Patrick

Thats the best contribution to DNN I have seen so far. Bless your heart to make it free.

Thanks

That kinda "hits the nail on the head". Over the years the purpose of any "DNN Builder" was to create the code needed to implement the DotNetNuke DAL. With Linq to SQL (or Linq to Entities) it is hard to justify the time and complexity to implement the DotNetNuke DAL in custom modules.

For example, look at the source code for ADefHelpDesk:

http://adefhelpdesk.codeplex.com/SourceControl/BrowseLatest

There really is not a lot of code. I pounded out the first version in only 4 weekends. If I created it using the DotNetNuke DAL and stored procedures it would have taken months not weeks.

So I hope that DNN Builder programs start to concentrate on allowing developers to use Linq to SQL or Linq to Entities and concentrate on allowing users to design more types of modules.

For example, If I could use a DNN Builder to create a 'Wizard" that gathered information on forms I could design in the builder, that would be very useful. It could then allow me to design the "Admin" page to get the results. For each page I could indicate what roles should see the page.

If I could drop a control on a page and it enabled File Uploads or sent emails. This would provide a reason to exit Visual Studio, open up the DNNBuilder, drag, drop, and click a few options, save and return to Visual Studio.

Lots of good discussion. It's obvious this is something DNN needs. I definitely like the idea of this being a DNN module that allows you to either: 1.) Generate templates that run within the module or 2.) Generates a complete DNN module, or 3.) Have it directly generate the module definition into the DNN module definition tables and then you could use the built in DNN module packager to generate the module package.

Regardless, to me, this shouldn't be targeted at novice users. It should be for generating code that experienced ASP.NET coders can modify.

I stumbled on to this project when I was working on building out a better solution to the many forms modules out there (XMod, Enterprise forms, formMaster, Dynamic forms, ...). What I hate about those tools is they all force you to learn a new way of doing things that is never as powerful or elegant as what you can do directly with ASP.NET. Us developers need a tool that can handle the rote/simple stuff for us and then let us modify the code for the interesting stuff.

This project seems to be a great start on what I'm looking for. But there will certainly be many forces that try to pull it in a thousand different directions. My advice, keep going the direction your going for now and write the code... in a month or two, you can begin to open up discussion on the best direction for future releases and improvements to the existing architecture.