Learn MS .NET

As the owner of Shancer Software and this blog site as well as a few more sites that I will be integrating and bringing together over the next few months. I think it’s time that I started to cross promote what I've been working on for the past few years and to bring them all together as a family.

So, on that note I am pleased to announce that Shancer Software has re-launched it’s storefront online to provide access to purchasing our software products.  I hope to start including more cross posts between the sites to keep our clients better up to date with our accomplishments as well as to provide more information about our product line.

Check out the store here.

It’s been quite awhile since I put anything in writing on this site and think it is about time that I start getting back in the swing of things.  So in keeping with that promise I figured I would start with the announcement of the release of DNN 5.4.1 which has been released today.

With the initial release of DotNetNuke 5.4, a few bugs managed to creep in partly due to DNN Corp implementing new procedures in their building process.  As usual though in a short period of time after release it was noted what the shortcomings were. The 5.4.x releases also mark the move to allowing us to run DotNetNuke on the .NET 4.0 Framework as well now.

Also announced this week was the release of two updates to some of the core modules found within the framework, Blog version 4.0.0 was released as well as the Form and List version 5.1.3.  I will review these later on in the week.

What's New in 05.04.01

Major Highlights

• Fixed issue with assembly version type.
• Fixed issue where system mails are sent from the recipient's email address instead of admin email address.
• Fixed issue with logo in Ribbon Bar.
• Fixed issue with race condition when adding entries to shared Dictionaries.
• Fixed issue with scheduler exceptions when more than one language is defined.
• Fixed issue when creating portals in non en-us culture.
• Fixed issue with adding a new language.
• Fixed issue with AJAX Script Manager
• Fixed issue with Source Package not opening correctly in Visual Studio.
• Fixed issue when logging into a multi-language portal when the user's preferred locale is not set.
• Fixed issue with generation of user links to use new Profile page.
• Fixed issue with multiple cancel buttons on Add User screen.
• Fixed issue with version number in Symbols package manifest.
• Added missing release notes for 5.4.
• Added label explaining portal localization drop-down on site settings. Updated static localization text to more friendly form.
• Updated version of Symbols package in manifest file.
• Improved 5.4.0 and 5.4.1 upgrade scripts to better handle upgrades when multiple languages are installed.

Security Fixes

• * None

Updated Modules/Providers

The following modules and providers have been updated in the 5.4.1 packages. Please see the specific project pages for notes on what bugs or enhancements were corrected with each release.

Modules

• Form and List Module 05.01.03
• Blog Module 04.00.00

Providers

• * None

As DotNetNuke has grown and aged the methods of skinning for the framework have continued to age and improve.  With the pending release of version 5.1 of DNN about to happen, I thought it would be nice to put together a series of blog posts about the methods and types of skinning options available.

The options for skinning DNN have grown considerably since version 1.0 of the product. With 1.0 you had to actually change the skin within the codebase and it wasn’t a very easy task at the time. 

When 2.0 was released, one of the important features of that release was the ability to easily update and change skins.  At least if my memory serves me correctly.  I know by the time 3.0 was released skinning had been basically standardized in how it was going to be accomplished.

At this point forward till the release of the 5.0 product, not a lot had changed in how skinning was done within the framework. We had two options when it came to skinning, I’m going to call the two methods we had up to this point the web designer way and the the web developer way.

Let me explain what I mean, the web designer way consisted of using html, css and xml files to provide the markup, style sheet information and the xml file tied them together with the skin objects that were available within the framework that it was being installed on.

The web developer way consisted of using ascx and css files to accomplish the same thing.  The main difference is that as a web developer, the properties of the skin objects were placed within the ascx file instead of the xml file.  The other main difference is that using the ascx and css file combination the file wasn’t changed when it was uploaded to the framework. 

With the release of version 5.0 of the framework, there was an introduction of a 3rd method of creating skins with the use of skin widgets.  As well as some new methods of packaging up your skin for public release has changed with the new version.  We still have support for the older way of packaging up skins in zip files without an xml manifest, but there is a new way that allows us to provide more information as well as the ability to write release notes and to provide a license for the use of the skin.

Over the next several blog posts I will go into detail and build a skin that will take will be the same but built in the three different ways that we have available.  As well as a post about the new method of packaging up a skin for the latest release of the framework.

Keeping with their promise to release often, we have a new beta version that was released today.  The new beta can be downloaded from CodePlex.

The following bugs have been fixed in this new release

(5.1.0.364) Beta 3

DNN-9853
Admin / Host Functions
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   Binary Compatability issue for repository

DNN-9871
Admin / Host Functions
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   Audit info when creating new pages

DNN-9661
Admin / Host Functions
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   Errors in user registration form (profile properties)

DNN-9892
Admin / Host Functions
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   Enable disable host menu

DNN-9898
Installation / Upgrade
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   upgrade from 493 to 5.1.0.266

DNN-9899
File Manager
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   Admin cannot add/delete folders or files, etc. in Admin-->File Manager

DNN-9904
Core Modules
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   Repository is broken after after upgrading TestBed_493_3 with 5.1.0.266

DNN-9908
Skinning
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   Skin ControlPanel breaking change

DNN-9905
Admin / Host Functions
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   Some Admin/ Host Controls are missing after upgrading TestBed_493_3 with 5.1.0.266

DNN-9903
Installation / Upgrade
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   Languages broken after upgrading TestBed_493_3 with 5.1.0.266

DNN-9895
Admin / Host Functions
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   Adding Module to Another Page

DNN-9897
UI / Usability
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   No longer shows page hierarchy when adding existing module

DNN-9856
Admin / Host Functions
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   Upgrade from 5.0.1 - Console

DNN-9918
Admin / Host Functions
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   Exception when emptying recycle bin

DNN-9916
Admin / Host Functions
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   Menu doesn't refresh after restoring a page

DNN-9930
Admin / Host Functions
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   Error on Language rename

DNN-9890
Admin / Host Functions
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   changes to tabs need to audit tab and tabpermission changes

DNN-9952
General
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   Module Settings: Move module to page results in a copy instead.

DNN-9964
File Manager
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   Permissions Grid Does Not Correctly Display Permissions

DNN-9965
UI / Usability
New Feature
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   Display version info for "Beta" builds

DNN-9967
Admin / Host Functions
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   user view shows all users

DNN-9936
Admin / Host Functions
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   Sitemap priority defaults to 0

DNN-9925
Admin / Host Functions
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   Fallback Skin Doctype changes not reflected in UI on load / postbacks

DNN-9912
Security
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   5.1.0 - Possible Breaking Change FileSystemUtils.SetFolderPermissions

DNN-9946
Admin / Host Functions
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   Behaviour Change for Inline Editing

DNN-9254
Performance
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   "PageState Persistence" set to "Memory" kills AJAX modules

DNN-9568
Security
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   Permission issues

DNN-9654
Search
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   Search Input module: no search text

DNN-9950
Localization / ML
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   Incorrect icon for button

DNN-9928
Control Panel
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   User with page edit permission can see admin & host console links

DNN-9953
Admin / Host Functions
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   Missing Default Language options => Broken Site Settings

DNN-9948
Admin / Host Functions
Bug
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   Control Panel Visibility Selection not Saved properly

DNN-9971
Admin / Host Functions
New Feature
Checked-In
Complete

Summary:   Add Skin Event Handling

There is a new release expected at any time to cure the issue that developed today that involves not allowing the install to complete if .NET 3.5 is not installed on the system.

How many new that there was a new Free DotNetNuke Admin Guide available.  I hadn’t seen an announcement about it anywhere.  But the other day after installing one of the latest versions of DNN, there it was on my new shiny install.

I’m not sure how long it has been available, but from the looks of the form that it takes you to to complete information to receive the guide, it is a relatively new document.

Being ever curious I filled out my information and then proceeded to download the document.

The document is 182 pages long and contains some good information for someone who is not familiar with DotNetNuke and has just installed the framework on their system and wants to know what to do from there.

Here’s the short list of topics that the document covers:

• Introduction
• DotNetNuke Concepts
• Managing Your User Account
• Configuring DotNetNuke Host Settings
• Creating One or More Portals
• Installing and Allocating Modules
• Configuring your Site Settings
• Building a Portal
• Managing Content Using Modules
• Working with the Recycle Bin
• Adding Search Capabilities to your Site
• Adding your Privacy and Terms of Use Statements
• Submitting your Site to Search Engines
• Managing Role Based Security
• Managing User Accounts
• Working with Files and Images
• Managing Vendors, Banners and Affiliates
• Sending Newsletters to Site Members
• Managing Site Design
• Text/HTML Replacement Tokens

As you can see from the list there are a lot of topics covered and really gives a new DNN administrator something to get them started with.  There are walkthroughs on how to do the tasks and should help with a lot of newbie questions to the framework.

To get your free copy – this will take you to the form to complete and let you download your own copy. After downloading I also received a sales email from Nik Kalyani with more information about the Professional Edition as well as an invite to a demo.

While taking a look at the forum this early morning, I noticed a post that someone had made yesterday or late last night not sure of at the moment, but the post made mention of them receiving an email that the PE version for 4.9.4 had been released, but that the CE version wasn’t posted yet.

So being me I hoped on my trusty browser and headed over to CodePlex to see what I could see.  Lo and behold there was a shiny brand new update to the 4.0 release of DotNetNuke.

So what’s new in 4.9.4

Major Highlights

• Fixed a major module caching issue which resulted in empty content for webcrawlers
• Improved performance of FormatRemoveSQL method

Security Fixes

• Low - Errorpage information leakage
• Low - HTML/Script Code Injection Vulnerability

Updated Modules/Providers

The following modules and providers have been updated in the 4.9.4 packages.  Please see the specific project pages for notes on what bugs or enhancements were corrected with each release.

Modules

• Announcements 04.00.03

Providers

• Removed the AD Provider so that it cannot be installed by the Install Wizard.  It can still be manually installed.

Download the new version

I guess I'm off to start upgrading some sites this morning.

For anyone who has interest in signing up for the technical preview, that is due in July. The registration form page is below.

Microsoft Office 2010 Technical Preview

One of the big complaints that I have seen over the years with DotNetNuke has been the horrible URL’s that get produced by the framework.  This is a problem that is part of most dynamically created content on the web, not only DotNetNuke.

For the successful Content Management Systems, they have come up with ways to make these ugly URL’s more human friendly.  DNN did this back in about version 3.0 with the introduction of Friendly URL’s.  This allowed us to get rid of the dreaded querystring for SEO purposes.  So we went from URL’s that looked like http://domain.com/Default.aspx?tabid=39 to http://domain.com/Home/tabid/36/Default.aspx.

This was great for getting better rankings with the pages in the search engines but doesn’t give us that URL that is easy to remember in human terms.  This is the default setup that has made it’s way into the DotNetNuke eco-system, and has given us this common complaint about DotNetNuke sites in general.

There is a solution to this that anyone who is looking to make their site distinctive and remove that stigma about it being a DNN site can use.  It is available within the core framework itself we just need to make some changes to the configuration of the web application.

So lets look at the default configuration in the web.config file for the Friendly URL provider:

   1: <friendlyUrl defaultProvider="DNNFriendlyUrl">

   2:   <providers>

   3:     <clear />

   4:     <add name="DNNFriendlyUrl" 

   5:         type="DotNetNuke.Services.Url.FriendlyUrl.DNNFriendlyUrlProvider, DotNetNuke.HttpModules" 

   6:         includePageName="true" 

   7:         regexMatch="[^a-zA-Z0-9 _-]" />

   8:   </providers>

   9: </friendlyUrl>

As you can see it only has a couple of options defined by default in the config file when you first install DNN which are the following:

1. includePageName: this is set to true by default and determines if we have the name of the page included in our URL when we are in searchfriendly mode of the provider.
2. regexMatch: I'm not a regex expert by any means.  But the default match allows the inclusion of all upper and lower characters as well as ll numbers, spaces, underscores and dashes.  If I’m wrong someone let me know in the comments would you.

This is what gives us those ugly URL’s everyone complains about. 

Now when we venture into the Core Framework code for the FriendlyUrl Provider, we have a few more options that aren’t shown in the web.config and can really give us some nicer URL’s to work with on our DNN site.

FriendlyURL Provider Options

1. includePageName: this was explained above.
2. regexMatch: this was explained above
3. fileExtension: by default the file extension on DNN is .aspx. I played around with this option and also looked at the code and although it is defined and being pulled into the provider in the code. I don’t see where this is actually doing anything in provider.
4. urlFormat: this is the real treasure in the provider we have two URL formats that we can use here the default of searchfriendly or humanfriendly. If we do not include it in the web.config then by default it is searchfriendly but if we add this and change it to humanfriendly then we have much nicer URL’s to work within the framework.

So lets change it in our web.config file to be humanfriendly:

   1: <friendlyUrl defaultProvider="DNNFriendlyUrl">

   2:   <providers>

   3:     <clear />

   4:     <add name="DNNFriendlyUrl" 

   5:         type="DotNetNuke.Services.Url.FriendlyUrl.DNNFriendlyUrlProvider, DotNetNuke.HttpModules" 

   6:         includePageName="false" 

   7:         regexMatch="[^a-zA-Z0-9 _-]" 

   8:         fileExtension=".aspx" 

   9:         urlFormat="humanfriendly" />

  10:   </providers>

  11: </friendlyUrl>

Once we do this and save our web.config file. We can go refresh our site, and now should have URLs that look like the following: http://domain.com/home.aspx or http://domain.com/admin.aspx.  It also makes it easier for allowing direct logins without placing a link on the page for logging in because in this format our login page becomes http://domain.com/login.aspx.

I hope that people find this information useful although what we have in DNN is just a basic URL provider there are other providers out there in the DNN community.  When I have time I will try to add some of them to this post or provider another post with a list of them out there.

During MIX09, the Web Platform Installer was mentioned in the first keynote on Wednesday, March 18. Some of the new features they mentioned were a new Web Application Gallery to install these on your server or local machine easily.

They also talked about some new extensions for IIS 7 as well.  Well they have many new features in this Beta.  I will go over them and I am testing it to see how it will do with installing some PHP applications as they are the hardest for me to get working properly on my Vista Laptop.

Web Platform Installer Download

Overview

The Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0 (Web PI) is a free tool that makes it simple to download, install and keep up-to-date with the latest components of the Microsoft Web Platform, including Internet Information Services (IIS), SQL Server Express, .NET Framework and Visual Web Developer. In addition, install popular open source ASP.NET and PHP web apps with the Web PI.

What’s New

• Administration Pack 1.0
• Advanced Logging 1.0 Beta
• Application Request Routing 2.0 Beta
• Database Manager 1.0 – RC
• Dynamic IP Restrictions 1.0 – Beta
• FTP Publishing Service 7.5
• IIS Media Services 3.0 Beta
• Windows PowerShell Snap-In 1.0
• Silverlight 3.0 Tools for Visual Studio Beta
• SQL Server 2008 Management Studio Express
• WebDAV 7.5
• Web Deployment Tool 1.0 – RC

Lots of new goodies to play with and as well as configuring Sql Server 2008, PHP and installing several web applications and configuring them for you.

Well off to play with it and see how it goes.

After their announcement that they were going to have some significant downtown yesterday.  We have awoke this morning to a new revamped site and much greater prominence for the Professional edition of Dotnetnuke.

Way to go!