DotNetNuke tutorials, tips and tricks

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

DotNetNuke ASCX Skinning and Open Web Studio Tutorials

DNN Creative have released issue 46 of the DotNetNuke Magazine

This issue takes a look at the professional's method for creating DotNetNuke skins, ASCX skinning. The main benefit of ASCX skinning, over other skinning methods, is that it is much quicker to create a skin in DotNetNuke using the ASCX method.

Other benefits include:
  • Make changes live on the website without re-parsing or re-installing the skin
  • Instantly see edits and changes you make to your skin code
  • View at a glance all of a skin tokens properties
  • Visual Web Developer Express will suggest the attributes that are available for each of the DotNetNuke tokens
We demonstrate all of these techniques and show you how to get started with ASCX skinning in DotNetNuke.

We also have part four in our series on the Open Web Studio Tutorials. This latest episode demonstrates how to add personalisation to the knowledgebase module using InterModule Communications and creating a ‘my saved articles’ module. We also demonstrate how to create a Tooltip using JQuery, how to change the “fetching data” message, how to enable Rich Text / HTML articles and how to create a multi-category selection for each knowledgebase article.

This issue concludes with our newest podcast covering the latest DotNetNuke News as well as more tips and tricks.

This issue comes complete with 11 videos and 1 podcast!

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Friday, June 26, 2009

DotNetNuke News, Datasprings Dynamic Forms, DNN 5.1 Professional, Openforce '09, Snapsis PageBlaster

DotNetNuke Podcast.com are pleased to annouced the release of Episode 32.

This podcast covers the lastest DotNetNuke News, tips and tricks, including:
  • DataSprings Release v3 of Dynamic Forms
  • New Features
  • DotNetNuke 5.1 Professional Edition
  • OpenForce Dates
  • Canada Bill Proposal to Force ISPs to give access to the Police without a warrant
  • Microsoft Sue Ad Click Fraudsters
  • Rich gets on Twitter and uses Spaz
  • Google Wave
  • Amazon Bookstore on DNN Creative
  • DotNetNuke Backups are great!
  • Snapsis PageBlaster Community Edition Testing
  • Comparing Snapsis PageBlaster with the DotNetNuke Core Compression
  • YSlow Firebug plugin for Firefox
  • Combining CSS and Javascript files together
  • How to reduce the CSS files sizes in DotNetNuke
  • Web Developers Toolbar plugin for Firefox
  • Undercover Lee
  • Good support from Snapsis
  • DNN Creative Testimonial

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Thursday, June 25, 2009

DotNetNuke 5.1 Released

Its been 18 months in the making, but its finally here! DotNetNuke Community edition version 5.1 is now available for download.

Here is a rundown of the improvements you can expect from this exciting new release:

Major Highlights
  • Added Content Versioning and simple workflow to the HTML module.
  • Added Admin Console module to simplify access to administrator and host pages
  • Added publicly accessbile skin engine lifecycle events
  • Added audit trails to core system tables
  • Added built in support for Google Analytics
  • Added custom sitemap priorities
  • Enhanced the permission system to use the provider model, allowing for custom permission providers
  • Enhanced caching to enable access by distributed caching systems
  • Enhanced installation and upgrade logic to automatically detect .Net 3.5 and to upgrade the web.config as appropriate.
  • Enhanced the extensions pages to show which modules are used and to show the pages where they are currently in use
  • Enhanced the Scheduler to show a checklist of available servers in the webfarm where scheduled tasks can be executed.
  • Enhanced the Scheduler to support multiple instances running on the same server
  • Fixed issue with removing Superuser role from a user.
  • Fixed issue with deleting users which was not fully recognized by the rest of the application.
  • Fixed issue with upgrades which would fail if .Net 3.5 was installed
  • Fixed issue with skins installed using the batch installer.
  • Fixed change to GetModulesByDefinition API method which resulted in breaking change from DotNetNuke 4.x
  • Fixed CloakText API method which was broken in 5.0.1
  • Fixed issue with stored procedure for Dashboard which would fail with an error if database account did not have permissions to the MSDB database.
  • Fixed issue where pages added while on a host page will not be associated with a portal.
  • Fixed issue where the ReturnURL for the SendPassword and Register links on the Login page were broken.
  • Updated Modules/Providers
  • The following modules and providers have been updated in the 5.1.0 packages. Please see the specific project pages for notes on what bugs or enhancements were corrected with each release.
Modules
  • Forms and List 05.00.02
  • Announcements 04.00.03
  • Reports 05.01.00
  • Events 05.00.01
Providers
  • FckHtmlEditorProvider 02.00.04
  • AD Provider 05.00.02

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Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Data Springs Announces the Release of Dynamic Forms 3.0 for DotNetNuke

Dynamic Forms 3.0 offers important new field types and significant enhancements aimed at increasing functionality and ease-of-use for web developers and administrators using the DotNetNuke platform.

Three brand new field types:

  • Gridview/Survey
  • Ajax Rating
  • Datagrid
Dynamic Forms 3.0 now offers more layout options and enhanced user interaction.

New features:

  • Ability to create PDFs from form results
  • Edit form entries
  • Extended options for file/image uploads
  • Numerous enhancements targeting improved performance and more efficient form maintenance
Chad Nash, Founder of Data Springs, says “We want to highlight that Dynamic Forms easily integrates with other software modules out there. Fostering cooperation among various providers in the industry strengthens our position as a leader in the DotNetNuke® community. Providing more global solutions greatly increases the value of the premium support we offer our customers in web design and project implementation. I also believe that many clients are beginning to take advantage of our products because in the current economic climate they provide more value for their budget.”

Learn more about DataSprings Dynamic Forms in the folowing DNN Creative tutorials:

DataSprings Dynamic Forms Quick Start Guide

DataSprings Dynamic Forms Question Events

DataSprings Dynamic Forms Data Management

DataSprings Dynamic Forms Completion Events

How to Create an Email Opt-In Form with a Third Party Email Service (AWeber) using DataSprings Dynamic Forms

DataSprings Dynamic Forms is Available from Snowcovered.

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Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Markit Modules Slideshow and PageEar, DNN Stuff's Module Rotator, Monitter4DNN and Open Web Studio Tutorials for DotNetNuke

DNN Creative have released issue 45 of the DotNetNuke Magazine.

This issue starts with Markit Modules Slideshow module. This module is useful for displaying your featured articles and products as an image, text content or you can even display an existing module within a slideshow in a similar manner to the msn.com home page.

Still with Markit Modules, the next tutorial covers the free PageEar module which allows you to place Page Peel advertisements on your DotNetNuke websites.

Next, we show you how to use DNN Stuff’s Module Rotator. This module allows you to rotate the content of multiple modules in the space of a single module. You can configure the module rotator to rotate modules each time the page loads, or you can also configure a timer to rotate through modules in milliseconds.

Following this we explore Joe Brinkman's free Monitter for DNN module. This simple module allows you to easily display a real-time feed of twitter search results on your website.

Also released with this issue is the much anticipated third part of our series on How to Build a Public Knowledge Base Module using R2i’s Open Web Studio by Paul Deschenes. This instalment explores how to build the user search page for searching knowledge base articles.

We show you how to:
  • Implement record paging
  • Column sorting
  • Create a categories module
  • Create a print function for the articles
  • Add an articles rating feature
Finally, we have a podcast covering the latest DotNetNuke News.

This issue comes complete with 14 videos and 1 podcast!

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