Hello,

I am a current Xoops CMS admin who has frankly had his fill of the constant road map changes the code forks of that software. I am looking for a new CMS for a gaming community/news site as well as a Pagan/Wiccan news/community site. And DNN has caught my eye.

I like the fact the WYSIWYG editor I am currently using and the fact its MS platform based. My server is running Small Business Server 2003 (SBS 2003) and it would be nice to deal with a CSM that is geared for that. Rather my current setup of Server 2k3, Apache, PHP and MySQL. Having to keep track of all the various elements (patches, upgrades, etc) can be time consuming from a admin standpoint.

I do have a few questions however:

The modules I see here installed on this site, are these the core/free modules or are these commercial?

What advice can you offer to a admin coming from the Xoops CMS to move over to DNN? Are there any tidbits of advice that would be helpful to make the move go smoother?

Aside from the aspects included in SBS 2003 (or windows update) is there any other s/w I need to get a site running under DNN?

I am fearful of starting another site on a CMS that will fork and change directions more times then my gf changes outfits. I started with Xoops and over 2 yrs time it just become a mess with various forks and modules that stopped working with certain core versions with little oversight/direction on what works with what anymore. I REALLY want to avoid these headaches as it brought my site of 2.5 yrs to its knees. It SEEMS (and I could be wrong) the core/free modules are maintained by official staff that ensure it works with the core. Is this the case?

Thank you for any input you have to offer.

Peter "Strauss" White
Admin of www.nwn2news.net

As far as I know most of the modules used here on the DNN site are the core modules provided by the DNN package. 

In addition to Win 2k3 server you will need SQL Server installed.  If you are looking at a small to medium site you should be ok using the free SQL Server Express Edition, that has a database size limitation of 4 or 5 Gb. 

Other than that there shouldn't be anything else that you would need other than to ensure that your Win 2k3 server is properly configured to serve up ASP.NET pages as typically it is not by default!

From what I have seen with my time using DNN the upgrade path is typically very clean and the installation for upgrades is very smooth.  I also believe the for the DNN project as a whole there is a pretty good plan for the future.

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-Mitchel Sellers
Microsoft MVP, ASPInsider, DNN MVP
CEO/Director of Development - IowaComputerGurus Inc.


Visit mitchelsellers.com for my mostly DNN Blog and support forum.

Visit IowaComputerGurus.com for free DNN Modules, DNN Performance Tips, DNN Consulting Quotes, and DNN Technical Support Services

I don't have any experience with Xoops, but I can tell you that DNN is a pretty powerful framework and has a huge community to help and support. You'll find a lot of the basics covered in the core modules, but eventually you'll want functionality that is outside the core modules. The beauty part there are hundreds of commercial modules for sale on www.snowcovered.com and http://marketplace.dotnetnuke.com. There are also a boatload of free modules too!

As far as CMS goes, it does feature role based content and security, but there is no workflow process integrated.