As a standards developer who was "forced" to go DNN because the powers that be chose this framework. And it has to be said that indeed the framework as a while is good to work with and with a combination of both skins and custom skinobjects a lot of the dnn flaws can be worked aound.
It seemed that dnn was taking itself more seriously and was beginning be be taken more serious amongst other frameworks as well since finally they understood the meaning of standards development as I was accustomed to developing templates and template frameworks for Joomla and Wordpress amongst others.
So great was my expectation when i heard DNN was setting up a skin contest to promote "good" skinning. After extending the deadline only 25 skins were submitted ( considering that there are bundles and bundles of skin developer that seek skins on the official marketplace http://www.skincovered.com - most of them are crap and still use tables for layout instead of for where they are meant for tabular layout of data.
So where did the community go, lots and lots of developers but only 25 skins were submitted. Strangely DotNetNuke team members were not prohibited form entering so there were 2 member that helped with the skin contest but also had a skin in every category ( someone named salaro and someone names cuongdang)
But again that was ( strangely enough not against the rules) but now for the real joke. They selected 3 judges that I never heard of to judge this, none of them have well designed dnn websites or are well known just some random techie guys and one that had a flash site that did not look that fancy either
Cant say too much about the community favorite since that's a design chosen by the community and to be honest it looks interesting, not my choice but its a well designed skin nonetheless/
Lets go to the real categories which were "supposed" to be judged but the "well known" judges. Each of the categories where supposed to be judged to certain criteria http://skins.dotnetnuke.com/Judging/tabid/57/Default.aspx
And this is where DNN was brought back 10 years, The actually let skins win that had MULTIPLE nested TABLES. In the business category not only did the first place and the runner up both had tables in there design but one of the skin developers was salaro " the one that was in the core team so he should promote the use of good skinning, This salaro has a website which sells run of the mill skin which looks like they were designed by cheap offshore developers nothing fancy or creative about that. And he is in the core team. they must have low selection standards for the core team as they have for the judges. From 20% and up there was technical standards and education, well if nested tables are technical and educational in the dnn world I have to get to convince my boss to go for some other framework.
The first on in the business category that actually is developing the way it should be is the 3rd place he has commented html, css and uses a modified 960.css framework. The first one that actually looks like a non dnn skin and the first one to have no nested tables and validates. So judging by there own 20% educational technical rule the nested table skins should have been eliminated right away, that hot how you design anymore.
The personal category was just another joke, they selected the worst design possible a general 3 column layout with a few more functions and subskins and some crappy designed trees ( how creative ) and yet again nested tables - How technical of you dnn. Yet another one that won with nested table compared to a much nicer one more creative one more standard one from a designer called slumtown hero.
Now lets go to modern web standards of course here they should ban tables you think, but think again a few nested tables ( in MODERN STANDARDS - dnn must have rely low modern standard compared to the normal web community. So first place is for a crappy designed website with tables, now lets go the second one ( this one is from the dnn team member who also participated 0 still weird in my opinion )
And finally a winner that has no tables, woohoo :)
So to sum it up dnn promotes good skinning by using nested tables, there own team mates have winning entries. The salaro guy 2 times second place and the cuongdang guy one time first place. This alone is very weird in my eyes and im glad I decided not to enter this competition.
Its pretty well possible to make great dnn skins ( non dnn looking ) as some of the entrants have shown in both business and personal and slumtown here with the monster skin actually has in the demo content of his skin and the locks entry which not suited too many since it limited in nr of items and content its still a nice and clean look.
So im back to persuading my boss to get off the dnn band wagon but altho the skinning contest was another missed dnn opportunity here is who I think should have won based on there own rules.
Anyone that have used tables in there design should have been eliminated, there own teammates should not have been allowed to participate to begin with. Its nice that they entered to beef up the nr of submitted skins because if you look at it there were a nr of entries that were done by same person or company
4 were done by 2 of the team members both actually won something ( which leaves a foul taste in my mouth just to begin with ) adn then there were some template builders who if you look at there own site have nested tables skins and promote these ans xhtml w3c skins which is another joke by itself.
But I can keep on rambling on this weird and strange skin contest but here are my winners based on there own judging criterias
modern business Schwingsoft
Personal : slumtown here
modern web standards : dnngarden html 5 css 3 technical excellence so why this one didnt won based on this alone is a riddle to me
out of the box: this is the only one they had right and it didn't have a table, the judges must have dozed off there and actually made one good call.
Well this is the end of my ramblings, im back to finish of this clients skin and persuade my boss to drop dnn and the skinning contest gives me leverage because it seems after all these years the standards and skin framework part of dnn is still a joke in the portal framework world.