Murphy’s law has it that real issues in DotNetNuke (core. modules, skins) don’t manifest themselves until you’ve rolled out in production. We can test all we want, but the fact of the matter is that this has become a highly complex eco-system with many interacting bits and it is next to impossible to test for all scenarios. And I’m pretty sure the kind folks at the Corp’s helpdesk will agree with me on this as well. So let’s not kid ourselves: sh*t happens. It’s our ability to deal with it that separates the...

Last Wednesday we had a Swiss DotNetNuke Usergroup get-together in Zurich around DNN 6. It’s not that we are somewhat slow in Switzerland (although evil tongues would have it that we are) that the DNN 6 Launch Party only took place now. It is more due to the fact that this was the earliest possible opportunity and we really wanted to get DNN 6 across the footlight to folks here. “Hey, remember that DotNetNuke thing we had a UG meeting about a couple of...

To our second installment on this two part series on handlers and modules in ASP.NET web applications, their significance and how to begin debugging situations where things have gone haywire. Like I mentioned in the previous post on handlers: modules and handlers go together like peas and carrots. The main difference is the following: whereas a handler...

This post is the first of a two part series about handlers and modules and is an attempt to offload what I know about handlers to you. Knowing what handlers are and how they work is what separates the savvy from the not-so-savvy when it comes to IIS administration. Although very few modules in the DotNetNuke ecosystem use/rely on handlers, those that do experience a steady stream of support calls along the lines of “hey, XYZ doesn’t work” and it is down to a handler issue. Examples of modules that use handlers...

Is what I spent with him in a room for an interview. And you get to see over half of that. What am I talking about? Well, at the WebConnections conference in Hamburg (a 2 day DotNetNuke event) we interviewed a number of participants. Vincent Bourgonje from we-do-it in Holland and myself were approached beforehand if we’d be interested to do this. We both immediately said yes. Vincent...

Hi all. Time for an update on the Localization Editor. In case you’re not familiar with this project, it is a tool to help you create language packs of your favorite DNN bit. Whether the core or a module. This new version of the editor aims to support something called CORE and FULL packs for the DNN core. Allow me to explain what’s going on.

A brief history of the full pack Back when static localization was introduced (DNN 3)...

It’s been a while since my last post here. Recently, DotNetNuke has begun releasing release candidates of DNN 6 and all of us extension makers need to keep a close eye on this development. If you aren’t already you definitely need to take a look at this prereleases and test any stuff you have to make sure you’ll be ready when it is released. I know they do all they can to avoid breaking changes, but (as they probably say in the Langley...

Hello everybody. It has been over a year since the last release of the newsfeeds module, so about time for an update. This new version includes a couple of major enhancements over 4.0.

Caching The single most important challenge since the old days of Newsfeeds 3 is to reduce the number of calls the module will make to the source of the feed it displays. I.e. caching mechanisms. Newsfeeds 3 let DNN handle it as any regular module can. This means DNN decides that a module doesn’t need to “run” and just...

At the last OpenForce event I took my little point and shoot Panasonic along with the intent of using it as a video camera. Nothing works better to capture the atmosphere than video, IMO.

Those that attended one of the OpenForce events (or were paying attention in the forums or on Twitter) may have heard that DNN Corp is contemplating switching the programming language of the “Open Core” from VB to C#. There are a number of reasons for this. Notably that it is easier for them to find software engineers for the project and that it would attract more (C#) developers. There is now a Twitpoll on the issue as this is not a trivial matter and DNN Corp would like your input on this. In this post I’d like to weigh in on the discussion.

To most of you this is a trivial issue. In fact my guess is that you’re probably scratching your head thinking why the heck we need a post on this. But I came to the conclusion that this was necessary seeing an influx of new DotNetNuke users that were confused about upgrading a third party module (emails asking “how do I upgrade DMX?”) and, more importantly, I had a couple of bad experiences recently upgrading some of my own sites and felt it was time I reiterated a “best practice” for upgrading.

I’ll start by admitting that when I came to DNN module development I did not have a very profound vision of version numbering. For me version numbers were simply an indication along the lines of “version 1.2 is better than 1.0”. But DNN has a very rigid xx.yy.zz scheme for both it's own as well as module version numbers which meant that I had to pay attention to this. 7 years later it has become quite a hobby horse of mine and I thought that this holiday season I should let this hobby horse roam a bit.

...

Just as I was wrapping up for a new release and testing the new package with the brand new DNN 5 manifest, I noticed that IUpgradeable.UpgradeModule had not been called in DNN 5. I was puzzled as I had labelled the module as IUpgradeable in the manifest. One of the changes in the DNN 5 manifest is that you have to do this explicitly (it used to be determined by the...

Ah, now that was a non-trivial task. I think I requested about half a year ago that we should be able to leverage the DNN 5 manifest enhancements without sacrificing the ability to target DNN 4. The first step was for DNN to allow multiple manifests to exist in a PA (= Private Assembly = the zip file that you distribute as your module). In DNN 4 if you have multiple .dnn files the installer immediately throws you out. So the solution was to be able to have a new extension for the DNN 5 manifest: .dnn5. I was...

Hey DNNers,

This is just a small note to let you know you have until the end of this weekend to submit your proposals for sessions for the European OpenForce 2010. The event takes place in Zeist, The Netherlands on 25 and 26 October. Here is the full email that was sent:

We're happy to inform you that preparations for the first European Day Of DotNetNuke are going to plan. As we are finalizing the agenda and venue we need to know if you are going to come to this event. We now have a formal registration form where you can enter all relevant details.

REGISTER NOW

If you are planning to come to the event please submit your details so we can make sure there is place for you (note this is...

After a long absence I have come back to the Newsfeeds project. I don’t have an excuse, only reasons (I have devoted a lot of effort to other parts of the DNN project). I'm very sorry I can't pick up on the forum posts. I’m not very good at this. I’m still on the lookout for someone to help out with iwonder who has been doing a fantastic job on this until now. I have kept an eye out on those forums though and decided that the module needed 2 important changes

This is an old hobby horse of mine and when working on someone else’s module it’s one of the first things I do. As I’ve just reworked the Blog module source code I thought I’d blog it so others may learn from it and use it to their own benefit.

Because the PortalName has been moved out of the Portals table it is no longer accessible. I worked around this with the following SPROC to get my own portalinfo.

This is just a heads up for those that downloaded the v 03.00.00 of this new module. Please install the upgrade. The 03.00.00 release did not unpack bundled components of the DNN core if you uploaded the core as an object to translate. Now it does. This concerns 3 components in the 05.01.02 release for instance: HTML module, Minimal Extropy Skin, and the FckEditor Provider. All other default installed items did not have any resource files in them.

Find the latest release of the module here:

http://localizationeditor.codeplex.com/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=32963

Since its incubation as ‘Bring2mind LocalizationEditor’ this module had raised interest in the non-English speaking part of the DNN community. Unfortunately, due to time constraints I did not find the time to properly advertize this module, nor devote serious hours to perfecting it. But it has been serving my own business already for a while and regularly I’d be asked what this module was. It wasn’t until this summer when Ernst-Peter Tamminga from Xcess came along and offered to have his apprentice DNN programmers sharpen their skills on this, that things started moving. The summer is a great moment to pick up dying open source projects and try to revive them. Erik van Ballegoij was kind enough to also chip in with some hours and together we now completed a first release of this module under the more neutral ‘DNN Europe’ banner.

This evening guests will be arriving here in Neuchâtel for the first European DotNetNuke Pro event. For the next couple of days we'll be ...

The European DNN professionals network is planning its first live face-to-face meeting in mid February. And it happens to be 200 meters from my office. Coincidence? Nah.

For those not familiar with it: what is the EU DNN Pro community? It is a network of people that

The use of (networked) computers to support collaborative work is far from new. For decades now Groupware, as it is commonly referred to, has been developed to help geographically dispersed teams. But the success of this type of application has varied greatly as it became apparent that human collaboration is by nature complex and the computer systems that we use are sometimes more of a hindrance than an aid. In this article we’ll look at how DotNetNuke can be used as Groupware and what advantages it has to offer.

Newsfeeds 04.00.01 has been officially released today. Read more ...

The days are getting shorter and the temperature is dropping (we already had our first snow). So what better than to snuggle up next to the fireplace with a good book? The success of DotNetNuke has also resulted in a steady stream of books about this platform. One of the latest is "DotNetNuke Websites: Problem - Design - Solution" by Tracy Wittenkeller.

This article explores the limitations of the DNN framework when working outside of Http Context and possible avenues to remedy the situation.

This post is to announce that the new version of Newsfeeds has actually passed all stages of testing last Thursday. This is a bit of a champagne moment as it marks the end of a very long process. Initially another approach was taken by the former team lead and after a lot of consideration I decided to discontinue that code branch. Instead the current upgrade is almost a complete rewrite of the module incorporating what I believe to be the most important features that were still missing: aggregation, feed format flexibility and caching. Read more about this ...

This points to post following up on an article I wrote arguing the suitability of DNN for building groupware applications. The post reflects on the recent security scare that had a number of us locked in heated debates recently.

This document aims to start discussion on an improved syndication architecture for DotNetNuke. There are various developments relating to syndication that warrant a critical examination, and a possible overhaul of the current syndication architecture.