This might possibly be a stupid question:

Along with PortalModuleBase, is there a way to create a custom base class that can be used by several custom-build modules?  We're running into some issues with circular references since we need to inherit from PortalModuleBase and trying to have the class reside outside of the DNN project.

You need to base each module on PortalModuleBase so that all the features of DNN are accessible to your module.

But having said that - there is nothing stopping you creating your own custom class which inherrits from PortalModuleBase.

You could then use this inherrited class for all you own modules - this custom class does not need to be inside the DNN project.

Westa