Microsoft has released version 3 of WebMatrix, a set of free tools to create, publish and maintain web sites. The new version of WebMatrix Web Development Tools 3 contains a number of changes designed to make developers life easier. This is not only for.NET, but also for PHP, Node.js and HTML5.

The focus of the new WebMatrix release is on a better integration with the Microsoft Azure cloud service. By pressing a button the user can create new web projects in different programming languages and then start the Azure service. This is possible not only with. NET projects, but also for example with PHP and Node.js, which are also available on Azure.

WebMatrix 3 will allow users to authenticate your account in the Windows Azure services. As soon as you log in using your account, all of your subscription service can be used directly from WebMatrix. You can create up to 10 free websites on Windows Azure.

A web development environment in the cloud

Launched in 2010, the suite has been enriched over time by various members. Thanks to the contribution of the community, there are many Content Management System (CMS) can be installed in just a few clicks.

Version 2 of the IDE already allowed viewing a site created using WebMatrix within the Azure portal administration. In version 3, WebMatrix opens the possibility to edit a remote site hosted on Windows Azure. It has a new visual site gallery that allow developers to open existing sites on their local machines, or to remotely edit sites that are hosted in Windows Azure.

One of the most requested features users wanted improved upon from WebMatrix 2 was the support for Git. According to the Windows Azure blog, following the TFS and Visual Studio announcements to support Git version control, WebMatrix 3 supports both Git and TFS. The source control experience is extensible, and Microsoft team worked with a few partners to include rich support for CodePlex and GitHub.

New feature WebMatrix 3 will allow you to remotely access websites hosted in the cloud and accessible by FTP.  This will allow the fly to make small changes in the sites hosted on the web using convenient tools for editing code in WebMatrix. All files are edited remotely, but if you need to, you can download the entire site on your local machine.

Alternatively, WebMatrix also offers versioning with Team Foundation Server and upload to the Microsoft Codeplex community site. The project manager of WebMatrix makes the installation of Node.js modules over NPM as well as the .NET packages via Nuget, improvements in remote editing of websites, autocomplete support for PHP, HTML5 and CSS3, support open source projects like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla and Umbraco.

Microsoft has also announced the release of version 2 of the Windows Azure SDK and updates to Windows Azure platform. The new release presents a new diagnostic tool, and an interface to manage and update websites hosted on Azure, as well as support for HTML5/JS client, Cross Origin Resource Sharing (CORS), PhoneGap, and Windows Phone 7.5.