BlogEntry

 Starting with DotNetNuke 5.3 there is a centralized Content store, together with the ability to apply Taxonomies (categories) to the content.  In simple terms, this lets you create tags and apply them to tabs (pages) and modules.

Recently I had a requirement to produce customized lists of pages in a DotNetNuke site that would be of interest to different groups of users.  I was able to do this in a straightforward manner by using this new feature.  This describes how I did it.

Someone asked me how to get the DotNetNuke USER skin object to display the UserName instead of the DisplayName.

This functionality is not part of the USER skin object, so I suggested that it would be be relatively easy to modify the USER to display UserName.  It turns out that it took me all of a half-hour or so to create a modified skin oject with the desired functionality.  Here is how I did it (and writing about it is going to take more time than the actual work!).  This skin object works for DotNetNuke version 5.x.

I had a new requirement yesterday:

• Display only the top level menu items in the traditional DotNetNuke menu
• On lower-level pages, display a vertical menu in the left column with links to children of the current page.

This one started with a simple question:  "How can I send updates to my Twitter account when I update my DotNetNuke blog?"  The answer was amazingly easy.

As the year ends there are a few things that, if dropped in my Christmas stocking, would make me very happy and my life much easier.  Here is my Christmas wish list.

DotNetNuke is a powerful and sophisticated framework for building websites, web services, and web applications.  Out of the "box" you get the framework, a couple of dozen or more modules that provide specific functionality, and access to a variety of third-party modules and skins.  Some a free and/or open-source.  Others are commercial products.

 Picture this -- you are working on a DotNetNuke site, you edit a Text/HTML module, and hit the "update" button, not knowing that you've made a mistake.  Where is the "Undo" button, you ask?  It isn't there!

It turns out that the "PCMCIA" slot in my computer is actually an Express card slot, though externally it looks an awful lot like a PCMCIA slot.  It looks like I've been sleeping.