I am fairly new to DNN and just getting around to fully understand it.   Our corporate website site has a lot of user controls (over 130), and I am trying to find the best way to convert all of those controls into DNN modules so we can officially use DNN as the CMS system for our website.  The main thing I want is - I want those DNN modules to be debuggable using standard Visual Studio debugging techniques (attaching the debugger to the IIS worker process).  They are fairly complex and I would like to be able to run them in debug mode and put breakpoints etc to go through the code at runtime.

My understanding is that there are 2 types of modules in DNN:

1. WAP (Web Application Project) modules
2. Desktop Modules 

Out of these the WAP modules are the ones that can be debugged like that, and desktop modules can't be debugged, is this correct?  If so, I will go with creating WAP modules.  Now, the issue with WAP modules is that for every single user control (which we have over 130 of), creating a WAP project and adding it to the DNN solution is certainly not a good idea.

So my question is:

1. Is there a better way to create DNN modules so that I have the ability to debug them without having to create a slew of additonal projects in my DNN solution?
2. If the only way is to go the WAP route, is it possible to embed multiple user controls (DNN modules) in a single WAP project?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

I would also recommend downloading the “Starter Kit” (e.g. DotNetNuke_Community_04.09.03_StarterKit.vsi for DotNetNuke version 4.9.3) from http://dotnetnuke.codeplex.com/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=25790

The Starter Kit is a set of Visual Studio Module Templates and will help you quickly make a new DotNetNuke module. When you run it you just need to select the module templates to install (you don't need the DotNetNuke Web Application Framework if you have a working installation of DNN already installed). The "Compiled module" templates are WAP and the "Dynamic module" templates are WSP. When you start a new project in VS, select the appropriate template (e.g under Visual C#) for a skeleton module project to get you started.

Michael - with WSP, compilation occurs "on demand" at runtime on the server, so doesn't that mean there is a performance hit compared to WAP where the code is already compiled before it is deployed to the server?