How I got started with fubuMVC

I’m in the process of re-writing my own production project to use fubuMVC and I wanted to share how easy it was to get started with the framework and use the fubu power to get up and running with very little ceremony.

Step one:

Create a new 4.0 ASP.NET web application and reference the libraries I need to use fubuMVC:

Step two:

In the Global.asax.cs start wiring up the FubuApplication.

To do this, in my application start method I hook up my own (currently empty) implementation of FubuRegistry, with a new structure map container and Bootstrap using the routes from the route table.

        protected void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            FubuApplication
                .For<XercesFubuRegistry>()
                .StructureMap(() => new Container())
                .Bootstrap(RouteTable.Routes); 
        }

        public class XercesFubuRegistry : FubuRegistry
        {
        }

Step three:

Declare the setup of my FubuRegistry

    public class XercesFubuRegistry : FubuRegistry
    {
        public XercesFubuRegistry()
        {
            IncludeDiagnostics(true);

            Applies.ToThisAssembly();

            Actions.IncludeClassesSuffixedWithController();

            Routes.HomeIs<HomeController>(c => c.FrontPage())
                  .IgnoreControllerNamespaceEntirely();

            this.UseSpark();

            Views.TryToAttachWithDefaultConventions();
        }
    }

I’m including diagnostics so that I can use fubuMVC’s excellent diagnostic features to help me visualise how the code in the site works for each url as I build it (more on this below).

I’ve decided to stick with a “controller actions” concept so I tell fubuMVC that actions are those classes that end with “Controller”.

I declare my home route as the HomeController (which I’ve yet to create) and declared a method on there called FrontPage.
I also tell fubuMVC to ignore the namespaces of my controller class when building the routes.

I’m using the spark view engine and I tell fubuMVC to wire up the views with default conventions – here it will use a number of ways to match the view based on the model returned by the FrontPage method – I’m essentially wanting it to look for the only concrete implementation of that type.

Step four:

Create the controller – it does not take any parameters in the front page method and it returns a HomeViewModel.
This is a zero model in, one model out concept that fubuMVC is very opinionated on (along with the one model in, one model out concept).

    public class HomeController
    {
        public HomeViewModel FrontPage()
        {
            return new HomeViewModel();
        }
    }

    public class HomeViewModel
    {
    }

Step five:

Create my view.

I’m actually importing the code from my existing home page but now I can call this view whatever I want rather than relying on naming conventions and location matching – one of the beautiful things about fubuMVC is that I am free to put my actions and views anywhere I like and it will hook them up based on the types concerned – a HomeController type for the action and a view that uses the HomeViewModel for my output.

My spark view, frontpage.spark, now uses the HomeViewModel:

<viewdata model="Xerces.Web.Core.Home.HomeViewModel" />

<div id="imageContainer">
...etc

Here’s a picture of my web application illustrating that I can have the action and views where I want:

Step six:

Confirm that it all works!

I set the start page of my web application to “_fubu/actions” – this points to one of the diagnostics pages for my fubuMVC application – and I debug the website:

The fubuMVC diagnostics shows me that I have one registered action that is the HomeController I set up. The action returns a HomeViewModel and the view it has found that ties up with this output model is my frontpage.spark view.

I can click on the “(default)” route to take me to the website and my home page loads!
(note that using the diagnostics as my start page is a personal preference and isn’t required)

This was very easy and fubuMVC is doing a lot of the work for me so that out of the box it just makes my life simple.
I’m going to love working with this framework.