I am trying (and without much success) to learn how to make my own modules.  It seems all the resources I see out there, make the assumption that all I'm doing is a website, and that all my data is there in support of this website.  That and the fact I haven't found a very well done tutorial or set of distinct "step by step" instructions on making a module.  That said, I am going to outline exactly what I'm trying to accomplish with my "very first module", and see if anyone can help me with good, concise, instructions.

a)  I've grabbed all the DNN Jungle stuff, and the stuff from Seabury Design.  I've read a few things on the net.  I'm just as confused now, as I was before I started.

So - here goes!

We have a table in an existing database, that's currently fed data from an ASP Page.  That data is in turn read in by a VB6 app, to make labels. 

I want a module that allows anyone (not necesarily registered users) to

a) enter their name, email addy, and mailing address info.
b) choose 1-4 items from a list of 4 documents they would like us to USPS them
c) Submit this  info into our table

My web module doesnt' need to display anything to anyone - the data just gets put in the db.  Our vb6 app reads this data to make mailing labels and send the requested documents out.  Everything I see talks about "module ID" and "portal ID" etc, but nothing I've read thus far will let me just create this simple module to populate our stand alone table? 

Can anyone help me, point me in the right direction, etc?  I have a large group of modules "of this nature" that we need to be able to design, but the database we will work with, for the most part, is not the DotNetNuke database.  The DNN Database is only going to be there to keep our "look & feel" and such, but it has to be able to interface pretty well with our "real time system".

thanks

Mark Orsted

Mark-

what you're asking is pretty stright forward, but the "correct" way to skin this cat my be better determined by your envirnoment.  If your destination table/db is SQLserver the easiest way would be to also use DNN in the same and to create a view (with appropriate permissions to the proper user).  Then you are leveraging a single connect string.  However, it is pretty simple to use an alternate connect string.  If you follow a "by the book approach" you can create a data provider, (presumably) SQL data provider and controller that exposes a single public method that can return a status code like:

Public sub PostMyInfoRequest(x1 as string,...)

    Dataprovider.Instance().PostMyInfo(x1...)

end sub 

your  SQL data provider will call DAL+ and execute the stored procedure, sql insert etc.

In this case you don't need ModuleID, ItemsID etc.-- they are irrelavant to the task at hand (i.e. if you put this module in 2 locations you wouldn't care which one is posting to your database for the VB app-- if you do carry the moduleid and you can use it as a source location for analizing were you are collecting data from the most.

Hope that helps

Ricker

btw- if you are using DNN w/in visual studio and use the add DNN Module, much of the framework is created for you, but you'll end up deleteing out almost everything except the add stub.