Even though Web Matrix is a free tool, this would be a great attracting factor. However, I feel like this factor alone isn't good enough to motivate someone to keep on working with the tool after a few hours, especially if they can work with Visual Studios. NET. My personal experience with this project makes me feel that it is more time-efficient and convenient just to use Visual Studios. NET to develop web applications using ASP.NET.
The following are some of the many problems I faced with over the course of developing this application:
- Lack of Intellisence: This makes it very inconvenient to write code simply because I was not very familiar with the language. Since WebMatrix was built for novice ASP.NET developers so they don't have to deal with all the overhead involved using Visual Studios .NET, it would be taken into consideration that most of these users will not be familiar with all the classes and methods it offers. And figuring out simple code can take up hours if you are not aware of the correct method to use
- No support: The only support there is are the online forums and the small articles on ASP.NET here and there available on the Internet. There was one online book, but it was not very useful. In the online forums, usually beginners and some experienced developers share their problems and solutions. This was really my best resource during the course of this project -- relying on the fact that someone else may have had a similar problem as me and that their solution works for me also
- Many minor bugs: In the properties windows for the controls, if you click on the control which should take you to your file browser so that you can choose a file or image to insert or make as a background in some control, nothing happens. Instead, you have to type the entire path--which can be very inconvenient