Microsoft Delivers WebMatrix 2 Beta

Microsoft delivered a beta version WebMatrix 2, the latest release of the company's free Web development toolset. New features in WebMatrix 2 include the ability to get started faster, open remote sites and more easily install open-source applications. It also features more intelligent code editors with code completion capabilities for several languages.

WebMatrix enables developers to start from open-source Web applications, built-in Web templates or just writing code themselves. It is an all-inclusive platform that was designed to streamline Web development and make it easy.

To get started creating Websites, users need to download and install WebMatrix using the Microsoft Web Platform Installer and they can be up and running in less than five minutes, Microsoft says. Once WebMatrix is installed, it is simple to get and install the latest version of popular free Web applications such as WordPress, Joomla, DotNetNuke and Orchard.

With the streamlined application install in WebMatrix 2, the tool walks users through installing and configuring open-source applications and generates the user's database credentials automatically so they can get up and running faster. WebMatrix 2 supports nearly 60 open-source applications, including Drupal, SugarCRM, Umbraco CMS, mojoPortal and nopCommerce.

WebMatrix 2 features code completion for HTML5 and CSS3 elements and attributes. And it enables developers to see validation errors before they try their site in the browser.

Developers also can now get suggestions for available jQuery and core JavaScript functions with WebMatrix 2. Developers can validate JavaScript as they type, whether in standalone files or script blocks. There also is code completion for the built-in functions available in the active PHP version, Microsoft said.

Meanwhile the Web Pages 2 feature in WebMatrix 2 makes Web development simpler with new APIs for script management, server and client-side form validation using jQuery, authentication APIs for Facebook and Twitter, and more, Microsoft said.

All About Microsoft said of WebMatrix:

Launched in 2010, WebMatrix was a collection of a lightweight version of Microsoft’s IIS Web Server, known as IIS Express; an updated version of SQL Server Compact Edition; and a new “view-engine option” for ASP.Net, known as “Razor,” which enabled developers to embed Visual Basic or C# within HTML.

The beta of WebMatrix 2 can be downloaded here.