Tutorial: Get started with Razor Pages in ASP.NET Core

09/15/2020
16 minutes to read

This is the first tutorial of a series that teaches the basics of building an ASP.NET Core Razor Pages web app.

For a more advanced introduction aimed at developers who are familiar with controllers and views, see Introduction to Razor Pages.

At the end of the series, you'll have an app that manages a database of movies.

View or download sample code (how to download).

In this tutorial, you:

Create a Razor Pages web app.
Run the app.
Examine the project files.

At the end of this tutorial, you'll have a working Razor Pages web app that you'll enhance in later tutorials.

Home or Index page

Prerequisites

Visual Studio 2019 16.8 or later with the ASP.NET and web development workload
.NET 5.0 SDK or later

Create a Razor Pages web app

Start Visual Studio and select Create a new project. For more information, see Create a new project in Visual Studio.
In the Create a new project dialog, select ASP.NET Core Web Application, and then select Next.
In the Configure your new project dialog, enter RazorPagesMovie for Project name. It's important to name the project RazorPagesMovie, including matching the capitalization, so the namespaces will match when you copy and paste example code.
Select Create.
In the Create a new ASP.NET Core web application dialog, select:
1. .NET Core and ASP.NET Core 5.0 in the dropdowns.
2. Web Application.
3. Create.
The following starter project is created:

Open the integrated terminal.
Change to the directory (cd) which will contain the project.
Run the following commands:
```
dotnet new webapp -o RazorPagesMovie
code -r RazorPagesMovie
```
- The dotnet new command creates a new Razor Pages project in the RazorPagesMovie folder.
- The code command opens the RazorPagesMovie folder in the current instance of Visual Studio Code.

Run the app

Press Ctrl+F5 to run without the debugger.

Visual Studio displays the following dialog:

Select Yes if you trust the IIS Express SSL certificate.

The following dialog is displayed:

Select Yes if you agree to trust the development certificate.

For information on trusting the Firefox browser, see Firefox SEC_ERROR_INADEQUATE_KEY_USAGE certificate error.

Visual Studio starts IIS Express and runs the app. The address bar shows localhost:port# and not something like example.com. That's because localhost is the standard hostname for the local computer. Localhost only serves web requests from the local computer. When Visual Studio creates a web project, a random port is used for the web server.

Trust the HTTPS development certificate by running the following command:
```
dotnet dev-certs https --trust
```
The preceding command doesn't work on Linux. See your Linux distribution's documentation for trusting a certificate.

The preceding command displays the following dialog:
Select Yes if you agree to trust the development certificate.

See Trust the ASP.NET Core HTTPS development certificate for more information.

For information on trusting the Firefox browser, see Firefox SEC_ERROR_INADEQUATE_KEY_USAGE certificate error.

Press Ctrl-F5 to run without the debugger.

Visual Studio Code starts Kestrel, launches a browser, and navigates to http://localhost:5001. The address bar shows localhost:port# and not something like example.com. That's because localhost is the standard hostname for local computer. Localhost only serves web requests from the local computer.

Visual Studio for Mac displays the following popup:

HTTPS Development certificate not found. Do you want to install and trust the certificate?

Select Yes if you trust the development certificate.

The following dialog is displayed:

Security warning dialog

Enter your password and select OK

Select Yes if you agree to trust the development certificate.

See Trust the ASP.NET Core HTTPS development certificate for more information

From Visual Studio, press Opt-Cmd-Return to run without the debugger. Alternatively, navigate to the menu bar and go to Run>Start Without Debugging.

Visual Studio starts Kestrel, launches a browser, and navigates to http://localhost:5001.

Examine the project files

Here's an overview of the main project folders and files that you'll work with in later tutorials.

Pages folder

Contains Razor pages and supporting files. Each Razor page is a pair of files:

A .cshtml file that has HTML markup with C# code using Razor syntax.
A .cshtml.cs file that has C# code that handles page events.

Supporting files have names that begin with an underscore. For example, the _Layout.cshtml file configures UI elements common to all pages. This file sets up the navigation menu at the top of the page and the copyright notice at the bottom of the page. For more information, see Layout in ASP.NET Core.

wwwroot folder

Contains static assets, like HTML files, JavaScript files, and CSS files. For more information, see Static files in ASP.NET Core.

appsettings.json

Contains configuration data, like connection strings. For more information, see Configuration in ASP.NET Core.

Program.cs

Contains the entry point for the app. For more information, see .NET Generic Host in ASP.NET Core.

Startup.cs

Contains code that configures app behavior. For more information, see App startup in ASP.NET Core.

Next steps

Next: Add a model