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3/22/2008 11:27 AM
 

Hi

I've been developing ASP.Net applications for nearly 5 years now from .net 1.x to now 3.5.  However, I'm new to DNN.  Here is the question that I have in my mind that I'm not sure how we'd do in DNN.  We have a web site that is an ASP.Net site.  We want to redo the site and considering DNN.  Most of the pages are fairly static.  They all use a master page right now so they're all aspx pages.  However, there is one area of the site that contains web "applications".  These provide some e-commerce functionality, etc.  We don't want to rewrite these pieces if we go with DNN.  What is the typical way something like this would be handled?  I picture, correct me if I'm wrong please, all DNN development being done on the portal itself creating pages, etc and adding modules.  Do we need to convert our custom apps into modules?  We also have some pages that make use of google maps quite a bit.  Would we need to create a google maps module (or maybe there is one)?   I'm concerned that working within the portal to setup pages might be fine for 90% of the site, but what about the last 10% that requires a little more control and ability to write some code to do things?  Is this even possible or is DNN really only useful for simple sites that don't require that much control and if you need to do a lot of coding, would be best to just do the whole thing as I'm used to.....start with a web site or web app project in Visual Studio and start programming.  We have custom controls that we've developed we'd like to use, etc.   I guess I'm just not seeing how I can really use all of this and get the control I'd like to get the results I'd like simply by logging into the portal as admin or host and adding pages and modules in a point and click fashion.

Or am I misunderstanding DNN completely?  Like I said, I'm brand new to it.  If anyone can address this that would be super!  If you want to suggest some reading materials, sites, etc. that would be good too.

 

Thanks

 

 
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3/24/2008 12:47 PM
 

Hey Chad,

As I see it, there are two main approaches you can take...(sorry this is a little hard to address in a forum post, without knowing your existing application/business)

Set up your site, create static content, use 3rd party modules, and then convert your existing application(s) to module(s)

Depending on what your application is and what it does, this could be really simple or really difficult. It may be as simple as turning your pages into controls and creating a module definition so you can drop it on the page, but if you have logic that depends on the current user, there may be a fair amount of work to do ...or if you are using 3rd party componants/javascript libraries/etc there may be some issues...

Set up your site, create static content, use 3rd party modules, and then link to portions of your existing application

If there are only specific pieces of functionality that are used, it may just be easiest not to integrate, but to link together....if your skin and master page is simliar, it may feel as though you're in the same site still.....there tend to be some flow/navigation issues to worry about in this scenario though....

And remember, not everything has to be a DNN site or module. If you want to take advantage of editing your own content, and all of the existing modules out there, that's great. DNN modules are especially useful if you want to use them more than once. If you're creating a DNN module and will only install it once, especially if you don't have an existing DNN site, it may not need to be a DNN module.

Also, there are certainly core and 3rd party map modules out there. Engage Software even has an Engage: Locator module that can use google and yahoo maps: http://www.engagemodules.com/Modules/EngageLocator.aspx

Take care,

Ian


Software Engineer
Co-Founder, dnnGallery
Stack Overflow: Ian Robinson
Twitter: @irobinson
Linked In: Ian Robinson
 
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