Erik van Ballegoij

Tag your Forge (CodePlex) Project!

erik.vanballegoij@dotnetnuke.com — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 01:35:00 GMT

It's very good to see more and more people creating new projects on DNN Forge. One thing that might not be very obvious, but very usefull nevertheless is tagging your project properly. I've been searching for DotNetNuke projects on CodePlex a few times now, and up untill now there are 45 projects on CodePlex that have something to do with dotnetnuke. I've added the tag DotNetNuke to all of them, which caused the tag "DotNetNuke" to be included in the popular tag cloud of CodePlex.

Another thing I noticed is that a lot of projects are not yet part of the DNN Forge, You can easily solve that: (quoting from the forge faq)

Please create your project in the DotNetNuke Forge and then contact us at forge@dotnetnuke.com and be sure to include the Title of your project in the Forge and the URL for your project page on CodePlex. After creating the project in the DotNetNuke Forge you will be taken to CodePlex to complete the process. Since you already have a CodePlex project, you should cancel the CodePlex screen and send an email to the above address to complete the process.

Dutch language pack 4.8.2 released

erik.vanballegoij@dotnetnuke.com — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 00:01:00 GMT

The Dutch language pack for DotNetNuke has been updated for DNN 4.8.2. This and all other versions are available for download from the Dutch usergroup website: http://netherlands.dnn-usergroup.net (registration required). Special thanks goes to Marc Hujbregts, who has been working very hard to keep the language pack updated. The usergroup site also offers language packs for most core modules.

Preparing for an upgrade

erik.vanballegoij@dotnetnuke.com — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 23:00:00 GMT

Today I had to upgrade an old DNN 3.2.2 multiportal installation to DNN 4.8.1. There are 3 major areas that changed in the past DotNetNuke versions:

New contstraints and unique indexes on Files table
DNN Membership provider
Consolidation of http handlers in one assembly

In order to smoothly pass the third change, I always do a 2-step upgrade. First to DNN 4.5.5, then to the last available version, 4.8.1 in this case. The consolidation of http handlers happened in DNN 4.6.0.

When upgrading from DNN versions prior to 3.3.x / 4.3.x, the upgrade process will upgrade the data in the DNN Database from almost pure asp.net membership, to the more loosely coupled DNN Membership. Major changes are: switch from unique ApplicationID / Name per portal to one ApplicationId / name per DNN installation, and DNNMembership no longer uses the aspnet roles and profile tables. However, even though all data is upgraded, no essential data is deleted. In order to finalize the upgrade, you can manually delete the old data using the following SQL:

DELETE FROM dbo.aspnet_UsersInRoles

DELETE FROM dbo.aspnet_Profile

DELETE FROM dbo.aspnet_Roles

DELETE FROM dbo.aspnet_Membership
WHERE ApplicationId <> (SELECT ApplicationId FROM dbo.aspnet_Applications WHERE ApplicationName='DotNetNuke')

DELETE FROM dbo.spnet_Users 
WHERE ApplicationId <> (SELECT ApplicationId FROM dbo.aspnet_Applications WHERE ApplicationName='DotNetNuke')

You can run this script from SQL Management Studio, or from Host > SQL (select run as script). NB: Always make a backup of your database prior to executing this SQL!

The reason upgrades fail mostly have to do with the first change: new constraints and unique indexes on the files table. Problems arise from duplicate files in the files table, and files in the files table without a corresponding folder in the folders table. Even though the DNN upgrade sql tries to handle a few cases, in my experience, there are often cases that are not handled. Today i created the following sql which fixed all upgrade issues for me:

ALTER TABLE [dbo].Files ADD FolderID int NOT NULL CONSTRAINT DF_Files_FolderID DEFAULT 0

GO

UPDATE [dbo].Folders
SET    FolderPath = FolderPath + '/'
WHERE  FolderPath <> '' AND RIGHT(FolderPath, 1) <> '/'

GO

UPDATE [dbo].Files
SET    FolderID = FO.FolderID
FROM   [dbo].Files F, [dbo].Folders FO
WHERE F.Folder = FO.FolderPath
    AND ( ( F.PortalID = FO.PortalID ) OR ( F.PortalID is NULL AND  FO.PortalID is NULL ) )
GO

INSERT INTO [dbo].[Folders] (PortalId, FolderPath)
SELECT     TOP 100 PERCENT F.PortalId, F.Folder
FROM         [dbo].Files F LEFT OUTER JOIN
                      [dbo].Folders FO ON F.FolderID = FO.FolderID
WHERE     (FO.FolderID IS NULL)
GROUP BY F.Folder, F.PortalId
ORDER BY F.PortalId, F.Folder

GO



-- delete duplicates from folders table
DELETE FROM [dbo].Folders
  WHERE FolderId in (
    SELECT FolderId  
    FROM [dbo].Folders FO 
      join (SELECT PortalId, FolderPath
            FROM [dbo].Folders 
            GROUP BY PortalId,FolderPath 
            HAVING COUNT(*) > 1) DUP 
      ON DUP.FolderPath = FO.FolderPath AND (DUP.PortalId = FO.PortalId OR ( FO.PortalID is NULL AND  DUP.PortalID is NULL ))
      WHERE FO.FolderId NOT IN 
        (SELECT FolderId=MIN(FolderId)
         FROM [dbo].Folders 
         GROUP BY PortalId,FolderPath 
         HAVING COUNT(*) > 1))

GO

Delete from Files 
WHERE FileID in (
    SELECT FileID
    FROM [dbo].Files F 
      join (SELECT FolderId, FileName
            FROM [dbo].Files 
            GROUP BY folder,FolderId,FileName 
            HAVING COUNT(*) > 1) DUP
      on DUP.FolderId = F.FolderID and DUP.FileName = F.FileName
    WHERE F.FileID NOT IN
     (SELECT FileID = MIN(FileId)
            FROM [dbo].Files 
            GROUP BY folder,FolderId,FileName 
            HAVING COUNT(*) > 1))

ALTER TABLE [dbo].Files
    DROP CONSTRAINT DF_Files_FolderID
GO

ALTER TABLE [dbo].Files DROP COLUMN FolderId

GO

This script will do the following:

make sure that all foldernames in the files table exist in the folders table (add if neccesary)
delete duplicates from folders table
delete duplicates from files table.

Of course.. there is a risk. Because the final step is to delete duplicate files, links to that files will seize to work. It will be necessary to do a manual check of your site, to see if this happened on your site.

You can run this script from SQL Server management studio, or from Host >SQL (if you are using a non standard databaseowner and/or an object qualifier, you will need to edit this script to meet your needs) and again: Always make a backup of your database prior to executing this SQL!

[edit]I edited this post as for some reason the script ended up all garbled[/edit]

Goodbye UserSwitcher hello IdentitySwitcher ...

erik.vanballegoij@dotnetnuke.com — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 23:00:00 GMT

... or how I learned an old lesson: always check whether the name of the module you release doesnt actually exist somewhere else.

Today i received a mail from a fellow DNN Developer, asking to rename the UserSwitcher module to something else, as they have been selling that module for a long time now. I usually actually check to see if a module name already exists, as it is very confusing to end users to have different modules with the same name.

Anyhow, I changed the name to IdentitySwitcher (quick search on Google didn's show any results...). If you downloaded the module already, please download the new version, and uninstall the old version (As there might be a naming conflict i cannot delete modules named "UserSwitcher"

You can download the module here: http://www.codeplex.com/identityswitcher

Please remember to vote for the project :)

New DNN Forge project: UserSwitcher

erik.vanballegoij@dotnetnuke.com — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 23:00:00 GMT

A while ago i created a small utility that allowed me to easily switch between users in a portal. This is extremely usefull if you are developing a module or a site and you want to test different permissions for different users.

The current version of the module allows you to select whether host users can be switched to as well. Doing this means that you will never have to log on to your site again...

NB: Never use this module in a live environment, as it will make your site VERY insecure!

You can download this module from http://www.codeplex.com/userswitcher, and vote for it on the DNN Forge Page

Announcements Module: version 04.00.01 has been released

erik@apollo-software.nl — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 23:00:00 GMT

A new version of the Announcements module, version 04.00.01 was released yesteday. The new version can be downloaded from the project page (read full post to see what bugs where fixed and what enhancements where added)

Announcement module: call for new team members

erik@apollo-software.nl — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 18:16:49 GMT

Now that version 04.00.00 has been released, and 04.00.01 underway (in the release tracker now), I decided the time is right to expand the team.

Announcements module: version 4 is here!

erik@apollo-software.nl — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 11:11:14 GMT

After so much inspiration from the OpenForce conferences, where Charles Nurse and Vicenç Masanas created advanced versions of the Announcements module, it really felt good creating a new version of the module. Although the number of new features are small, under the hood, a lot has changed.

Announcements module: pre-announcing next version

erik@apollo-software.nl — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 11:48:42 GMT

Status update for the announcements module project