Sebastian Leupold wrote
If properly packaged legacy skin packages do not install correctly, this is an issue which needs to be fixed.
One of the desired advantages of the new extension architecture is the option, to package different types of component into a single package including dependencies, this includes Skins and containers, but also Skin objects, localization (using the new [Text] SKO) and widgets. Not all of the options are implemented atm and there are still some issues, but in the long term, the extension installer has much more potential and will allow much more options than supportable with all the different legacy formats.
Packaged Legacy Skins do not install correctly. Not sure if my babbling and ramblings made sense, so to put it more concisely, no, packaged legacy skin/container files are not appropriately placed into the correct directories and hence the resulting installed skin/container package is useless. That applies to the scenario of skins.zip and containers.zip zipped into SkinName.zip and trying to install SkinName.zip. Installing a legacy skin alone or a container set alone without packaging them together does work.
I did however play with the DNN 5 packaging some more and through trial and error was able to package a skin and container set into one zip file and install it properly. The problem before was that I tried to do the same packaging setup as with DNN 4, just taking the skin and container zip files and zipping them into one zip file and installing from that. That does not work as it gives errors about the package containing more than one manifest file and then aborts and installs nothing. With the DNN 5 package, you only need one zip file and all the skin and container files go into that file. No separate zips inside. In the manifest file, you can have more than one "package" section in the xml, so basically what I did was to take the manifest from the skin package and the manifest from the container package and merge them so there would be just one manifest file (did a copy and paste from the container manifest from the first "package" through the closing package statement - not including the "packages" opening or closing or anything outside of those, just everything between the "packages") and using that method I was able to successfully install a skin and container package in one step.
It would really really really be extremely helpful to have documentation on all this as this is probably one of the single most important things a user is going to do. Everyone is going to go through this and expecting us to fumble our way through and figure it out for ourselves is just plain torture and frustration not to mention a huge waste of precious time. I could have saved quite a bit of time and effort if there was any documention or instruction anywhere on how to do this correctly.
I hope that my ramblings here can at least help someone else so they don't have to waste their time, too. Honestly, I don't think DNN 5 should have been released as a final version without the appropriate documentation or instruction to back it up. Unless I just didn't find where it is??? Anyway, thanks for listening and taking time to respond, but the responses were not helpful and didn't explain the procedure so I'm left wondering if even the DNN guru's don't know these necessary procedures for doing the most basic and simple things that everyone needs to know... I'm not trying to be mean or angry or anything, my tone should be taken as simple matter of fact discussion meant to try to help others not struggle with figuring this out on their own as well.