One of the new major additions in DotNetNuke 6.0 is the Extension Gallery. If you read this blog post from Joe, you may already be familiar with this feature. If not, the DotNetNuke Extension Gallery is an integrated section in the Extensions module (under Host –> Extensions in the navigation menu). This interface permits the searching, as well as the downloading and deployment of third party extensions made available from Snowcovered...

Last week Beta 2 of 6.0 was released, as many of you already know, and my colleague Joe Brinkman took the time to highlight a few of the lesser known features/enhancements introduced in 6.0 as well of some of the updates we made based on feedback from previous CTP’s and Betas. Since reading his blog, I have been reminded of another feature/enhancement that has been overlooked thus far: Telerik wrappers. Before diving into what exactly was added for developers to take advantage of, it might be good to provide some history related to the controls as well as our usage in the updated user interface for 6.0.

If you played with any of the DotNetNuke CTP’s or the Beta, you are sure to have seen this new feature. When you first attempted to login (on a new install), you saw the popup with the username and password area loaded inside. Once you were logged in and navigated around, you also saw various screens throughout the user interface also using this modal popup. In this blog, I am going to explain how module developers can incorporate it in their custom extensions as well as touch on some of the basics related to...

When CTP 2 was released for 6, Joe dedicated a brief section to Module Branding in his blog post. This enhancement allows module developers to associate an image with their extension product. However, to take advantage of this addition, extension developers would normally have to create two separate releases: one to use for DotNetNuke 5.x, and another for DotNetNuke 6.x (even if there were no other changes) This was the only option outside...

The past couple of months I have spent a decent amount of time working on DotNetNuke 6.0. To be a little more specific, I (and several others) have been focusing on updating the user interface. If you have seen CTP 3, or read Joe’s blog post, you have already been introduced to some of the user interface changes we have going on. Although it may not seem like it, there was a lot of work and planning that went into overhauling the user interface in 6.0.  

In case you missed the announcement made earlier this week and you have yet to see it on the site, the DotNetNuke Extension Forge was recently rewritten and made available to the community on the www.dotnetnuke.com website. In order to help acquaint users with the recent updates to the Extension Forge, I decided to start “The Forge...

If you haven’t heard (or read the details), Active Modules Inc. has been acquired by DotNetNuke Corporation. Since the announcement, there has been a great deal of discussion going on throughout the community. While these discussions cover many different topics and view points, I noticed several people asking about the core forum module team and how they feel. Because of this I figured...

A few weeks ago I came across a project in the DotNetNuke Forge which caught my attention, the Page Management module. After playing around with it locally I found that I really liked several things about it: Easy to use, looks good, little usage (if any) of post backs (it’s a great little module overall, I am just focusing on the items that caught my attention at the time). These few points I noted are an area I feel many modules (including...

As many of you may know already, we had a Hackathon in Seattle last week focused on Microsoft Razor (check the link for full details) which was held in Seattle. After one week of time (and lots of effort from the participants) we now have all entries posted and voting is underway...

Since the previous build used on this site (what I labeled 4.6 Beta 2 on CodePlex), not too much has changed for end users. The majority of the changes I made were in the backend of the module (caching, bug fixes, removing legacy table columns and tables, etc.). Having this installed on here, in combination with the 5.0 version of the module being in the release tracker, means the module could be a part of the next core release. A few key changes since 4.6 Beta 2:

New Feature: Auto Trust Users based...

If you keep up on the dotnetnuke.com blogs, you have probably seen over the past month or so I have been releasing forum betas. So far these have been under the 4.6 and 4.7 versions (I didn’t blog about 4.7). I have created a new one, which is technically 4.8, but after many changes I have decided that the final release version will be 5.0. This is because I have changed so much that a major version was due (there was also a lot of cleanup in the module code besides bug fixes and enhancements). As for plans...

A few weeks ago we launched a new version of the User Groups module on this site, which Will Strohl blogged about here. As he noted, there had been a long period of time which had passed since it was last updated. Not wanting this to happen again, when designing the last version (the one launched a few weeks ago) we decided it was best to limit the scope and shoot for a follow-up update...

It has been one week since I posted the Forum 4.6 Beta and a few issues have been brought to my attention (Thanks Matthias!). Well, in the Beta 2 I have addressed those issues that I verified and a few others. We also installed this very same version on www.dotnetnuke.com (this site) just before I posted the Beta 2 download (which means I consider it safe for production use). While I feel it is safe for production...

In DotNetNuke Core 5.3 there was some work done around the Core search engine sitemap provider that was referred to as “The sitemap now allows module admins to plugin sitemap logic for individual modules” in the release notes. When I first heard about this in a Core Team meeting, it was explained that modules that have many pieces of content on a single page (Ex. Forum, Blog, Articles, etc.) can be picked up by the search engine sitemap provider. Having just finished my recent blog series on Taxonomy,...

I have posted an installable forum 4.6 over @ CodePlex. This is marked as a Beta and requires DotNetNuke Core 5.4.1 or greater. This is basically the same version of the module that we are currently using here, with a few additional changes (which I am sure will make it here shortly). While I feel the module is very capable of being one used in production, there are a few reasons I decided to go the beta route but the main one is I only have tested it using it the way we do here on www.dotnetnuke.com. As per...

Thus far, we have covered everything but the user interface and the changes you will need to make in your module to actually expose taxonomy/folksonomy in it. Because of this, we simply have to focus on adding existing controls available in the core to your module interface (in the .ascx files) and hooking the controls into your existing load/update methods. As with the other parts of this series, I ask that you please read them prior to reading this blog entry.

You can find the previous parts of the...

As with the other parts of this series, I ask that you please read them prior to reading this blog entry. The majority of this series has touched on Content Items and what they are and how to integrate them into your module. Well, for this portion we will reference Content Items but we will be covering a new topic: Terms. Compared to the previous posts in this series, this one is fairly short!

You can find the previous parts of the series here:

Part 1...

In Part 4 we will be covering the DAL updates in order to properly integrate core taxonomy in your custom module. As with the other parts of this series, I ask that you please read them prior to reading this blog entry. While reading this particular entry, you may want to refer to parts 2 and 3 even though you have read them before (since lots of what is happening in this part references both of them).

You can find the previous parts of the series here:

Part 1...

In this part of the series I dive into details about Entities and what you, the module developer, must know when integrating taxonomy into your custom module. If you have not yet reviewed Part 1 and Part 2 of the series, please...

If you have not done so already, please review the first part of this blog series: Part 1 – Getting Started. Part 1 provides information which is very important to understand prior to getting into the actual module development, which this part (and all future parts) of the series do. In this part, as the title suggests, we will be covering Content Items. One thing worth mentioning before we dive in here is that as you read this blog entry, pieces of code/variables may not be 100% clear until after you have read this part as well as Part 3 and Part 4. The reason for this is because my sample module (and based on my recommendations, your own module) was already complete and THEN I integrated taxonomy. The approach I took for writing this blog series is the order in which I tackled the integration and one that seemed the most logical to me (and the same approach, for the most part, I would take again in any future integrations). That said, let’s move on to the first section, Content Types.

In this blog series I will cover how developers can implement Taxonomy & Folksonomy in their own custom modules. Having spent the last few days trying to implement in my own custom module, I realized there is a lack of information on this subject available today which I found somewhat surprising (considering the demand for taxonomy integration into the core, which we finally received in 5.3). Hopefully, this blog series will help fill that void and soon module developers will be adapting core taxonomy in their...

Last week I was chatting with Tracy Wittenkeller of T-Worx about a common problem he ran into after moving to DotNetNuke 5. The problem is the concept of 'admin' skins on 'admin' pages changed from how it was previously handled in older DNN versions. Those of you who have been working with DNN for over a year are probably familiar that previously admin and host pages were treated differently than other pages (or tabs as they were referred to years ago) than they are now. Previously, all admin and host pages would use the "Admin" skin and container (now referred to as "Edit") set under the site settings (or host settings). Now, however, admin pages are treated like any other page in DNN (and for the most part, host pages are treated the same as well) and will load the "Portal" skin and container set by default.

If you haven't noticed yet, since Thursday of this week all of the skins from the skinning contest have been available for download.Previously, I discussed how much more time consuming this was than I thought it would be. Although it still took almost two more weeks to wrap it all up (there were other things going on too) I am pretty happy with the outcome. The end result of the skinning contest (voting aside) is 25 skin & container packages available for the community as well as 1 widget and 5 new skin objects.

The last three weeks I have found myself extremely busy with the Skinning Contest. First, I built a module for the voting portion of the contest (with the help of Joe, thanks Joe!). When originally deployed, we found some problems with allowing everyone to vote so I apologize to those who initially couldn't vote (we have corrected this as of last week), so I spent a bit more time investigating that. Next I started preparing a skin object for public release (also for the skinning contest). Finally, I spent a good portion of this week re-packaging the 25 submissions for public consumption (this requires proper licensing, structure, naming, etc.)...

Just under 2 months ago, I posted a blog about what I have been up to that included some details about an upcoming module upgrade. Although it's been a long time coming , I am pleased to announced that we just finished up upgrading the forum here on dotnetnuke.com. If you follow the project at all, you know that we have had to delay the upgrade here many times due to many different things (which my previous blog post touches on). While the reasons for this vary, the main issue we were facing is the large number of users along with posts here, not to mention the amount of traffic this site sees. These factors along with the need to keep dotnetnuke.com running with minimal interruptions dictated that there needed to be some type of load testing done on the module prior to the upgrade. 

The past 3 months I haven't blogged much here on dotnetnuke.com. I still continued blogging on my AppTheory blog with misc. tips and tricks around DotNetNuke but instead of spending my free time blogging here I have been working on several things for DotNetNuke. Well, as things are getting closer to Open Force my time sees to be freeing up a bit. While I can't go into details on everything, I figured it is worth touching on a few. 

In previous blogs I discussed the User Control Panel and the Moderator Control Panel. Now, it is time to discuss the Admin Control Panel. I spend a decent amount of time using the admin control panel. The reasons for this vary, from me being the developer who tests this most, but also I am responsible for the administration of several sites that use the module. Most things in the admin control panel don't change once they are set, however, you should always review the control panel and all options when you update the module or just installed a new version (or instance on a portal).

In my previous blog I discussed the User Control Panel and the reasons why we decided to make the changes we did as well as what we brought in terms of new features. In the Moderator Control Panel, the topic of this blog, the reasons are very similar. Being a moderator here on www.dotnetnuke.com allows me to spend time here moderating and using the module just like any other moderator would (instead of just being a person who posts or develops the module, I have to deal with moderation as a real user and experience the same dififculties they do - unlike simple testing). Beyond the reasons written in my previous blog, one of the things that came to my mind was all the information collected that is useful but NOT displayed to moderators.

In 4.5.3, one of the primary goals was to minimize post backs. This goal was across the entire module, from end users to moderators and module administrators. For moderators and module administrators, finding areas to enhance via Ajax was pretty easy, all we had to do was look at where those users spend a large portion of their time within the module. However, for typical end users the areas a developer can expose an Ajax experience quickly is very limited because of the nature of forums and SEO.

Forum version 4.5.3 is now available for download. This release is huge, so please make sure you really check this out (ie. test) before diving into production updates as the interface has changed somewhat and there are many more options available than in previous versions. Overall, this release is a great step forward and fixes many (if not all) the previously verified issues. This release will work with DNN core versions 4.8.1 or greater.