Getting Started

This tutorial assumes that you've already purchased an ABP Commercial license and have an active ABP Commercial account.

This document assumes that you prefer to use Blazor Server as the UI framework and Entity Framework Core as the database provider. For other options, please change the preference on top of this document.

Create the Database

Connection String

Check the connection string in the appsettings.json file under the .AuthServer and .HttpApi.Host projects.

"ConnectionStrings": {
  "Default": "Server=(LocalDb)\\MSSQLLocalDB;Database=BookStore;Trusted_Connection=True"
}

About the Connection Strings and Database Management Systems

The solution is configured to use Entity Framework Core with MS SQL Server by default. However, if you've selected another DBMS using the -dbms parameter on the ABP CLI new command (like -dbms MySQL), the connection string might be different for you.

EF Core supports various database providers and you can use any supported DBMS. See the Entity Framework integration document to learn how to switch to another DBMS if you need later.

Database Migrations

The solution uses the Entity Framework Core Code First Migrations. It comes with a .DbMigrator console application which applies the migrations and also seeds the initial data. It is useful on development as well as on production environment.

.DbMigrator project has its own appsettings.json. So, if you have changed the connection string above, you should also change this one.

The Initial Migration

.DbMigrator application automatically creates the Initial migration on first run.

If you are using Visual Studio, you can skip to the Running the DbMigrator section. However, other IDEs (e.g. Rider) may have problems for the first run since it adds the initial migration and compiles the project. In this case, open a command line terminal in the folder of the .DbMigrator project and run the following command:

dotnet run

For the next time, you can just run it in your IDE as you normally do.

Running the DbMigrator

Right click to the .DbMigrator project and select Set as StartUp Project

Hit F5 (or Ctrl+F5) to run the application. It will have an output like shown below:

Initial seed data creates the admin user in the database (with the password is 1q2w3E*) which is then used to login to the application. So, you need to use .DbMigrator at least once for a new database.

Before Running the Application

Installing the Client-Side Packages

ABP CLI runs the abp install-libs command behind the scenes to install the required NPM packages for your solution while creating the application. So, if you have created the application via ABP CLI or ABP Suite, you don't need to run this command manually.

However, sometimes this command might need to be manually run. For example, you need to run this command, if you have cloned the application, or the resources from node_modules folder didn't copy to wwwroot/libs folder, or if you have added a new client-side package dependency to your solution.

For such cases, run the abp install-libs command on the root directory of your solution to install all required NPM packages:

abp install-libs

We suggest you install Yarn to prevent possible package inconsistencies, if you haven't installed it yet.

Bundling and Minification

abp bundle command offers bundling and minification support for client-side resources (JavaScript and CSS files) for Blazor projects. This command automatically run when you create a new solution with the ABP CLI.

However, sometimes you might need to run this command manually. To update script & style references without worrying about dependencies, ordering, etc. in a project, you can run this command in the directory of your blazor application:

abp bundle

For more details about managing style and script references in Blazor or MAUI Blazor apps, see Managing Global Scripts & Styles.

Run the application

Note: When you create an ABP solution, the client-side packages are being restored by ABP CLI and Suite. But if you fetch the source-code that's commited by another team member, your libs folder will be empty. Before starting the application, run abp install-libs command in your Web directory to restore the client-side libraries. This will populate the libs folder.

Important: The .AuthServer application serves as the Authentication Server for the .Blazor application. It is essential to have the .AuthServer application running in the background to ensure the proper functioning of the .Blazor application.

To do this, open terminal in .AuthServer project folder and run the following command.

dotnet run

Once the .AuthServerapplication has started, it is time to run .HttpApi.Host application.

Important: Prior to launching the .Blazor project, it is essential to execute the .HttpApi.Host application as well.

To do this, open terminal in .HttpApi.Host project folder and run the following command.

dotnet run

Once the .AuthServer and .HttpApi.Host applications has started, you can proceed to run the .Blazor project.

Tiered solutions use Redis as the distributed cache. Ensure that it is installed and running in your local computer. If you are using a remote Redis Server, set the configuration in the appsettings.json files of the projects below.

1. Ensure that the .AuthServer project is the startup project. Run this application that will open a login page in your browser.

Use Ctrl+F5 in Visual Studio (instead of F5) to run the application without debugging. If you don't have a debug purpose, this will be faster.

You can login, but you cannot enter to the main application here. This is just the authentication server.

2. Ensure that the .HttpApi.Host project is the startup project and run the application which will open a Swagger UI in your browser.

This is the HTTP API that is used by the web application.

3. Lastly, ensure that the .Blazor project is the startup project and run the application which will open a welcome page in your browser

Click to the login button which will redirect you to the authentication server to login to the application:

Enter admin as the username and 1q2w3E* as the password to login to the application.

The application is up and running. You can start developing your application based on this startup template.