I started this list a while back, and decided I would go ahead and finish it, and post it online. Thanks to Oliver Hine for #9 As someone who runs, edits or develops for a DotNetNuke website, these are 10 things you should always stick to.

So this is a little easter egg type feature for users of Engage: Publish. If you want to embed YouTube videos in your Engage: Publish articles you can do so with standard HTML, or you can use this new feature added to the 5.0.2 release of Publish. If you put [_youtube_:_######_] replacing the #### with a video ID such as pJbSDiaK8co, Publish will replace that with the proper HTML (Also remove the underscores, I had to put those in there so Publish wouldn't replace the text above)

Yesterday I posted that I had found a fix for the issues with the Ajax ScriptManager issues that have been occuring with DNN 4.7 and greater. Well here it is! It's not pretty, but from my testing so far it appears to fix the problems I've been having here on www.ChrisHammond.com To use this fix you're going to have to recompile the DotNetNuke Source package you can download from www.dotnetnuke.com. I've only tested this with 4.8.1 source, but I don't believe there should be any issues if you're trying to recompile 4.7.0 or 4.8.0. Here are the two files you need to make changes to. This fix does not apply to DNN 4.8.2 or greater, 4.8.2 has a fix for the issue

Well I believe I have found a fix for the scriptmanager errors that people have seen randomly on some DotNetNuke websites, and even more so on this site. I'll be posting information about the fix tomorrow but I wanted to get a blog post started for it. As of right now it requires making some changes to the DNN core code and recompiling, but it's not a large amount of code to change, and it will hopefully be included in the next DNN release (after 4.8.1). More on the fixes tomorrow, assuming I don't see any of the errors in my event log in the morning!

There apparently were two .Net Security Patches made available last night in WIndows Update. They are causing some problems with DNN, not sure which versions specifically, but I've seen issues reported in 4.3.6 and  4.3.5 so far. Sebastian posted this in a forum earlier today as fix for the Text/HTML module no longer working. in /controls/TextEditor.ascx line 9 replace id = ”celTextEditor” Runat=”Server” with id = "celTextEditor" Runat="Server" The issue being the CURLY quotes (I don't know the proper term and am too lazy busy to look it up). I had another client with the same problem, they had curly quotes in their skin file instead of normal "" quotes, with windows update last night the skin immediately broke. So if you're having some issues with your DNN sites, start looking for funky quotes and replacing them with standard quotes! Posted from...

A few years back I was enlightened by Chris Paterra in the ways of using NANT scripts to aid in the packaging of DotNetNuke Modules. Using NANT to package your WAP (web application project) modules within Visual Studio 2005 is a snap, and can save you a LOT of time each time you have to come up with a new release. Using NANT scripts we are able to create the Private Assembly Installation ZIP file and Source files for Engage: Publish by running a single command from the Command line. With our Publish module this process takes about 23 seconds on average, for our smaller modules such as Engage: F3 the process takes less than 2-3 seconds. To get started with using NANT scripts in your own development environment you need to download the latest (0.85) release from SourceForge, you can visit the project page at https://sourceforge.net/projects/nant/ Once you've installed NANT on your machine (I install it on my C drive in a c:\nant\ folder) you'll need to add NANT to your system variables path so you can call it from the command line. To do this: Right click on My Computer and choose Properties Go to the Advanced Tab Find the System Variables section and Modify the Path variable Add your NANT folder (c:\nant\) to the path, separating entries with the semicolon (;) Save the settings. Now I'd recommend adding a .BUILD file to your DNN Module's project/solution. I've provided a sample build file on our Tutorial Page at www.engagemodules.com, you do have to login in order to access the file. The provided sample file is a good start for your project, by opening up the file in VS2k5 you'll see it is a XML document with some basic information about the product name and folder location. You'll want to find the references to Engage and EngageF3 in the BUILD file and replace them with the name of your module and business name. You can also play around with the include/exclude options in the Fileset node to add or remove certain types of files from your packages. You'll see the two sections in the build file that define which ZIP files to create, one section is called CreateBinZip and one is called CreateSrcZip. Once you have the BUILD file setup you'll want to check a few more files in your DNN project. In the .DNN File be sure to set your module version properly and include the SQLDATAPROVIDER files, as well as the necessary DLLs. In the AssemblyInfo.vb (.cs in our case. At Engage as we do 95% of our DNN module development in C#) be sure to setup your DLL information and version information. By setting the version number in the assemblyinfo and .dnn file you can get NANT to include the version number in the package's file name, allowing an easy way to handle upgrades from version to version for your modules. Once you have all of the files in the solution setup properly you can run the NANT script. To do that bring up a Command Prompt, change directories to your DNN/desktopmodules/ModuleName/ folder. At the command line type "nant" and watch the magic happen. If everything builds properly the script will create a Package folder in your Module's folder, inside of the Package folder you should find two newly created ZIP files, one labeled Install and one labeled Source.   Technorati Tags: ASP.NET, DotNetNuke, DotNetNuke Tips, Daily Tips, NANT, C#, VB.Net, Module Development, Engage Posted from...

Welcome back to the DotNetNuke tips! I started doing this over a year ago, though with getting married last fall and working on my Datsun 240Z lately I haven't blogged near as much lately about DNN topics. So here we go, starting up again with my DotNetNuke Tips. Today's tip follows: When you're doing testing locally with a backup for a Production Database and Website one of the things you need to be sure to do is change your Portal Alias for your local URL, instead of your production URL. If you don't do this you'll hit the local URL and it will most likely redirect you to the production URL. This can cause a bit of chaos if you don't notice that you're no longer on the local/testing URL and start modifying the production web site. To change your portal alias you can do the following. Open your SQL Server management tool; SQL Enterprise Manager, SQL Server Management Studio, or whatever you choose to use. Browse to your local/test database, open up the PortalAlias table. You can either Modify your existing Alias, or you can add a new Alias to this table. test.myurl.com for example, be sure to setup the proper portal ID if you're adding a new alias and you have a lot of different aliases in there. You might also need to setup the aliases for the child portals as well if you plan on using those. The next step is crucial. You'll want to reset your website before you try to hit the new alias. You can do that in a couple of ways, I always prefer to open up the web.config file, add a carriage return and hit save. This will cause IIS to reload the site, clearing out the cache and loading the new portal aliases. Look for more DotNetNuke tips coming soon!Posted from...

If you're upgrading your DotNetNuke instance, here is a list of simple steps to follow during the upgrade process. First tip, test the upgrade on a staging site first, pull a copy of the database and files down, try the upgrade, make sure all your functionality is still there. Then upgrade production (backup everything first)   Here’s the steps to upgrade   1.       Backup the database. 2.       Backup the file system. 3.       Make sure you did 1 & 2 4.       Extract the latest DNN ZIP file somewhere, i usually use the installation package, not the upgrade package out of preference. 5.       Edit the web.config file from DNN package a.       Modify the SQL connection strings, there are two places, you can get the string from your original web.config b.      Be sure to copy the Machinekey ValidationKey and Decription key values from your original web.config file c.       Double check the DatabaseOwner and ObjectQualifier values in the web.config file, if you changed them in your original web.config file you’ll need to change them in the new one. d.      Make any other changes to the new web.config that you added to the original config file, anything your custom modules required? codeSubDirectories node perhaps? 6.       Copy the new files, including the changed web.config file, over the old files. 7.       Load the website, this will cause the upgrade to begin when the page loads. Make sure the upgrade process completes successfully. 8.       At this point you should be done.   Like I said, test first, just to be sure you have everything working properly. Hope these steps help, I've upgraded many a DNN website, and even a few today.Posted from...

I didn't come up with this list, just reposting it.Admin/Host FunctionsDNN-3913 - Improved performance of URL Control with a large number of foldersDNN-3911 - Inform User if email to vendor or admin failDNN-3932 - Fixed behavior of User Settings in SuperUser AccountsDNN-3928 - Add ability to disable the Update profile on login functionalityDNN-3868 - Fixed display of Page specific Header info DNN-3867 - Fixed the Portal Template Schema Definition for the file elementDNN-3866 - Fixed AddPortalInfo sproc so users upgrading from 4.0 can add new portalsDNN-3793 - Fixed bug with adding codeSubdirectory node to web.configDNN-3730 - Forced validation of Profile Definitions in case client-side validation doesn't happen (plus added missing keys)DNN-3791 - Private and verified registration no longer redirects but displays confirmation message DNN-3804 - Fail gracefully on Password Update if problems with EmailDNN-3839 - Added ability for Admin to set the default profile VisibilityDNN-3835 - Added ability for Admin to disable/enable ServicesDNN-3834 - Added ability for Admin to enable/disable Profile Visibility DNN-3838 - Added option to suppress the Pager in the Users Grid when not needed (PageSize > TotalRecords)DNN-3748 - Fixed Paging in User Accounts when using a Search option other than usernameDNN-3822 - Suppress Group Header when Profile has no properties in the Category enabld for display DNN-3760 - Breadcrumb Enhancement - Allow use of tab title instead of tab nameDNN-3694 - Added friendly message when duplicate portal alias is added DNN-3419 - Removed some unused resource keysControl PanelDNN-3874 - Change to add custom permissions by default to all roles with EDIT permissions when adding a new module to the pageDALDNN-2913 - Fixed situation where a TextColumn is bound to a null value (now returns "")File ManagerDNN-3865 - Added buffering to downloading of files (in 10K chunks)GeneralDNN-3702 - Fixed case where a Port is specified in SMTP configurationDNN-3743 - In LogController, fixed SupportsEmailNotification and SupportsInternalViewer so they return a valueDNN-2699 - Fixed SiteWizard.ascx to allow debugging if specified in web.configText EditorDNN-3926 - Make sure Action menus are not visible if they are empty (or only have break items)Install/UpgradeDNN-3759 - Fixed localization errors when no portal (eg during Install) LocalizationDNN-3917 - Improved RTL support in Profile EditorDNN-3812 - Added en-us to default languageDNN-1974 - support for longer locale stringsDNN-2612 - Fixed xml error in reource verifier DNN-2268 - Updated Resource Verifier to support asp.net 2 style resx filesDNN-3594 - Languages sorted alphabetically in Languages editor Resource InstallerDNN-3742 - Fixed installation of app_code based modules SearchDNN-2344 - Fixed Indexing when Page has an enddateDNN-3464 - Added validators to Search settingsDNN-2798 - Fixed UpdateSearchItem stored procedure to use nvarchar instead of varcharDNN-1902 - Fixed PageCount check DNN-1891 - Include Common Words setting is now used in GetSearchResultsSecurityDNN-3718 - Added required image to password fields (in Register and Add User)DNN-3964 - Fixed missing code to Log the SuperUser Login event DNN-3747 - Fixed Registration when RequireQuestionandAnswer is selectedDNN-3849 - Add check for empty string in Decrypt method to avoid errors on x64 serversDNN-3883 - Allow all Administrators to unlock each other DNN-3853 - Improve scalability/performance of GetModulePermissionsByModuleID and GetFolderPermissionsByFolderPathDNN-3833 - Added message for unauthorized users when attempting to log in.DNN-3706 - Made ValidationExpression column nvarchar(2000) rather than nvarch(100) DNN-3968 - Created separate temporary and persistent cookie timeoutsSkinningDNN-3984 - The DNNMenuNavigationProvider correctly utilizes the CSSNodeSelectedRoot in all casesDNN-3707 - Fixed skin parsing that extracts the skin components from a full html file. TemplatesDNN-3661 -...

DotNetNuke Tip #17, Disable Inline Editing in Text/HTMLWith the latest releases of DNN, 3.3.* and 4.3.*, you may notice that when logged in to a page you have edit rights to that you can "edit" content in the text/html modules simply by clicking on them in the browser window and typing. Convenient, yes? Sometimes! Othertimes it can really be a pain in the rear, I'm a click happy person, I click places so I can get my scroll started, so that last thing I want is to begin editing content on my pages.I figured I'd post a solution to disable this option in DNN. Currently this requires a recompile, though I know the core team is looking at how to make this an option for the Text/HTML module.So here's what you need to do.Download the Source Version of the Text/HTML project from DotNetNuke.comOpen the Project in VS 2003, I opened it in an existing DNN solution I had setup already.Open the HtmlModule.ascx.vb fileAround line 196 you'll find the following codelblContent.EditEnabled = Me.IsEditableComment that line out and add the following line'lblContent.EditEnabled = Me.IsEditablelblContent.EditEnabled = FalseRecompile the module in release mode and use the newly created DLL in your environments. Always Test new code/dlls on a test instance before moving them into production. The above code worked fine for me, but please test for yourself first.Stay tuned for more DotNetNuke tips, brought to you by Chris Hammond from Engage Software. Posted from...

Welcome to another installment of the DotNetNuke Tips to help simplify your life. This is a simple one, but can save you a TON of headache and troubleshooting.I was helping a coworker out today, trying to track down a gremlin for a new development install on Windows XP SP2. The coworker, we'll call Whistle, was having troubles getting his new environment up and running. The site wouldn't run thus it wouldn't create the proper database tables, stored procs and related data.After a few minutes of beating his head on the desk I sat down to assist. He had completed the usual setup process, created a database, extracted the ZIP file, modified the web.config file for the newly created database, and of course, he set the proper permissions on the folders.But for some reason the site wouldn't load in IE, repeating errors that DNN was unable to modify the web.config file. After his 10 minutes, and myself spending another 5 minutes trying to get it running we ran across the most simplest of issues, that I'm sure many of you have also faced, as have I a few times as well.When you setup the permissions on your folders, if you're on a domain, and setting up an IIS5 machine (Win2k or XP) be sure to change the "LOCATION" of the user to be the local machine and not the domain ASPNET user!Such a simple thing, yet very easy to miss and hard to track down. Stay tuned for more DotNetNuke tips, brought to you by Chris Hammond from Engage Software. Posted from...

 Since I've yet to have time daily to post a new DotNetNuke tip I'm renaming my feature to just be DotNetNuke tips! I'll continue to post them when I have the time to do so.While I was off meeting with a client DotNetNuke dropped a new release! Go out and get it!If you're running any of the recent releases 3.3.* or 4.3.* it's highly recommended you upgrade to 4.3.4, there were some security issues found and resolved with those releases.More DotNetNuke Tips next week. Posted from...