This new Corp Ownership seemed like a good idea at first.  I had high hopes, having used, supported, installed and promoted DNN for 10 years, I began to become disillusioned with multiple aspects of DNN over the last couple of years.  Small stuff, like renaming the Forum to "Start a Discussion" - (Its a forum, call it a forum, or at least a discussion.  so folks who need to find it can find it without guessing at the odd nomenclature)!  Big stuff, like the effort to hide the community aspects of the web site, (try finding the link for community download from the home page) commercial developers fleeing the platform, abandoning or open-sourcing  their products, exceptionally poor decisions in the GUI of new versions (AKA The Personna Bar), leaving out basic functionality
 new versions that was in older versions (ordering pages on the site, view Layout option when editing for examples).

I was on the verge of abandoning the platform completely a few months ago, as I needed to make recommendations to new clients and upgrade existing systems.  Then I happened across the DNN video which featured a video an interview with Andy Trybe, the new DNN Corp CEO, where promises were made to address dome of the issues many of us have raised over the last few years. It gave me hope, as there are many reasons to recommend and use DNN, but it has been months and even the simplest, most basic problems seem not ho have been addressed.

Corp cannot even get their own website right.  There are menu items (download at the top) , that have been broken for months. In in the community drop-down there is no link to installing the community edition (or any other edition) ; Finding modules (or even a simple list of them) that used to be included automatically in each version is a convoluted process involving Git repositories, which, believe it or not, many people find completely baffling.  WordPress, Drupal, Joomla and probably other CMSs, while they may not have the same capabilities or modularity of DNN, have a  much much better public interface, better documentation and a deeper eco-system when it comes to module development information.

so Now I have another big web project to do, and am again considering sticking with DNN or not.  Are you at least going to fix the DNN website?

This quote comes to mind. "Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts." - Arnold Bennett

You seem to have a few issues with a few of the GUI changes with DNN itself and also of this site. Across the DNN ecosystem there will be many views both positive and negative although I personally feel the majority are positive.

Personally I think the persona bar is a step forward, as a lot of the themes/skins that I used in the past caused issues with the various control bar manifestations and have now in general gone away. I believe the interface is cleaner, quicker and less obtrusive, yes it took time to know where to look but once ingrained in our ageing and diminishing brain neurons it starts to become a reflex reaction.

Agreed with the renaming of the forum, I think this was a backward step and took me ages to find and I think brief newcomers will never find and will bounce.

However overall, I feel positive with the changes and more positive moving forward with DNN and will continue to put it as my leading CMS tool.

"He who rejects change is the architect of decay" - Harold Wilson

 

 

If you are following the community blog and the videos from the TAG team meetings, you should have realized that there have been really dramatic changes during the past weeks:
Not only that ownership of DNN Platform code has been handed over to .Net Foundation (and brand is expected to follow soon), but DNN community is now full in charge of release and roadmap for DNN Platform. The TAG team is working hard to release DNN 9.2.1 and improve the code contribution process.
However, DNN platform now being owned by the community requires community members to contribute - by coding, testing, providing documentation and spreading the word. Any participation is of help and will push DNN. If you are willing to join, just drop me a private message, I am looking forward to it :).

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Cheers from Germany,
Sebastian Leupold

   

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