---
title: "First ASP.Net MVC 4 Application"
description: "In this blog, I’m explaining how to create a simple asp.net mvc 4 application. First you have to setup the development environment for asp.net mvc 4,"
author: "Sumit Kesarwani"
published: 2014-01-29
updated: 2014-09-18
canonical: https://www.mindstick.com/blog/643/first-asp-dot-net-mvc-4-application
category: "asp.net mvc"
tags: ["asp.net mvc"]
reading_time: 4 minutes
---
# First ASP.Net MVC 4 Application
In this blog, I’m explaining how to create a simple [asp.net mvc](https://www.mindstick.com/forum/155798/what-is-caching-in-asp-dot-net-mvc) 4 application.\
First you have to setup the [development environment](https://www.mindstick.com/interview/34043/setting-up-a-development-environment-in-knockout) for asp.net mvc 4, for this you need [Visual Studio](https://www.mindstick.com/articles/12378/visual-studio-for-mac-is-out-of-beta-preview-now-officially-available) 2012 or Visual Studio 2010 with Service Pack 1. Once you have installed the visual studio, then you are ready to start creating asp.net mvc 4 application
##### Step 1
Start the Visual Studio 2012 and click on File -> New -> Project.
Select the ASP.net MVC 4 Application and give it the name “FirstMvcApp” and click on OK.
\
##### Step 2
The next dialog comes to select the project template:
Select the “Empty” project template and in [View Engine](https://www.mindstick.com/forum/155781/what-is-razor-view-engine-in-asp-dot-net-mvc) – select the “Razor” and click on OK.
##### Step 3
##### Adding your first controller
In MVC architecture, incoming requests are handled by controllers. In ASP.NET MVC, controllers are just simple [C# classes](https://www.mindstick.com/forum/158923/what-is-the-role-of-constructors-in-c-sharp-classes-and-how-are-they-different-from-regular-methods) (usually inheriting from System.Web.Mvc.Controller, the framework’s built-in controller [base class](https://www.mindstick.com/blog/116/base-class-initilization)). Each public method in a controller is known as an [action method](https://www.mindstick.com/forum/160300/how-to-pass-data-to-an-httppost-action-method-in-a-dot-net-core-api), meaning you can invoke it from the Web via some URL to perform an action.
To add the controller to [your project](https://www.mindstick.com/forum/156583/best-way-to-link-bootstrap-file-in-your-project), right click the Controller folder in the Visual studio solution explorer like this:
\
When you click on controller a dialog appears:
Enter the controller name as “HomeController” and in Scaffolding options select Empty [MVC Controller](https://www.mindstick.com/forum/12890/how-can-asp-dot-net-mvc-controller-return-an-image) and click on OK.
Visual Studio will open the HomeController.cs for editing and the default contents will look like this:
```
using System;using System.Collections.Generic;using System.Linq;using System.Web;using System.Web.Mvc;namespace FirstMvcApp.Controllers{ public class HomeController : Controller { // // GET: /Home/ public ActionResult Index() { return View(); } }}
```
If you run the application at this point, you can see an error is generated that is [MVC Framework](https://www.mindstick.com/interview/34199/what-is-the-difference-between-forms-authentication-in-asp-dot-net-web-forms-and-asp-dot-net-mvc-framework) is not able to find the view like this:
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Actually this error is quite helpful; it explains not only that MVC could not find a view for our action method, but it shows where it looked. This is another nice illustration of an MVC convention: views are associated with action methods by a naming convention. Our action method is called Index and our controller is called Home and you can see from Figure 2-8 that MVC is trying to find different files in the Views folder that have that name.
##### Step 4
To create a view, stop the debugger and right-click the action method in the HomeController.cs code file (either on the method name or inside the method body) and select Add View from the pop-up menu.
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A dialog will appear like this:
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Give view name as “Index” and View Engine as “Razor (CSHTML)” and click on “Add” button, Visual studio open the Index.cshtml for editing and the default content look like this:
```
@{ Layout = null;} Index
```
##### Expression
```
@{ Layout = null;}
```
This is an expression that will be interpreted by the Razor view engine. This is a pretty simple example. It just tells Razor that we chose not to use a master page. We are going to ignore Razor for the moment.
##### Step 5
Add a simple line in the body section:-
```
@{ Layout = null;} Index
This is first asp.net mvc 4 application
```
And run the application:
---
Original Source: https://www.mindstick.com/blog/643/first-asp-dot-net-mvc-4-application
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