Having looked through the filemanager to figure out a little about using this control I cant seem to figure out how to attach the treenodes collection to the DNNtree control on the page

Can someone please tell me what I missed - heres what I have so far

Dim myTreeNodes As TreeNodeCollection

Not sure what example you are trying, but here is what I did to try and reproduct your problem.

1)  Download the source version of the webcontrol project here.

2) Create a new sub called test with your code in it.

Private Sub Test()
  Me.MyDNNTree.PopulateNodesFromClient = True
  Me.MyDNNTree.ForceDownLevel = False
  Me.MyDNNTree.CheckBoxes = False
  Me.MyDNNTree.JSFunction = "myTestFunction('TestParam1', 'TestParam2');"
  Me.MyDNNTree.Target = "MyTarget"
  MyDNNTree.IndentWidth = 20
  MyDNNTree.TreeNodes.Clear()
  Dim objNode As DotNetNuke.UI.WebControls.TreeNode = New DotNetNuke.UI.WebControls.TreeNode("root")
  objNode.Key = "test1"
  objNode.ToolTip = "Test2"
  objNode.Text = "this is a thing"
  MyDNNTree.TreeNodes.Add(objNode)
End Sub

3) Comment out the call to SetTreeDefaults() and call Test() in stead in Page_Load

'SetTreeDefaults()
Test()

4) Tested page.  This code worked and showed your single node.  The image was messed up, but I don't think that is your concern at the moment.

If you are still having trouble with this sample I think I may need some more info from you.

Okay that makes sense now that I fixed my install of DNN - didnt notice it but the whole thing was tosted the regular FileManager in the admin section didnt work either

Anyway..................

Now that I can add root nodes how do i add child nodes?