WCF is a highly configurable technology/framework from Microsoft.  You can configure various deployment and security scenarious by simply editing your web.config file without have to make any code changes to your service contract or code.  That is incredibly powerful.  It is also incredibly complex.  Most of the examples you will find if you search the internet for “WCF Security” will talk about transport and message security, federation, WIF, ACS, etc…. and you will spend hours and hours reading whitepapers...

In this section of the “DotNetNuke and WCF” series, we will use the WCF service methods we built in Part #6 to do some offline data management.  We defined a couple of OperationContracts to enable offline moderation of Repository module uploads.  Now, we’ll build a desktop application that will monitor our portal for new uploads requiring moderation and allow us to review/approve them from our application without having to browse to our website

Click the link below to view the full blog on Gooddogs.com...

In this section of the “DotNetNuke and WCF” series, I will show how you can use everything you’ve learned to expose some Module “functionality”.  So far, we’ve used WCF to expose some Data about our web site. But hopefully you can see that we are not limited to just exposing data, but that we can also expose module functionality using the same methods.

NOTE: Updated 11/22/2009 - Added "Part 5: Exposing Data From Your DotNetNuke Web Site"

Over the coming weeks I will be posting the slides and code samples that I used in my OpenForce09 presentations. As sections are published, I will update this blog with hyperlinks to my blog on Gooddogs.com where this series is being published.

SESSION: DotNetNuke and WCF

Agenda/Intro: 
•Why use WCF with DotNetNuke?
•Quick Look at WCF
•Demos / code examples
    –Monitoring your web site
    –Offline management of your content
•Questions

So, I just finished up my Workflow session here at OpenForce Vegas, and the feedback I received on it, plus my earlier session on using WCF with DotNetNuke was very encouraging!.  For those of you who were unable to attend either OpenForce Europe or OpenForce North America this year, I thought it would be nice to show you all some love :)   I am going to start a series of blog articles to present those sessions to all of you.  A kind of virtual conference session. Over the series, I will present the slides, source code and present the same guidance and demonstrations that I did at my sessions on how to use these technologies in your custom DotNetNuke modules.

The 3.01.15 release of the core Repository module has officially passed through the Release Tracker process and is available to download and install. 3.01.15 contains a security fix

After quite a LOT of time spent getting through the Release process, version 3.01.14 of the core Repository Module has officially been released.

Please see the post in the Announcements Forum for details on the release http://www.dotnetnuke.com/Community/Forums/tabid/795/forumid/112/threadid/241739/scope/posts/Default.aspx

This release fixes quite a few Gemini issues, and adds...

Sometime, being on the bleeding edge is not always the frolicking good time it promises to be :)

So, I recently uploaded an early-early-early-pre-pre-ctp build of the Repository module version 4.0 to my personal web site, http://www.gooddogs.com/dotnetnuke for some testing and to give you all in the community a glance at the module in full working order, and as I expected, the first attempt was less than successful. My default repository application is...

Previously, I blogged on the new template engine that will be included as part of version 04.00.00 of the Repository module. Now, I would like to talk about the new token architecture.

Background: In the current version of the Repository module and all previous versions, I designed the tokens to look and work like the DotNetNuke skinning tokens, square bracketed token names intermingled in with static text. Token settings were stored in matching .XML files establishing settings and values, then at runtime...

As part of the total re-write of the Repository module, I am rewriting the template engine to be more powerful, more flexible and more useful than ever. A lot of the enhancement requests could be addressed through a more flexible and extensible template engine, so I have taken a more traditional approach to the engine as opposed to the current 'token replace' technology.

I have also refactored the template engine into a reusable public class in case you would like to take advantage of templating within...

 Here is a short video demonstration of Repository Applications in action ... :)

One of the really cool things that you will be able to do with version 4.0 of the Repository module is add entire new functionality without ever laying eyes on the code. The 4.0 template engine supports the dynamic loading of custom controls which enables you to extend the module to your heart's content :)

Currently, if there is some missing functionality from the module, you would have to edit the module's source code itself, adding support for a brand new token, then rebuild the module and upgrade your...

As you all read the various project forums and look forward to new releases of your favorite modules, you have no doubt seen references to a 'release process' or 'release tracker' .. and I'm sure you've all wondered .. 'what the *&%$ is that?

A little history: Back in July of 2006, after the modules had been split into their own projects, it became evident that we needed a formal release process in order to ensure high-quality releases of official DotNetNuke Projects. There are a lot of stakeholders in a DotNetNuke Project. There’s the Project Team, the Project Lead, the Project Chair ( a core team member who acts as mentor and liason between the project team and the core team ), and most importantly, the DotNetNuke Community as a whole. A documented, clearly defined release process was necessary to allow all of those stakeholders to not only understand the steps involved in releasing a Project, but be able to follow a release as it moves through the various stages of the process.

...

Here's a little sneak peek at what we're working on ...   :)

sneak peek #1  |  sneak peek #2

 

One of the biggest changes in 3.01.12 is the ability to define unlimited levels of sub-categories. The enhancement was added in such as way as not to break any existing Repositories out there, or force you to make any changes. So even though there are a lot of changes internally around categories, you can install 3.01.12 and without having to make any changes at all, your existing Repositories will continue to work and look exactly as they did before. However, that also means, that after you install 3.01.12,...

I've written a couple of blogs on the Release Tracker module and how the core team is using it to manage the QA process for project releases. Now that we've been using the module for a couple of months, the Tracker module has been made public so that everyone can monitor a project release through our QA and release processes.

There is a lot of information available for each package, so I thought I'd blog about the tracker module and how to look at the module and understand what it all means in terms of...

In the first blog, I presented an overview of the process that a DotNetNuke core module goes through once a Project lead thinks it's ready for release prior to actually being released to the community. Part 2 of this series will look at the process 'workflow' so that you will have a better understanding of the effort and the number of people that are involved in this process to ensure high-quality module releases.

The release process is defined as a workflow, a series of sequential steps that all must...

We're planning a pretty aggresive schedule of releases for the Repository Module. Our goal is to have a release every 30-days.

The January release of the Repository module has been released to the core team for final internal testing and staging prior to general availability.

This release ended up being much bigger than originally planned. In addition to fixing bugs in Medium Trust and the tendency for ratings and comments to sometimes end up associated with the wrong items, there have been almost 200 code changes checked in related to Localization and providing the ability to customize the upload/edit form via the templating...

Hello Everyone,I just checked two major enhancements in the Vault and as they represent significant changes, I thought I'd give everyone a heads up on what's coming. These changes will be in the January release scheduled for the end of the month.

Localization Support:After going through the static pages ( Module Settings, etc ) and making sure all the text, both static and dynamic utilitized the DotNetNuke Localization Services, I realized that I had a problem with the skins. Since the skins are static...

Here's a cool tip .. if you want to use graphics for the standard links in your Repository template, do the following...

As you know, you can modify a lot of the settings for your [TAGS] in the .XML files.  Let's suppose you have a template that you're using but you want the DOWNLOAD link to stand out more and want to use a graphical button instead of a text link. No problem! ..

Here's a picture of your Repository skin based on the default template. The DOWNLOAD link in the bottom right corner doesn't really stand out enough, so let's fix it!

...

Every [ TAG ] in every template file has support for a setting where you can indicate which roles can view the data for that particular tag. The default is that everyone can always see every tag, but you can override this if you need to. You can  also indicate multiple roles separated by semi-colons

Example: As administrator you want to keep an eye on the Download count for each item, but you're not really interested in making that information public. So, you would edit the template.xml file for the skin that you are using and add a setting so that only members of the Administrators security role will be able to see the download count.

...

A new skin for your Repository module. Use your module for a business directory

There are a few new exciting features that have been added and will be available in the next release... - Attributes. You can now define an unlimited number of attributes on the Repository Settings page. There are 2 new listboxes, Attibutes and Values. You can define any custom Attributes, then highlight an Attribute and add Values for that Attribute. An example would be: create an Attribute called "Language" and two values, "English" and "Spanish".  On the Upload and Edit screens, checkbox lists will be auto-generated...

Like I've always been told ... the last 20% of the project takes 80% of the time :) It's been a struggle trying to finish up the re-branding of the Gooddogs Repository Module to the DotNetNuke Repository Module. Which is a little frustrating because the latest build of the module is awesome! I've tightened up the dashboard code so that 'counts' are now accurate. I added some more [TAGS] to the skinning engine and a new 'Video' skin that allows you to play Windows Media files 'in-place' in the repository ... which is pretty cool when you see it. I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am to get this released and expose the Repository to a whole new audience.

...

I have been very pleased with the responses to my recruiting call for the Repository Module. I have a large number of 'candidates' for all positions and I'm very excited about the possibilities.

I'm reviewing the candidates and will start making some offers within the next day or so to start filling the project team positions.

Thanks to everyone who has contacted me and thank you for all the nice comments. You have all impressed me with your enthusiam!