Getting set up to work on FlexWiki on your development machine involves the following steps:

• Make sure you've got IIS installed
• Make sure you've got Visual Studio 2003 installed
• Get the source code (see below)
• Configure to work on the web project (see below)
• Setup IIS to run the code you're developing (see below)

Get the source code

An important part of contributing to the FlexWiki project is being able to work with the source control system on SourceForge. The FlexWiki source is kept in a version control system called Subversion. You must follow the instructions for ConfiguringSubversion (and grab the sources as indicated in the last step of that topic).

Configure to work on the web project

Because of the difficulties of sharing web projects among distributed developers, the web project has been converted to a Local class library. Thanks to CraigAndera for pointing to http://www.pluralsight.com/fritz/Samples/aspdotnet_without_web_projects.htm which explains how to do this.

To make debugging as simple as a Web Project, the .csproj.user file is checked in and configured to point to http://localhost/flexwiki/default.aspx

 ??Do you mean 
 StartURL = "http://localhost/FlexWiki/default.aspx"
 As this doesnt work

Scooter - Its not clear how to start debugging this project. Im trying to follow the steps that should be in the release but are on this page but its just not happening. Cant there be a script or something, its too much to ask developers to first work out its done like this on purpose, then to find the info( by luck I landed on this page, I was looking in the release documents like README. Im not having a go as the software is good its just not very developer friendly. You might find more people contributing if the barrier to entry wasnt so high.

Prerequisites

1. You do not currently have any Virtual or Application Directories pointing to http://localhost/flexwiki -- if you do remove them before starting this process. You can do this from the IIS manager.
2. You do not have a FlexWiki.Web folder in your \VSWebCache\<machine name>\ folder -- if you do delete this folder.

Adding files to FlexWiki.Web

To allow adding web files to a class library project, follow the steps below.

1. In a directory called C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\VC#\CSharpProjectItems\LocalProjectItems is a file callled LocalProjectItems.vsdir.
2. Backup this file.
3. In the root FlexWiki sources folder is a file called LocalProjectItems.vsdir. Copy this file to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\VC#\CSharpProjectItems\LocalProjectItems replacing the existing copy.

You will now be able to add web items to a class library project.

Setup IIS to run the code you're developing

Enable Web Sharing for the FlexWiki.Web project

In Windows Explorer, right-click on the FlexWiki.Web folder in the source tree, select Sharing and Security, select the Web Sharing tab, click on Share this folder, for the alias enter “flexwiki”, click OK, click OK.

Grant ASPNET write permission

For Windows 2000:

Right-click on the the folder FlexWiki.Web\WikiBases folder, select Sharing and Security, select the Security tab, click Add, in Enter the object names to select enter “ASPNET”, click OK.

On the Security tab the ASP.NET Machine Account (<machinename>\ASPNET) is selected, in Permissions check the Allow checkbox for the Write permission, click OK.

For Windows 2003:

Do the same as for Windows 2000 but then select the Network Services instead of the ASPNET account. This has to do with the diffrent ways ASP.NET runs on Windows 2000 and Windows 2003.

Security Notes

Note that creating the FlexWiki virtual directory using the Web Sharing option from the right-click menu in Explorer will create the directory as a secured virtual directory. If you have security-related issues later, you may need to do the following:

• Go into the Internet Services Manager utility (under Administrative tools)
• Select the FlexWiki virtual directory
• Right-click and select Properties
• Change to the Directory Security tab
• Under Authentication and Access Control, hit the Edit button
• Select "enable anonymous access", and deselect all other options

This will configure the virtual directory to not require any authentication in order to access it, which might be more appropriate for a wiki you intend to share with others. If you are the only person accessing the wiki, and if you are accessing it from the same machine on which the server is running, you probably don't need to make any changes - things will work even with authentication enforced.

Note that if you create the virtual directory directly from Internet Services Manager, it will automatically be set to not require authentication - only virtual directories created with the Web Sharing option of Explorer default to requiring authentication.