To the DNN team,

This is some criticism of the 4.9 version for the DNN Development Team. I was tasked to look into DotNetNuke as to the usability, and speed with which we could implement new websites.  From what I had read I was intrigued and I proceeded to download and install the 4.9 version onto my XP pro box and running SQL Server 2005. What I first found out on the first install is that if the install fails for even the slightest problem you have to delete everything and start over from scratch. On the second install I found out that even when you get the "Successful install" message it probably did not install right.  There is no install list to check against so it took me some time reading WROX's "Professional DotNetNuke 4" before I realized that some of the installed modules were not available in the module dropdown. (The Text/Html Module did not work on second or third install.)  By the fourth install, I was getting quite good at wiping out the database and all the code by this point; I got the Text/HTML module to work.  

I tried to get an RSS news feed displayed on a page.  I tried using both the News Feeds (RSS) Module and the XML Module.  I have had experience creating news feeds in ASP.NET from scratch and this looked to be quite simple from the user interface.  However, I got nothing but error messages on the screen and I found little help on this forum to solve the problems I was having.  I tried several news feeds including http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdot and http://news.google.com/?output=rss.  I tried several XSL files with which to read the RSS feeds to no avail.  I would expect the module to default to a working example if setup is not straight forward. The error message I got from the News Feed (RSS) was "Feed 'http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdot' could not be loaded. Error: Download error".  I can however navigate on the box to this webpage and get the XML quite easily.  On the XML module I get no error message I just get nothing displayed on the screen.  I have found nothing helpful on the forums explaining how to setup an RSS display on a page inside DNN.  You'd think there would be a section within this Forum explaining each of the modules and how best to use them.

Here are some suggestions for the DNN team:

1). The install tied to the running of the website is a very bad idea. I had it try and reinstall over an existing install and the SQL stored procedures got wiped and partially reinstalled.

2).  The user should never get a successful install message if any of the modules did not correctly install.

3).  Recovery tools are needed to be able to remove and reinstall individual modules without uninstalling everything.

4).  Documentation is needed for modules and/or modules that work by default so people can see how to use them.

I hope you take this criticism in the spirit that it is meant.

Sincerely,

Steve Mauldin

I regret for any problems with installation, but as Bruce pointed out before, this is not an easy task, if you don't have full access to the machine, as typical for hosting environments. Microsoft is currently working on a Web Application installer (see www.microsoft.com/web) for local installation scenarios, but the current version is far from being usable and Shaun will work with them to get a viable result (at least for installing DNN).

Regarding failed module installs, DNN 5 will come with a new extensions installer, which shall provide better feedback, though this may still need to be integrated into the framework installer. Currently, starting from the scratch IS the easiest way to fix issues, anything else might be possible but requires a lot of insider knowhow and is time consuming. We try to fix all errors, but there are some situations, which are difficult to reproduce and to fix.

I admit, that there is a lack of documentation (or at least it is difficult to locate), this is a subject, our documentation team is working on atm.