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HomeHomeUsing DNN Platf...Using DNN Platf...Administration ...Administration ...Using premade .aspx pagesUsing premade .aspx pages
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3/20/2007 7:36 AM
 
Hello

I am fairly new to the DNN world and I have a question about how to use existing .aspx pages in DNN. A site that I do some work on is written in ColdFusion with an Access database as DB. If I remake the ColdFusion code into .aspx pages and hand the DB connection etc there, how do I get those into my DNN portal? Using iFrame would be a bad solution in this case I think as it doesnt resize and displaying dynamic data in a fixed size frame usually isnt very attractive.

Considering safety issues, where can I place the access DB on the DNN site to prevent people from just using http://www.mysite.com/data/mydb.mdf to download it?

Best regards
Torbjörn
 
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3/20/2007 10:07 AM
 
Hi Torbjörn,

What you are describing is a non-trivial problem and will require some work to accomplish.

If you think you are up to it, I can give you a few pointers to get you started.

First, you are correct about avoiding the iframe implementation. It is fraught with perils such as cookie/authentication problems and so forth (along with the ones you described).

It is unlikely you will be able to implement a solid solution by porting your application to individual aspx pages. Although this is probably *possible* (by inheriting each page from the DNN pagebase), it is really a use of DNN that was not intended. You are very likely to run into administrative and navigational issues by going this route. DNN is really heavily geared toward a single entry point (one aspx file).

Given the above, the only real non-hack possibility is to port your coldfusion app into a DNN module. There is some reference material out there on module development, so I would suggest you check that out before architecting your solution. There are a lot of ways to go with this (one ascx controls for each coldfusion page, all functionality in one ascx, etc), so you have some thinking to do before moving ahead.

Hope this helps!

Brandon

Brandon Haynes
BrandonHaynes.org
 
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3/21/2007 3:39 AM
 

Thanx for your reply Brandon!

If I just reuse the SQL statements and skip all other code, would that make it easier to integrate an Access DB into a DNN portal? It is just external data in that DB. So basically I guess I need to get hold of or write a module that can handle an access DB and make SQL querys on that + display that data.

If I skip the external DB alltogether and import the Access data into the DNN database, would that make it easier to display sql driven data, or could that make the DNN portal hard to maintain when upgrades come?

Any tips or pointers on this are most welcome

Regards

Torbjörn

 
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3/21/2007 8:14 AM
 

Torbjörn,

I suggest to use the migration wizard to migrate your data into SQL server and adopt the SQL statements as well - this will guarantee best performance and security.


Cheers from Germany,
Sebastian Leupold

dnnWerk - The DotNetNuke Experts   German Spoken DotNetNuke User Group

Speed up your DNN Websites with TurboDNN
 
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3/21/2007 9:17 AM
 
This is good advice. With the free sql server products available nowadays, there really is no reason not to move to that platform. You'll be happy you did.

If all you're doing is reporting some data, you might take a look at the core reporting module and see if it might fit your needs. I'd also browse the DNN marketplace, I'm sure there will be something that will work for you.

Good luck!

Brandon

Brandon Haynes
BrandonHaynes.org
 
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