This is just a few observations over I guess a month of using dotnetnuke. First of all I’ve been programming in classic asp for many years and have been trying not very successfully to understand ASP.NET.
I’ve looked at other open source portals but dotnetnuke seems to be about best which is especially true because of the third party add-on modules.
Although there is the supported professional version available, it’s too expensive for most people/businesses/applications and me. That then falls back to the forum support, now most questions are straight forward and are normally caused by finger trouble or basic server setup. However errors that are likely to be attributed bugs in the code or system conflicts are more difficult to resolve and seems to be either ignored or take ages to resolve. Even when DDN acknowledges the bug, it does not mean that it will be fixed. There’s been a long running bug with the Editor and the UK language. Although acknowledged nothing has been fixed although it must be easy to resolve.
My first DNN site (new) I run uses most of the modules so I get more than my fair share of problems. What surprises me is that with thousands of DNN sites all over the world, more people aren’t flagging up bugs.
It does seem to me that upgrading to a new release is a bad idea; I see posts experiencing upgrade issues and new bugs reported. Also third party modules may have further issues. I’ve recently purchased the Ultra Video Gallery, this is a fantastic (and I mean fantastic) YouTube type module, but the business seems to be run by one person. Quite a risk if this module forms an important part of your website.
It would be useful if a degree of paid for support was available, either by the hour or issue. In the event that the problem was a DNN software bug, a discounted charge would be made. I currently have a problem with the logon/register module. I contacted a DNN software house in the UK to speed up resolving a problem, they thought it may be a DNN bug, but to fully investigate/ resolve the problem would cost me approx £1,200!
I appreciate that I have the free version, but you do make a degree of money through modules sold through Snowcovered. So a person or two dedicated to Forum support would be of great help.
In the meantime, I plan to stick with DNN and persevere in getting my site fully up and running.
www.Ambu999.co.uk