I've just hit the proverbial wall. I have determined that in order to reproduce the entire page in a preview module that I will need to capture the entire content area of the page as it existed on that day or at least the content area of the page. The problem is if the skin and content areas change from the time the page was captured and the content is injected into a division (content pane) that does not exist then the module information would not be displayed using ASP.Net generated jQuery as my medium of changing what is displayed on the page. As a work around I surrounded the entire content area with a division where I can capture the content of the entire placeholder as a string. that can be stored in a table and later injected back into the division containing all the content panes during the preview, but this would not work for everyone as all contentpanes would have to be surrounded by this division in all cases.

The issue I have encountered is that without having access to the HTML Pro code (My company does not have Elite support) I cannot do anything to send the html string from the Edit Form on submit to the database. Everything else is functional.

As a work around I have two other possibilities I am exploring the following:

The first is creating a trigger on the SQL Server table that calls a Stored Procedure that uses CLR to do an HttpWebRequest to pull the information from the page and grab the content division (or whole page) and store it in a table. The issue here is that CLR does not support some functionality I would need to do the HTTPWebRequest (StringBuilder, System.IO) and therefore (unless there is another way I am not aware of) using CLR is going to be difficult. In addition I think this change would eliminate the possibility of me requesting that my code be included in the core code as it would require a specific configuration wiht the CLR to work (and I frown on using triggers as they can become an issue with table locks, etc if not correctly done).

The Second possibility is to create a Window Service to read to do the HTTPWebRequest whenever content is published for a module based on the HTMLText table and then load the full (or partial page) into another table that would be read by the preview function. While this would allow for minimal impact in my environment when DNN is updated, once again, what are the chances that a Windows Service would be included as part of the core? I would have to guess slim to none.

I was thinking how nice it would be for the core team to include a dummy function call at the tail end of a submit that would allow a programmer such as myself to inject custom programming after a table insert/update/delete without having to have the core code, but unfortunately that is not currently a reality and could potentially cause issues based on the code injected.

Based on the above, the questions I have are as follows:

1) How can I obtain a core code for this module without having to have an Elite support license? I think having that would allow me to change the code directly which would allow me to submit my changes to the core team to enhance the product. If there is not a way to get the code, can I submit my existing code and proposed changes to the core team? Without the source I am unable to complete my effort, but I can tell them exactly what needs to be done to make what I have done complete (and if so where would I submit it).

2) Is there another possibility that I am not considering in my development that would not require the core code but could be put together in such a way that it could be incorporated into the core potentially?

My goal is to make changes that can be incorporated into the core as I believe others could benefit from the functionality I am writing. (Not to mention is would save me having to update the HTML module everytime a revision is created :) ).

Any assistance you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Jeff