Hi Erik!
Thanks for the info! And no, I won't shoot! :)
I'm honestly still evaluating DNN 7.3.3 for it's appropriateness for this situation. To me, there's a lot of comfort in DNN, but in comparison, there's also a lot of core features (relative to other CMSs) that are missing 'out of the box'. Articles for example. Or Content Types. Or Image Galleries. I see there's 3rd party solutions for some of these things, but I would have thought that these would just be core capabilities by now as in other platforms.
I've done a few Joomla sites recently. I truly wanted to try DNN again because down the road there's some potential development in terms of integration of my friends web site with back end CRM. Since I"m more comfortable with .Net development, I was hoping to put DNN into place in anticipation of future needs. (not that I couldn't integrate other platforms, it's just that .Net is more of a comfort).
But the more I dabble, the more I seem to uncover that some fundamental things are just not in the core. that 2SXC content manager is quite cool and helps close the gap. That has so much potential. On the other hand, I really don't want to spend time custom building a work around for articles using 2SXC, and I'd rather use something out of the box. ANd I really don't want to hard code HTML into HTML Modules. That would leave my friend frankly pretty unable to edit content given he doesn't know HTML at all.
I have to download the HammerFall theme. I've used BindTuning themes in the past on Joomla/Sharepoint. I'd rather not spend the money to buy a theme, and may just build one up quickly using bootstrap. I'm not sure yet. My friend needs the site pretty quick, but he's definitely limited in the $$$, which, like others I'm sure, I'm trying to help him do this in a low cost way while getting good functionality and a good looking, SEO-friendly type site. (Friendly URLs/Images/Articles, etc.).
RIght now, I've got DNN 7.3.3 in a VirtualBox VM. I'm trying to do a mock up. THe learning curve has been very low for me, given my past work with DNN. ON the other hand, the hours I've spent trying to find open source alternatives to articles modules, content types (finally found 2SXC), Image Galleries and bootstrap themes, well... that's been pretty unsuccessful.
So I'm going to continue the evaluation of DNN relative to other choices and see where I come out. It's fun and it feels good to be connected back into this community. I really appreciate the feedback and support.
I don't want to do wrong by my friend and shoe-horn in to DNN, but I really know it has a great community, great install base, and can get the job done. Just have to close the gap on figuring out how to obtain some of the fundamental things (boostrap theme, article and content management, image management) and I think we'll be fine!
:)