or events section to your community.

Removing the Sample Community Content

When you first install the Community Starter Kit, a sample community is created for a fictional .NET users group named Lunar .NET. You can remove this sample content, and start with a clean community, by using the Community Admin Pages:

  1. In the Community Admin Pages, click the link labeled Delete Content (this is located towards the bottom of the menu).

  2. Select the content that you want to delete by checking the appropriate checkbox. For example, if you want to delete all the sample community content, check all the checkboxes.

  3. Click the Continue button.

Be warned that deleting content permanently removes the content from the Community Starter Kit.

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