Articles from April 2008
Back in January I made a post here about creating semi-automatic module packages on the fly from within Visual Studio. The method I showed at that time was a little bit primitive but it worked perfectly. Recently I have had some time to refine the batch script itself as well as the integration point to the DNN project inside Visual Studio. My recent changes now allow me to make 2 small changes for each project and builds work as I expect, it also creates a conditional system that can handle file deletions as well as dynamic loading of debug or release .dll files to the package. This posting will cover this new process in detail..
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Posted by Mitchel on Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Recently I have worked with multiple clients that have had "minimum version" issues with DotNetNuke modules. They have a new module, or a new version of an already installed module and they install it on their site. Just after installation they find out that the module doesn't work with their version of DNN. Sometimes this isn't a major issue as long as it is only the module that doesn't work and it was a new module. However most of the time it isn't the case, usually it happens to existing modules that include lots of data. Since DotNetNuke doesn't offer a rollback function these types of issues can be critical to users of DNN. Now the first argument that I always hear on this topic is that "people should be backing up their site before an install/update to anything". I agree with this to a certain extent, but on the other hand these people expect that we as developers will make using our product a pain free situation. This is where this article come into play, I'll discuss a few methods where developers, including myself need to step up and provide better quality services to the general DotNetNuke public. I'll even include a step by step guide that will show developers how to accomplish what needs to be done.
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Posted by Mitchel on Saturday, April 19, 2008
My last article on DotNetNuke administration topics was very popular "DotNetNuke
Host Settings Explained", this article is the promised follow up that will provide
detailed information on the Performance/Compression settings section of DotNetNuke
Host Settings. I will explain what the values do, and also my personal experience
with the settings, please keep in mind that all DNN sites are different and your
needs may differ from those listed in the article, if you are unsure of the proper
settings for you environment, please don't hesitate to ask for assistance in my
forum.
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Posted by Mitchel on Tuesday, April 15, 2008
As many people may have noticed yesterday this site, and all other sites of mine that are hosted by this DNN installation were down for a little over 1 hour. The sites were displaying .NET error messages regarding a configuration issue. I had installed a new module and a configuration setting issue was identified, this has been resolved and I greatly apologize for the issues.
In other news I am now running the Snapsis PageBlaster 3.1.7 module which is providng better caching for content and after an inital review with NO custom configurations I have noticed average site load time reductions of over 65%. Look for a detailed review of the PageBlaster system here in the blog within the next few weeks.
Also, if you notice anything funny with this site, please let me know ASAP either with comments below, or via the contact form!
Posted by Mitchel on Friday, April 11, 2008
Today I have released an updated version of my Blank C# Module Without DAL. There were a few bugs with template token replacements with previous versions that were causing errors on build and exectuion. These errors have been resolved and have been fully tested. If you have the current version installed, you can simply install this new version and Visual Studio will ask you if you want to overwrite it, simply select yes and you will be set to go.
I have also released a new development template "Blank C# Module With DAL Classes", this is another blank module but all classes for DAL are there, you simply need to implement your methods, and start working on your module. This should be a welcomed addition to all regular module developers out there.
Please share any comments or suggestions for future templates in my Templates forum discussion.
Posted by Mitchel on Friday, April 04, 2008
For those of you that monitor the DotNetNuke.com Announcements forum you will notice that DotNetNuke Corporation has announced they are doing OpenForce 08 this year and they are looking for speakers. After the success of my presentation last year I am looking for input from those of you in the DotNetNuke community for ideas on topics that you would like to see presented at OpenForce 08.
I am looking forward to a potential opportunity to present again this year and would like to present on topics that matter the most to people in the community.
Posted by Mitchel on Thursday, April 03, 2008