Developing websites
Find the resources needed to develop and customize an Umbraco website, whether working with backend functionality or extending the backoffice.
Umbraco CMS is built on the Microsoft ASP.NET MVC framework. You can build upon this technology to work alongside and extend the functionality in Umbraco. The platform is designed to be flexible and pluggable, meaning key components can be replaced with custom implementations when needed.
It is possible to build an Umbraco site without advanced development tools. For more information, see the Creating websites with Umbraco article.
You’ll learn how to:
Structure and develop an Umbraco project
Extend and customize the Umbraco backoffice
Work with Umbraco-specific APIs and helpers
Use dependency injection within Umbraco
This section is divided into two main areas:
The Umbraco backoffice can be extended using AngularJS and C#. Customizing the Umbraco backoffice and editing experience includes:
Creating custom Property Editors
Building Dashboards
Developing Packages.
Customizing Health Checks
Extending built-in search functionality
See the Extending section in the CMS docs for a good place to start.
From a frontend perspective, Umbraco does not dictate HTML, CSS, or JS in your website build. There is nothing Umbraco-specific about it.
Umbraco is highly customizable, which means you can integrate it with anything and make it behave as you want. With Umbraco, you start with a clean slate.
Umbraco uses ASP.NET and MVC patterns. Developers can:
Create custom controllers
Work with SurfaceControllers
Integrate management service APIs
Extend routing and rendering logic
Development Tools and IDE Recommendations
When developing or extending an Umbraco project using C#, using an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is recommended.
Recommended: Microsoft Visual Studio
Alternative: Visual Studio Code or another preferred text editor
While it is technically possible to make changes using a simple text editor and compile on startup, an IDE provides:
IntelliSense and code completion
Debugging tools
Project management support
Strong integration with ASP.NET and MVC frameworks
Using an IDE significantly improves productivity and reduces the likelihood of errors when working with C# and .NET-based projects.
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