Hi All.
I don't want to sound like a troll. I understand DNN is a very powerful framework with great community support. I also understand that as good as it is it might not be the right tool for my use. I am looking for a simple CMS so that my clients will be able to quickly update some parts of their site quickly and easily. They are usually small to mid-sized businesses with very limited budgets. I have set up a few Contribute websites and in general my clients are very happy with it. For other clients, however, they might have a need for some custom functions that require ASP.NET. I know Macromedia (now Adobe) advertise Dreamweaver and Contribute as ASP.NET compatible, but I want to be able to develop the site in Visual Studio whenever I do ASP.NET.
The last time I tried DNN it was the 3.11 version. (In fact a few sites I built using 3.11 are still running great.) There were many things that I like and there are plenty of stuff that I can see room for improvement. I apologize if my problem is caused by my incorrect usage or setting, in which case I would really appreciate if someone can show me the proper way.
First, let me tell you what I like about DNN.
1. Pretty intuitive editing interface. There are many options and settings, true. But as long as my client stay within what I have shown them, they have hardly encountered any problem editing their sites.
2. Pretty good SEO support. Better than many CMS at that time.
3. Pretty good performance. Granted their sites are pretty low traffic but the response time is pretty good for a dynamic site. (I think the caching helps a lot)
4. Pretty easy to set up.
5. Many good templates available for purchase; and it is not that difficult to create customized ones.
6. Many useful modules built-in and many 3rd party ones to choose from
7. Cost & licensing. As mentioned above, the customers usualy won't be much budget for their website. Contribute, at $199US, is about the most they would spend on a CMS.
My concerns (with DNN 3.11)
1. HUGE viewstate data. I mostly only use the HTML control to display customized content (mostly text from clients). My sites almost never require any post back data. For starter, even the DNN homepage has a huge viewstate. Is there a way to reduce the size, esp. my uses don't require post back data.
2. SolPartMenu - did't work properly in Safari and IE Mac. I created a template for a client once, with the default menu, and I found out it didn't work properly under IE Mac and Safari. Knowing that the user is a Mac user, I felt it would be quicker if I use dreamweaver + contribute for this particular client. Is it still a problem for v 4.5 or is there any good third party modules to replace it? Also, the menu still used table for layout.
3. WYSIWYG editor doesn't output standard-compliant XHTML. I hope this has been resolved in 4.5.
4. Tables used for layout purposes. I prefer CSS layout. Even I did try to use pure CSS layout in my 3.11 templates, many modules, etc still used table for layout and making it really hard to achieve a consistent layout that work on most browser and platform.
I would like to know if 4.5 solve most of my problems or if there are 3rd party modules, etc that will. Also, if you think DNN is not the right tool for me, do you have any recommedation? Any comment and pointer is greatly appreciated. Thanks.