Enhancement Requests For DNN
I have used DNN to create an intranet portal of 100+ pages for my company as a kind of “on the side” type addition to my usual role. I started back in 2004 with 2.1.2(?) and have upgraded all the way through 4.03. I originally used the TTT windows authentication module and now use the core version. The site has been live for well over a year. I am a C++/.NET developer by trade and I have developed a bunch of custom modules for the site. I have also tried to use Snowcovered to purchase modules but for the most part I have developed my own as the quality of the purchased modules is very lacking. I have 40+ roles defined, many for departments and some for org chart type stuff like executives, directors, managers, etc. These roles are used to specify various page “editors” and “viewers” depending on the level of security needed. I think my project has fairly well exercised the breadth of many of the features of DNN; here is a list of some various issues and feature requests I have come up with:
1) Ability to give users AND roles access on a page (more granularity). Too many times I have to go through the hassle of creating a role for one person so they temporarily see a page.
2) Nest roles within other roles. This is very important for companies with many roles defined. Not supporting this only makes one redundantly add users to many roles.
3) Let page editors move pages around in their own hierarchy. That is, if I create a department page for someone and give them editing rights to the page, they should be able to move any pages they create to anywhere in their editing hierarchy. This means that the combo box in page settings would need to be not grayed out and only show pages that they have editing rights for. This causes all sorts of headaches for me since I constantly have to fix their errantly placed pages myself.
4) Automatically give the same editing rights to a page as its parent (i.e. inherit editing permissions). I am so sick of creating a landing page with a certain editing role and then that editor forgets to add himself as an editor on pages they create rooted to this page. No matter how much process is involved here, this will happen and it is extremely irritating.
5) Let editors somehow see the page selection combo that is under admin the admin tab “pages”. Otherwise, if they disable or hide a page, they have no way of editing the page from that point forward, since they can’t select it!
6) The whole list of checkboxes for viewing/editing roles is fine for a couple of roles, but quickly becomes cumbersome when there are 50+ roles defined. This would be alleviated somewhat if 1 and 2 above were implemented. Personally, I preferred the old “move roles from one listbox to another with arrows” widgets that were used in the original versions of DNN (or was it MBS?).
7) For the love of God, increase the widths of ALL combo boxes on the site. I have memorized the “order to name mapping” of so many of my custom skins and containers since I cannot see the entire name in the appropriate combo boxes.
8) I used windows authentication – and all my users have the domain prepended to their user name. This is fine, but when I use the user accounts page under admin, everything is under the “P” (since our domain starts with “P”). This makes finding a specific user without searching when one has hundreds of users a pain. Also, why can’t you search on first name? Last name?
9) Turning a container off removes the ability for a user to edit that module when he has editing rights specifically for that module and not the page. This is a symptom of how containers work (see 10).
10) In order to remedy this issue (noted above in 9), I had to create a set of clear containers that I use instead when I want no container to show. This includes variations on showing various icons, HRs, etc. These should really be included with the DNN install. “Show Container” should be deprecated and containers like these should be used.
11) Editors need to be able to update roles for their specific sections. I.e. if a user maintains a role for his group and his group hires a new employee, he naturally wants to add this employee to the group. However, he cannot since he is not an admin. This means he sends me an email. Why can’t one specify what roles each role can edit? Or something along those lines.
12) Redirecting a page to another internal or external page is a disaster for editors. Once they do this they can never go back and edit the page settings since by clicking on the page they are redirected (see (5)). For users with admin access to the page, they should see a placeholder on the page indicating the redirection link but they should not be redirected themselves.
13) Allow cascading of roles down page hierarchy with a checkbox. This means that if you set up a million pages and realize that you need to give a certain role access to that page tree, you can just go to the root and select the correct roles, and then cascade them down.