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DNN Blog
Feb
8
Posted by:
Jon Henning
2/8/2007
I am pleased to announce the release of the latest DotNetNuke WebControls v1.5. I must admit, this release took a lot longer than I had anticipated. I have spent the last couple weeks putting everything else on hold in order to finish up the DNNTabStrip control. Most of the work done will be visible to the public, however, there is quite a bit of work that I spent in prototyping that may never see the light of day.
The bulk of the work was done in the DNNTabStrip control. This required some additional changes to the ClientAPI. See the note below on the installation of the controls if you plan on using the advanced features in the DNNTabStrip.
ClientAPI Enhancements / Bug Fixes
ClientAPI - Dynamic Script Loading - Removed reliance on setScriptLoaded. Support for Safari through XMLHTTP request.
ClientAPI - Dynamic Batch Script Loading
WebControl Enhancements / Bug Fixes
DNNTabStrip - Support for CallBackType=ProcessPage ( WCT-5015)
DNNTabStrip - Support for script registration from containing tab's controls ( WCT-5016)
DNNMenu - Support for Horizontal SubMenus ( WCT-5017)
DNNMenu - Default MouseOutDelay to 500 ms. Only render to client when different ( WCT-5018)
DNNMenu - Fixed bug with IE, where if you clicked menuitem with target=_blank, then went back to the menu, the click events wouldn't fire ( WCT-5019)
DNNLabelEdit - Added option to Render as a div tag instead of span. This is for scenarios where you wish to have block elements (P, INPUT, etc.) inside your editing control, which is an inline element (span). Striving to support XHTML compliance. ( WCT-5020)
New and Updated Samples
New sample - showing DNNMenu with Horizontal SubMenus
New sample - demonstrating TabStrip Alignment
New sample - demonstrating TabStrip's capabilities to contain complex controls and still utilize callbacks.
Updated sample - Dynamic Script Loading to include dynamic batch loading
Updated sample - DNNMenu to include option for Horizontal SubMenus
Updated sample - DNNLabelEdit to include option to render as div
Version Support
I have added an additional install file (DotNetNuke_WebControls1.5.0_Install_11.zip) that will allow version 1.5 of the WebControls to work with ASP.NET 1.x (DNN 3.x). The additional files included in this zip are ClientAPI files. These include the DotNetNuke.WebUtility.dll, and all js files that are not controls. Depending on the DNN version of 4.x you are updating, you may need some the files as well. For example, if you plan on using the new tabstrip or edit in place functionality, the js files from this update will be required prior to 4.5 (dnn.js, dnn.scripts.js).
I also wanted to say that this this is perhaps the last version that I will be supporting v1.x of the .NET Framework. There are several reasons for this that I may go into more detail in future blogs.
DNNMenu - Horizontal SubMenus
One of the enhancements listed above is horizontal submenu support. This has been a highly requested item for a long time. While this release will allow the DNNMenu to contain horizontal submenus, it does not address how you as a skinner can set this property. Look for a blog in the near future explaining an enhancement to the core skin objects to enable this.
View Live Sample Site and Download
You can view all the samples online along with downloading all the source and installation files from http://webcontrols.dotnetnuke.com
Questions
Currently there is no WebControls forum. Therefore if you have any questions it is best to post them in the ClientAPI forums.
6 comment(s) so far...
Re: DotNetNuke WebControls v1.5 Released
Jon thank you very much for all of your obvious hard work!
The options for DNNLabelEdit using a div are very exciting to me personally and I'm sure will make many others striving for compliance very happy too! -Thanks again!
By phabyn on
2/8/2007
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Re: DotNetNuke WebControls v1.5 Released
Hi Jon,
Is there a reason that we are still using a homebrew client<->server and dynamic control solution? I would think a better strategic choice would be to move away from this and toward something like the MS ajax library. I can get a solid tabstrip using extenders in minutes, and it's supported and updated product. It's hard to compete against an entire team of MS developers.
Obviously the work you have done is of very high quality and I don't mean to take away from that. And certainly there is code relying on some of this. I do wonder why you guys have made the strategic decision you have to continue in this direction. Or maybe you haven't, and I'm clueless as usual :)
By BrandonHaynes on
2/9/2007
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Re: DotNetNuke WebControls v1.5 Released
You raise some interesting questions. I have attempted to answer these in past blogs (where I mention Atlas). The ClientAPI was started, utilizing client-side namespaces and AJAX functionality well before Atlas even came into existance. Were we to wait until a couple days ago before we allowed DNN to contain AJAX functionality? And even now, how many people are going to be able to install the MS AJAX into the GAC or operation under full trust (certainly some hosters will not allow for this). This is just part of the answer.
You say that Microsoft offers a tabstrip, but is this really the case? If I am understanding you correctly you are referring to the new tabstrip they just recently offered in the control toolkit. These controls are developed by the community and offered to the project. I could have just as easily offered my controls to their project and may end up doing so in the future. If you look at past blogs and the TabStrip rendering document, you will see that my tabstrip control is geared towards offering a better solution for some use cases than the UpdatePanel.
For the time being I prefer to develop my controls against my own framework, for I can be much more efficient at it. This is not to say that at some future date my controls and future efforts will not utilize MS AJAX.
Hopefully this clears some things up.
By jhenning@solpart.com on
2/9/2007
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Re: DotNetNuke WebControls v1.5 Released
Hi,
Your controls have no right-to-left support!
At this point Solpart is still the only choice...
By moshefi on
2/12/2007
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Re: DotNetNuke WebControls v1.5 Released
Great work Jon, just had a play with the controls on the webcontrols site. Is there any documentation geared towards beginners like me, who want to use these controls within their own module. I am still getting a grip at module development and the options offered here are great, but where do you start? Most of the discussion about where what code sits and the performance impact is over the top for me. Perhaps someone could create a step-by setp guide...
By borki on
2/12/2007
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Re: DotNetNuke WebControls v1.5 Released
borki,
Michael Washington has done quite a few tutorials on using the webcontrols. If you do a search on the blogs on Usnig the DNNTree Control, or Using the DNNWhatever control you will find some more info.
moshefi,
There are only so many features I can implement at once. rtl support is one of them, though not on the top of my priority list at the moment.
By jhenning@solpart.com on
2/12/2007
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