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Well it appears as if the anticipated update to fix issues with 4.9.1 is slowing making it’s way down the line to us.  It was apparently upgraded at the main DotNetNuke site and is now being tested probably at it’s heaviest for now.  Lets hope no major issues are found and hopefully we will also see that long awaited update for 5.0.0 to 5.0.1 as well.

More information can be found by following the link below from Scott Willhite:

Dogfooding DNN 4.09.02 - DotNetNuke Site Updates & Changes - DotNetNuke

With the release of the latest versions of DNN, there was the introduction of a new host module, the Dashboard.  This module was designed for the new Professional version of DotNetNuke. It’s main purpose is to give information about the server that the framework is running as well as some important information for anyone trying to provide support to another person.

The base module provides us with the following 6 tabs of information:

1. Web Server
2. Database Server
3. Host
4. Portals
5. Modules
6. Skins

Web Server

The web server information that is provided gives us lots of useful information for finding out key important information

• OS Version: This will tell us what version of the operating system we are running on and what service packs are installed with that OS
• Web Server Version: Each different IIS version has their own requirements on how things work and knowing the version can make life much easier when supporting someone.
• .NET Framework Version: The version of the .NET Framework that the web site is running under.
• ASP.NET Identity: This provides us with the identity of the user that ASP.NET is running under.
• Host Name: The name of the server that the site is being run on.
• Physical Path: The actual path to the root of the site on the server.
• Site Url: This provides us with the URL that is used to access the site with a browser.
• Relative Path: This is the virtual directory path.
• Server Time: The current date and time on the server.

This takes care of the first part of the module.  I will get part 2 of the post out tomorrow which will cover the Database Server section of the Dashboard.

BlogEngine.NET has released a theme pack that is compatible with the version 1.4 and 1.4.5. 

The theme pack contains themes designed and created by the community, and they have been brought together as a downloadable theme pack.  Janko has compiled them together for the community to use.

Download the BlogEngine.NET theme pack here.

For anyone new to DotNetNuke and that hasn’t been a member of the DNN Community for long then they wouldn’t understand the significance of this date in the history of DNN.  On December 24, 2002 the first release of IBuySpy Workshop was released to the community on the ASP.NET forums that hosted the discussion's surrounding the IBuySpy Portal Starter Kit.  That was the beginning of the tool that is now known as DotNetNuke.

So as I like to periodically check for new updates and see if I can catch them happening.  I did notice the change start on Christmas Eve day for the release of DNN 4.9.1 and 5.0.0. I was excited but I let it ride till I could check it out on Christmas Day after the presents were unwrapped and before I rushed off to have dinner with the in-laws.

DNN 5.0.0 has been a long anticipated release with much discussion about the feature set and what would be available when it was released.  What I have seen of the 5.0.0 RC2 release was exceptional and will provide many opportunities to extend this many new features for skin developers and module developers alike.

DNN 4.9.1 is a stabilization release to fix some known issues and bug patches to the community.  There is a critical security issue that has been fixed so an upgrade to this release is strongly suggested.

DNN 5.0.0 Major Features

• Added jQuery support to the core platform.  jQuery will now be distributed as part of the DotNetNuke installation and will be available for use by module developers.
• Added support for Internet Explorer 8 Web Slices.  Administrators can configure any module to use IE8 Web Slices including the ability to set time-to-live and expiration values.
• Removed distinction between admin modules and pages and normal pages.  This allows administrators to easily delegate access to any portion of the application to any group of users.
• Updated the installation services to support manifest files for all extension types.  Now skins, containers, providers and modules are all first class citizens that can be installed and uninstalled.
• Expanded XHTML, WCAG and ADA compliance.
• Refactored core to improve support for Unit Testing.  Refactored several core classes to use interfaces and added a simple component factory to provide dependency injection support. 
• Added ability to deny permissions in the permissions grid.  This new feature extends the permission framework to give administrators greater flexibility in defining permissions.
• Added Widget framework.  The new Widget framework allows you to quickly add JavaScript/html widgets to your site with very little effort.  The framework supports the use of a simple object tag based representation which means you don’t have to know JavaScript in order to add the widgets.
• Added new Object notation for using skin objects in Skins.  Skin designers will no longer need to include separate XML files when creating and packaging skins.  No more funky “[SKINOBJECT]” tags littering your html.  This significantly simplifies the process of creating skins and further opens up skin development to a broader group of designers.  If you include a simple JavaScript reference in your HTML skin, you can even get a full WYSIWYG experience when designing your skin.

Security Fixes

• Includes a rollup of all 4.x security fixes

Updated Modules/Providers

The following modules and providers have been updated in the 5.0.0 packages.  Please see the specific project pages for notes on what bugs or enhancements were corrected with each release.

Providers

• AD Authentication Provider 05.00.00

In addition to these highlights there are literally hundreds of bug fixes in this release.

For more information about a specific issue please refer to the official change log.

DNN 4.9.1 Major Features

• Fixed issue with the cache which was preventing proper operation of the scheduler.
• Fixed issue with web crawlers which could cause thrashing in the cache
• Fixed issue with the EventQueue to remove events that result in an error.  This prevents an event from filling the event log with errors.
• Fixed issue with the RoleController.GetUserRoles method which introduced a breaking change in 4.9.0.
• Added a new column to the version table to distinguish between Community Edition and Professional Edition installs
• Added a new feature for logging server restarts in a web farm environment.
• Added a new admin Dashboard page.  The dashboard provides a single page where hosts can view an overall snapshot of their site.

Security Fixes

• Critical - User can access additional roles for which they do not have permissions

Updated Modules/Providers

The following modules and providers have been updated in the 4.9.1 packages.  Please see the specific project pages for notes on what bugs or enhancements were corrected with each release.

Modules

• Survey 04.60.00

Providers

• AD Authentication Provider 01.00.05

As always the new releases can be downloaded at the DotNetNuke web site.

While working on a clients DotNetNuke install trying to get the mail server working correctly.  I tried to access the host settings for the web portal framework and came up with the following:

  1: Error: Host Settings is currently unavailable.
  2: DotNetNuke.Services.Exceptions.ModuleLoadException: 
  3: D:\admin\Host\FriendlyUrls.ascx.vb(44): error BC30560: 'RewriterRuleCollection' is ambiguous in the namespace 'DotNetNuke.HttpModules.Config'. ---> 
  4: System.Exception: D:\admin\Host\FriendlyUrls.ascx.vb(44): 
  5: error BC30560: 'RewriterRuleCollection' is ambiguous in the namespace 'DotNetNuke.HttpModules.Config'. ---> 
  6: System.Web.HttpCompileException: D:\admin\Host\FriendlyUrls.ascx.vb(44): 
  7: error BC30560: 'RewriterRuleCollection' is ambiguous in the namespace 'DotNetNuke.HttpModules.Config'. 
  8: at System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.PostProcessFoundBuildResult(BuildResult result, Boolean keyFromVPP, VirtualPath virtualPath) 
  9: at System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.GetBuildResultFromCacheInternal(String cacheKey, Boolean keyFromVPP, VirtualPath virtualPath, Int64 hashCode) 
 10: at System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.GetVPathBuildResultFromCacheInternal(VirtualPath virtualPath) 
 11: at System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.GetVPathBuildResultInternal(VirtualPath virtualPath, Boolean noBuild, Boolean allowCrossApp, Boolean allowBuildInPrecompile) 
 12: at System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.GetVPathBuildResultWithNoAssert(HttpContext context, VirtualPath virtualPath, Boolean noBuild, Boolean allowCrossApp, Boolean allowBuildInPrecompile) 
 13: at System.Web.UI.BaseTemplateParser.GetReferencedType(VirtualPath virtualPath, Boolean allowNoCompile) 
 14: at System.Web.UI.BaseTemplateParser.GetUserControlType(VirtualPath virtualPath) 
 15: at System.Web.UI.MainTagNameToTypeMapper.ProcessUserControlRegistration(UserControlRegisterEntry ucRegisterEntry) 
 16: at System.Web.UI.BaseTemplateParser.ProcessDirective(String directiveName, IDictionary directive) 
 17: at System.Web.UI.TemplateControlParser.ProcessDirective(String directiveName, IDictionary directive) 
 18: at System.Web.UI.TemplateParser.ParseStringInternal(String text, Encoding fileEncoding) 
 19: --- End of inner exception stack trace --- 
 20: at System.Web.UI.TemplateParser.ProcessException(Exception ex) 
 21: at System.Web.UI.TemplateParser.ParseStringInternal(String text, Encoding fileEncoding) 
 22: at System.Web.UI.TemplateParser.ParseString(String text, VirtualPath virtualPath, Encoding fileEncoding) 
 23: at System.Web.UI.TemplateParser.ParseFile(String physicalPath, VirtualPath virtualPath) 
 24: at System.Web.UI.TemplateParser.ParseInternal() 
 25: at System.Web.UI.TemplateParser.Parse() 
 26: at System.Web.Compilation.BaseTemplateBuildProvider.get_CodeCompilerType() 
 27: at System.Web.Compilation.BuildProvider.GetCompilerTypeFromBuildProvider(BuildProvider buildProvider) 
 28: at System.Web.Compilation.BuildProvidersCompiler.ProcessBuildProviders() 
 29: at System.Web.Compilation.BuildProvidersCompiler.PerformBuild() 
 30: at System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.CompileWebFile(VirtualPath virtualPath) 
 31: at System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.GetVPathBuildResultInternal(VirtualPath virtualPath, Boolean noBuild, Boolean allowCrossApp, Boolean allowBuildInPrecompile) 
 32: at System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.GetVPathBuildResultWithNoAssert(HttpContext context, VirtualPath virtualPath, Boolean noBuild, Boolean allowCrossApp, Boolean allowBuildInPrecompile) 
 33: at System.Web.UI.TemplateControl.LoadControl(VirtualPath virtualPath) 
 34: at System.Web.UI.TemplateControl.LoadControl(String virtualPath) 
 35: at DotNetNuke.UI.Skins.Skin.InjectModule(Control objPane, ModuleInfo objModule, PortalSettings PortalSettings) 
 36: --- End of inner exception stack trace ---

This did not bode well for trying to access any of the mail settings or anything else for that matter that was controlled through the Host Settings.  So off to Google I went to try and discover what could be causing our issue. 

Upon searching I found a forum post on DotNetNuke that sounded very close to what was causing my issue.  On the third page of the thread Rija RABETOKOTANY RAOBIVELO provided just the answer I was looking for:

Don't know if this is still needed but I post it anyway.

I got the same problem and found that the DotNetNuke.HttpModules.dll replaces all other dll in the same namespace including DotNetNuke.HttpModules.UrlRewriter.dll since 4.6.0. So in my case these two files exist in the bin directory of my 4.5.3 install. Surely that an upgrade attempt was made so the new assembly copies the DotNetNuke.HttpModules.dll into the bin directory and it co-exists then with DotNetNuke.HttpModules.UrlRewriter.dll

So you can delete the DotNetNuke.HttpModules.dll file from your bin directory if you're still in 4.5.* but delete DotNetNuke.HttpModules.* if you're in 4.6.*

That fixes my issue

Hope it will help

When I looked at his answer I then went and checked the properties of the DotNetNuke.dll file in my bin folder which let me know that the site was currently using version 4.5.3 of the platform.  I then looked through the bin folder and found that I indeed had both the DotNetNuke.HttpModules.dll and the DotNetNuke.HttpModules.UrlRewriter.dll file in my bin folder.  So this was giving me my error message from before.  To verify this I checked the properties of the DotNetNuke.HttpModules.dll and found that it was attached to version 4.6.2 so at some point someone tried to do an upgrade to the portal framework that didn’t take and caused us the small grief.

Once the file was removed, the host settings came up just like there were supposed to and it has been working great every since.  Hope this helps anyone else that runs into this issue with DNN.

Having worked with DotNetNuke since Version 1.0 and before I have seen many changes within the framework.  One of the changes that I liked but found it to be repetitive was when working with the registration tools, we had this field called Display Name that was always asking for input in the form.

This image shows the display name as a required field.  I understand the need for this as we want to display a user’s preferred name to them when they login, but it is also nice being able to set this to our own predetermined fields as well. Well this can be done within the framework, with the added bonus that the display name will now not be part of the registration process. 

To accomplish this, lets walk through the process.

Remove the display Name

1. Login to the portal as an administrator
2. Go to Admin –> User Accounts
3. Click on User Settings either at the bottom of the module or in the drop down menu for the module.
4. Locate the Display Name Format field near the bottom of the user settings
   
5. Place the following within the textbox [FIRSTNAME] [LASTNAME]. This will set the display name to the first and last name of the user that is registering.
6. Click the update button at the bottom of the module.
7. Log out of the portal as administrator and then click on the registration link. The Display Name field should now not be visible in your registration form.
   

This makes for a consistent naming scheme for wherever the Display Name field is used within your portal as well as allowing the field not to be required during registration when having new users register.

If you have any comments or other suggestions about tips you would like to see about DotNetNuke please leave them in the comments below.

Shaun Walker creator of DotNetNuke is featured this week on Twit.tv.  In episode 41 of their weekly podcast they speak with him about DotNetNuke and the future of this framework on the ASP.NET framework.  You can find the the podcast on iTunes or at the Twit site – www.twit.tv/FLOSS.

This release comes with a number of module updates including the following:

• Documents 04.01.00
• Events 04.00.02
• Help 03.00.02
• HTML 04.08.01
• Links 04.00.01
• NewsFeeds 04.00.00
• Repository 03.01.15
• Survey 04.50.00
• UserDefinedTable 03.05.01
• Wiki 04.01.00

• FCK Html Editor Provider 02.00.02
• AD Authentication Provider 01.00.04

This new version can be dowloaded from the DotNetNuke website.

The latest release of the News Feeds module has made it through the project release cycle.  Peter Donker made the announcement on 8/24/2008.  He has chosen to completely rewrite the module to provide us in the Community with some very interesting options moving forward with this module.

The first one is Aggregation

The module uses a new version of the RSS Toolkit located at CodePlex.  This toolkit allows the module to aggregate feeds of different types together as one feed.

The next one is Caching

They have made some very interesting choices in how they cache the rss feeds for use within the module.  They now store information on disk in the form of the aggregated feed as an xml document as well as storing information in a SQL table with when the feed needs to be refreshed and other information.

The next was Transformation

Previously the XML/XSL transformation was handled by the standard ASP.NET XML component. Now this module uses the same mechanism as the XML module and allows for parameters to be passed to the XSL style sheet.

The next was Displaying

In older versions the news feed module did not display till it had successfully downloaded all the content to display.  This new version uses AJAX to allow for quicker loading of the page and better management of the experience for the end user.

The last note is on Security

If you turn on caching of the module and you use an internal page to display a feed. It is important to remember that the feed that is cached will display the information for the user that was logged in when the feed was first called, so if that user has higher privileges then you want to display information for that may inadvertently get cached.

More reading

Peter Donker’s Blog post

News Feed Download

News Feed Discussion Forum

Hector Sosa of SystemWidgets has released a Windows Winform application that allows you to modify the User database in DotNetNuke. I’ve checked out the screen shots and it looks interesting and useful.  There is a download for the binary files as well as the source of the application.  More information can be found at his blog.

Hector Sosa Blog