what point is that? It's a free tool, why shouldn't you use it? I have it on multiple machines and I use it alot. what does VS pro have that Express hasn't??? I only need color coding and intellisense anyway, there is no need for fancy class designers or *drag to destroy your DAL* features in DNN. Too bad sharpdevelop doesn't support ascx files or I would be using that. I do have VS Pro on 1 machine, for large solutions containing multiple projects these are windows forms + webservices, that is a reason to use VS PRO.
DNN development doesn't qualify as large in my books.
Well your right, I don't modify the core, I hate upgrade issues. I do replace providers. I use VB.NET express for that, wonderfull program.

This attitude sounds like "my car is better then yours because it goes faster then yours" but I only need 120kph.

In my opinion *Free & sufficient* sounds better than *Expensive & lots of options nobody uses*

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Edit your Skin.xml and Container.xml files with:
Yannick's SXE

The productivity gains with WAP over VWD are based on the fact that people think they should recompile before debugging. (wich is what VWD does by default)

Actually the best behaviour for VWD is to put the build process completly off

the built-in webserver of VWD will compile what is necessary to process the page. This is the same logic as in IIS as they share their ASP.NET processing capabilities.


Now if you need to edit a vb file you just change it and save it. then hit F5 in your browser, your server will (IIS or VWD) will recompile only what is necessary. In most cases you aren't even going to lose your session.

Now WAP is in the disadvantage, as you can't edit a DLL, and you need to recompile this DLL manually, this updates the bin folder wich triggers an invalidation of the entire ASP.NET pipeline. so your site will load slower in the second round of debugging

On the other hand if you change a vb file in the desktopmodules folder, only that folder will be recompiled by the server.


If you finished your module this is how you put everything in a dll without using WAP

• open VB.NET express
• make new DLL project
• copy all VB files to this project, dump them all in the root if you want
  
• compile
• Delete all VB files from your site
• put the DLL in you bin folder

Et voila, same effect, same DLL, same productivity gains from not waiting on a compile. But accomplished with free tools. as an added bonus, you can keep edit and continue while debugging.


You should know, I am not a commercial module developer in the same sense as you. I design software for bussinesses and sindce DNN3.0 I use DNN as the framework on wich I write my webfrontends for my software. Saves me alot of work, and my clients are happy they can skin and extend their frontend for their software as they desire.

WAP is great if you automate your entire development process with MS build. It fils the gap where you couldn't build a site with MS build.
If you use it just to get a DLL in the end, you should have started with a DLL project in the first place.

I like the fact that you do not need a compiler to edit your site

Consider this my official stance on WAP

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Edit your Skin.xml and Container.xml files with:
Yannick's SXE