When you create a Sitefinity website, for example using the Sitefinity Project Manager, there is no need to open that project as a “Website” solution in Visual Studio. This is because the created Sitefinity website already includes a Visual Studio Web Project (CSPROJ) file.
To work with Thunder, you need to download the VSIX Visual Studio extension file, and install it to Visual Studio. Do not install Thunder from within Visual Studio.
Now that Thunder extension is installed in Visual Studio, to enable Thunder on your Sitefinity project you need to install it on the project as well. This will install and update the required services that interface with the Thunder plugin.
Do not install the Telerik.Sitefinity.Thunder package manually using the Package Management Console. (Sitefinity has it’s own Nuget package source http://nuget.sitefinity.com/nuget), instead use the Visual Studio extension. The extension doesn’t require you to create a visual studio
To enable your Sitefinity project with Thunder, use the Thunder extension in Visual Studio as follows. Open up Visual Studio (you do not need to have your Sitefinity Project open in Visual Studio for this). Go to the Telerik (in the Main Menu), then Sitefinity Thunder and invokve “Install Sitefinity Thunder Module”. This will open a prompt merely asking you for your Sitefinity’s project location. The URL is the base of the site, not the “Sitefinity” subfolder.
You might need to refresh the site in the browser to enforce any necessary recompilation. Now you can create a Sitefinity Thunder connection in Visual Studio.
Finally, when you are creating a connection in the Sitefinity connection Wizard:
- You can name your connect anything.
- The URL must be the root to the site, that is, do not include the url to the backend /Sitefinity.
- Use a username and password that has administrator access
- Click Test Connection. You will see that the membership providers drop down list is now populated.
From my experience, if you do anything wrong. You’re left with a very brief error message: “Connection failed.” Go figure.