There are books available:

http://www.packtpub.com/dotnetnuke-4.0-skinning-tutorial/book

No project of this size that gives the software away for free should be expected to provide complete free documentation.

Jan, the corporation do see the need and value in quality documentation - to quote Joe Brinkman earlier in this thread

"Carlos,

This is a known issue and we are attempting to address it.  There is a project that is just getting underway which will provide access to various pieces of documentation and which will provide more access to keeping the documentation up to date. "

Personally speaking I like that there are a large number of books on dnn now, but recognise that it's hard for books to be cutting edge due to the time involved authoring them and print cycles (the same applies to pdf documentation too, though the lagtime is shorter than for print books). That's why online materials are typically needed to ensure accurate, current information, and this is what the corp are working towards. Much of the information is out there in blog posts and forum entries, it needs better organisation & structure, and IMO a wiki to allow the community to contribute, as well as allow the core developers somewhere to document new enhancements quickly, without having the overhead of creating docs. As indicated by Joe, and other core members, we are making efforts in this area.

Cathal

I guess I'm coming from the viewpoint of a person who has spent hundreds of hours documenting DotNetNuke for free over the years. The fact that alternative information was not available was a big motivation for spending the time to create documentation.

That has changed greatly in the past few years. As I stated before I don't create documentation just so some will have a free resource.

It is true that the core intends to provide a central location for documentation, however I can't imagine that it will be complete and up-to-date all the time. The complaint seems to be for up-to-date information and I do not see any possible way that can be done without paying someone to do it. DNNAngel basically has a system that works.

I have to disagree with these points:

• DotNetNuke will be "harmed" by the lack of free information. Serious users are willing to pay.
• Other free Open-Source projects of this size have free complete up-to-date information.

I feel that I have a good idea of what motivates people to create free documentation and keep it up to date, it is the lack of ANY alternatives. I am spending most of my time writing Silverlight/DNN and Workflow/DNN articles because there are no alternatives. As soon as the book publishers catch up believe me I will find something else to write about.