Hi, I like DotNetNuke, would really like to use it.  But I am not sure how other pages that are not in the portal fit in.  I have a lot of pages that hit all kinds of databases.  How do I get them in the portal?  Do I have to build a bunch of modules to put them in containers?  That's a massive amount of effort.

Or, do I just link to these outside pages and then put a link back to the portal?  Right now I have a set of frames with the menu on the left and output on the right.  Wouldn't the portal make me have to go back and forth and do away with my navigation ease I have now? Seems to defeat the purpose if I have to go in and out of the main portal all the time.  Not sure how to handle older, legacy pages.

And, what about future pages?  As I said, I like DNN, but if there isn't a module for say, looking at my employer's reports that they want, then what do I do?

I'm not sure I understand the concept of a portal.  Is everything supposed to be in a container somehow?

Thanks for reading and helping.

So say I am in a company and all of a sudden they want a report from a Human Resources database.  If there were no DNN I could build my page in VS, put the controls, code, etc. and then point them to the new URL.

In DNN it appears I have only a few choices: 

1. Build this same page as a Module, thereby having the overhead of building a module on top of the logic for the page the user really wants.
2. Use IFrame.
3. Leave the portal and have a link that returns to the portal.

Thoughts:

1. I don't know how much it takes to build a module.  If I build one are they all the same, or wouldn't they be if it is this kind of web page?  Is there a template for a blank module?
2. I have been experiementing with IFrame.  It doesn't work well with somethings like Javascript opening new windows window.open.  And I am not sure if the IFrame can be dynamically populated from the built in DNN menu system.
3. The last one seems to violate what the portal is for in the first place.

I am not knocking DNN.  I really want to use it.  I'm not sure it is the right product for an Intranet with legacy pages or any site where reports and other systems need to be built.

Another example (sorry for the long post):  I may have to build an inventory program.  I can go third party.  But what if I wanted to build it here, using DNN as the portal?  How would an inventory web applications fit into DotNetNuke?  What if I went third party?  How would that fit into the portal model?

Thanks again for any and all responses.  I have found it difficult to get responses.  Even though there is a huge following for DNN.  There seems to be very few who can answer these type questions.  Of course, it could that I am unclear.  I do not know.

Database are what I love.  :)  And I've had to do what you are doing when I built the Lucent tech support knowlage base a few years ago.  There were a bunch of databases of all types I had to connect to for various reasons. 

Using DNN there are a couple of things you could do.  Since DNN connects to one database only out of the box you could write custom modules that make connections to other DBs, build procedures and triggers into the DNN database to pull and push data to the other DB (could be painful) or link to the pages you have already.  For the later you would need to merge your current web.config with the DNN web.config and handle DB connection strings for the other DB somewhere other than web.config, then just create a new page and choose link to file as the type of page referencing your old page then update that page with the link back to the portal.

Cheers,