Re: XML module starts again

I am interested in distributed outlining ala OPML would/could/should the XML module support this sort of thing or should I be creating a new module?

Re: XML module starts again

The news module deals with RSS/Atom news feeds and their aggregation, xml module will be more generic and will be not specialized for any xml schema.

Re: XML module starts again

Can the XML module be used to build something that resembles "Web Services"? I need a way for my partners to get DNN data (such as new users, unregistered users, etc.)...

Re: XML module starts again

I associate myself with the previous comment from jyjohnson on WS capabilities and more generically the underlying capability to update the XML file and validate against a given XSD (maybe it would just be a small extension of the XSLT extension to use it for data mapping).
I wouldn't mind helping out but we need some sort of plan...

Re: XML module starts again

I would want to see the XML module support reading tokens and query string variables for the page the module is used on.
The variables would be added to the XML and XSL file name / path.
current XML module has been modified to do this by Simon Thompson and I have been using his module successfully to create dynamic data-driven pages from corporate internal databases. I think these features should be part of the core XML module.

As I use DNN more, I have started to wonder why all the modules don't have provision to communicate with the page they are on. It seems like a natural need and without it, DNN is not much more than a web / db version of Dreamweaver.

Re: XML module starts again

Building on the previous. To make sense this module needs to be able to pass context to the xml provider'o'data. If that were the case this would go from being a boring part to arguably, one of the more powerful. For example, I could build virtually my entire web site using this part, without touching any VB code! (Providing nice modularity, etc.) My site, currently built on the original PortalStarterKit is www.radioshowlinks.com

One simplistic idea, perhaps building on the previous post - would be to allow the designer to add in url parameters to the name of the xml file to be called. These would be modified at run time to insert the run-time values. I personally would like those to include:
- the parameters to the page, e.g., ?hid=h3451 (url encoded of course)
- optionally, the cookie(s), again url encoded

I'm sure there are more sophisticated ways to do this, like providing a unique session id mechanism for callback into DNN - but this sounds nice and straightforward.

Given this, my xml provider, say GetStationData.aspx could build the right XML data that XSLT could use to build the part.

I'd love to help on this!

Re: XML module starts again

jyjohnson:
A lot of ideas for the xml module depends on the access ot data already stored inside DNN, for example inside the user profile or in other modules. Main problem for me as the developer is to access these data. Some variants of the xml module introduced SQL queries which are transformed back to xml. I know that this is quite powerfull though it will introduce some security issues. The module is not able to proof sql statements - so it would be possible to access any data in any portal or to execute other unfriendly sql statements. The current reports module solved it it very pragmatic- only users with host permissions are allowed to define data sources. I have currently not decided how to deal with this issue. Best way would be a common xml interface to access module data.
Currently all the data is rendered as html inside the module page. I think that will limit the usage - i think about introducing file output too. Here at my working place we use xsl to generate WordMl, Excel, CSV, Indesign TaggedText ... And of course it would be able to generate pure XML too.

cpipero:
Good Point. I always thought of the XML module as output only. Feel free to start a discussion thread in the forum.

tvanwynen, pgaston:
The next release of the xml module will definitly support parameters, parameters as Query parameters and as XSL Arguments:
http://dotnetnuke.com/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=n4%2f5r6jdss4%3d

Thanks all/ Stefan Cullmann

Re: XML module starts again

I believe you should add the capability to read the xml content from a zip file. This would enable this module to render docx, xlsx, pptx content.