Ed DeGagne wrote
I am very impressed with their product. It's a very polished interface right out of the box. The 3rd party extension community is equally impressive as is ours.
Having XHTML compliance out of the box was impressive too.
I pulled another all-nighter trying to get the less-than-intuitive forum gallery installed and working so people can't browse my files like I can the DNN files on here, not to mention trying to figure out how to enable registered users to create new threads (I tried to search for solutions last night, but the search engine here...well, you know. I still can't figure out why the results of the search brings up threads that display duplicate postings (will display all posts in the threads in duplicate).
I am yet to figure out how to move the address section of the registration fields up above the captcha, as most people complete the forms in order, enter the captcha info, select the country, which, in turn, reloads the page while bringing in the state information (if selecting United States), which resets the captcha...forcing people to enter the code more than once.
..still can't figure out how to fix the 'delete post' SNAFU that will stack the various reasons on top of one another when you select a different reason in the drop-down.
I have all my timezones set everywhere, I believe, yet my feedback time-stamp is 4 hours off. :)
I struggle to install many modules that claim the dll is missing, at which point I drop it in the bin folder to no avail.
My site map displays less than half my pages, but I can't seem to get that fixed; tried to install the BTB site map module that also maps blogs and the like...returns an empty site map with BTB credits stating that they created the site map and nothing more - not the best plug for their product.
Half of the modules that I have downloaded for free support the old adage about things that are free; Brad's modules at Venetrian all worked perfectly out of the box, though (though I had problems installing some with the same dll issues, so I know it's just me). I like his private message module and spent some time polishing it to fit the site; I was about to integrate it into the forums, but I understand the next forum release will have this slick feature, so I might work through my other issues, then decide if it's worth the effort.
Did I mention the search function already? :)
I think I'll crash for a few hours and get back up on the DNN horse and try to get the forums finished.
I did decide to stick around, as I have some serious time invested and starting to learn more and more. But I think you nailed it on the head--polished out of the box is a bit more attractive to those with no programming experience and limited disposable income. If you know asp.net and all the C#, C++++++++ stuff, I am sure it's a lot easier to do what you want to do. For the complete newbies, however, from install to site creation, it's a bit more challenging. :) Some things work flawlessly and ARE really polished out of the box. The drop-and-drag-and-adjust-a-few-setting-to-your-liking modules are amazing (the blog, the announcements, the html/text module, the FCK editor kicks butt, media, the links, and others, for example). There are some, however, that have given me a small bald spot on the back of my head, though....did I mention how much I loved setting up avatars in the forums? :)
Though this might sound like my first negative post, I just wanted to give the newbie perspective on rolling up the sleeves and starting from scratch. It wasn't quite drop-and-drag out of the box. But there is so much I love about DNN that I decided to stick around. Quite the amazing platform that I hope to grow into.
I also love the 'hidden' and 'disabled' features...just figured those out a day or two ago. I won't even describe the technique I deployed previously to keep my work hidden and the riffraff out. :) Godsend.
Did I mention how much I love the gallery module? :)
I thought about finishing the site I am currently working on, then trying Joomla! just to have a look, but given the time I have invested and the countless hours of missed work and sleep, I feel I could start a new site using the templates I created (another godsend feature) and have a decent site, save the content, up and running in days...could probably crank 4-5 out by the time I get Joomla to do what I can do with DNN. My goal is to have my primary site finished before I hit 100 posts. :)
Guten Nacht.