Hi,

Any advice would be appreciated to the following questions about community version 4.

a) As a new community  4 DNN user (not programmer) how would you fix the visual editor so that it doesn't change, overrule the css style sheets.  e.g pages work fine written in code, switch to editor, code changes and writes that back to page without any user intervention. If this version has known issues would downloading the latest version possibly clean this, or is a fresh installation required and then all skins, content copied over from the old to new version?  It seems unusual to include  a WYSIWYG editor for other non code admin users if the feature does not work.

b) For changing existing skins and skin css rules, can they be accessed at the user admin level, or is server level access normally required.

c) If the search module no longer functions as one would hope in version 4, can you reapply/overwrite the module with the latest version, or again is a new installation normally suggested or required.

d) Do you know of any good examples of live blogs built on v4 or is the purchase of the full version required for this functionality.

e) Is there a way in version four to have user friendly page url's or is that a version five paid for feature only. www.........tabid/Default.aspx is bad enough for Google let alone clients.

There appears to be so many bugs (some may have caused by previous administrators, users, programmers etc) in this particular community version that dropping the use of DNN and using an alternative CMS seems the logical way forward unless you can suggest good reason to remain with DNN.  What do you see as the main advantages of DNN over the competition at the community level as I appreciate the fully paid for version five would gain full technical support.  Or is professional version the only way forward.

Thank you in advance for your comments and suggestions.

just to give you a positive independent point of view of the situation: 
latest version of DNN 4 is very stable, but it is important to be on the latest version for optimal security.
a) integration of FCKEditor is very flexible to get the most out of DNN and the editor, but there are a couple of other players on the field as well, mainly module developers and skin designers, but also content editors, who may interfere (this will happen with any flexible CMS)
b) it is a (dis)advantage of DNN 4 that skins can be uploaded by any admin, if you grant this permission in host setting. Be aware though, that there is a risk.
c) often recreating the search index helps, but for a proper advise you need to state the concrete issue
d) to get Blog module to function properly, you need to install full version of DNN community (or any other package, supported by DNN Corp)
e) it depends on your requirements, which solution to choose for  URL  rewriting, AFAIK the most professionals are from Ifinity.com.au

regarding your final question, it really depends on your requirements. Other solutions will not be more secure and performing and flexible out of the box - you need to specify your priorities yourself. IMHO the most important criteria though is a professional DNN integrator as a partner, you may safely rely on. 

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Cheers from Germany,
Sebastian Leupold

   

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