Hello,

Just want to prevent headaches, and release some nerd rage here!

The annoucements module is worthless and I personally think the DNN core developers deserve a big slap on the wrist.  I have been a web designer/developer for 11 years and I haven't seen such a bad display of support, planning and development as I have seen with this particular module.

As the only real option for a news tool, the annoucement module is missing HUGE features and is riddled with bugs.  Here is the collection so far.

RSS Feeds Don't Update - If you syndicate a annoucement module, the RSS feed never updates.  It's just a snap shot from when you turned on the RSS feed.  FEED IS IN THE NAME...  It's meant to be dynamic.  This makes the RSS feature worthless.

RSS Feeds Don't Like Correctly - When syndicated, the links back to the annoucement page only go to the page, not the actual item.  Example... RSS feed from annoucement module has 5 records, clicking on ANY of the records takes you to the annoucement page, BUT NOT TO THE CORRECT RECORD.  Again, WORTHLESS.  And I love the post on the forum where people are nerd raging and they are told to BUY a module or that the system just doesn't work and to suck it up.  Or the best one, where someone posts that they fixed the issue by modifying the core (that's right, the community is trying to fix an issue) and they are told that they won't be able to upgrade.  Why would anyone want to upgrade to a BROKEN system.  Was any testing done in the last 4.x versions of the module?

No Paging of Records - Are you serious?  You have to be pulling my virtual leg on this one.  WTH!  Anyone who has EVER done any type of professional programming knows that any listing page should be PAGED.  The last thing I anyone wants is a page that goes on forever.  Again the post on the site that says suck it up is funny.  I also know that it's pretty easy in the .NET framework to add paging. Did someone forget how to drag and drop a user control?  Too hard to add a field to the object?  If these core modules are so hard to get working, why would I ever want to use the framework to build something of my own?

No Auto Time Stamping of Records - Once again, this is just silly.  If anyone other than a mentally handicapped toad tested this thing, they would have said.  Hey when I add a new record it goes to the bottom of the page....  Why?  New records should be on top.  Oh... This is because the display date of the entry is always set to 12 am of the current day.  Well, if I were going in to enter news, I want the least amount of clicks.  Setting the date for every entry adds up quick.  This is called useablity, something that I know most programmers don't consider, but needs to be there all the same.  DEFAULT ANNOUCEMENT ENTRIES TO BE TIME STAMPED WHEN THE ADD ANNOUCEMENT PAGE IS BROUGHT UP.  Javascript it, I don't care.  If someone wants to change the start date, let them, but at least start them in the right place.

No Ability to Display a Time Stamp - Good lord, this is getting long... Why the heck isn't there an option for a time stamp to be displayed?  Wait, let me guess.  I should put that in my description for the annoucement, right?  Wrong.  Work arounds aren't solutions.  They are excuses for poor or lazy development.

My guess is, since this is an honest, informed post that directly points out problems with this product, and I am guessing that the PAID version has these bugs as well, that this post will be yanked.  If you're the one to YANK it... at least send it up the pipe line.  I can't not explain my level of disappointment in DotNetNuke and the response I have seen to some posts.  This is only doubled with disappointment as I was looking at become a reseller, so now we are both losing out on money..

Another awesome "suck it up" response.  Which doesn't match with another moderator post in this very forum.  Which states not to modify the core.

You want me to come check your email for ya too? /grin - j/k

Now for a more serious reply, though I don't know if your ranting justifies one as you really take things to stupid levels with the insults (which is what generated my first response), but I will try to respond to some of your concerns. 

RSS Feeds are generally tied to the search indexing within DNN, if you by chance turned off indexing, or have it set to longer than 30 minutes, they won't update until that indexing runs again. I'll admit that's not the idea solution, but that is how they were configured for DNN long ago, and a number of modules use this functionality. Some modules bypass this and create their own feeds.

RSS Items don't have unique URLs, the module wasn't designed to show a detail view for each entry. Again I can't explain why this is, I didn't develop or maintain the module, but that is how it functions.

Paging: it's a pretty basic module, paging can be done in a number of other different types of modules, you might check out the Form & List module, you can probably create most of the functionality there that you are looking for, including addressing the above two issues.

As for your paranoia about the post being deleted, no, I don't see that happening. We are a pretty open bunch here, it is open source after all.

You just have the wrong impression of what this module is. It is a basic announcements module. If you want more, you can use other modules, or you can develop your own, that's the beauty of DotNetNuke, it's very easy to extend and create your own.

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Chris Hammond
Former DNN Corp Employee, MVP, Core Team Member, Trustee
Christoc.com Software Solutions DotNetNuke Module Development, Upgrades and consulting.
dnnCHAT.com a chat room for DotNetNuke discussions