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Ordinarily, you'd be at the right spot, but we've recently launched a brand new community website... For the community, by the community.

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HomeHomeGetting StartedGetting StartedNew to DNN Plat...New to DNN Plat...How To Open An Existing DotNetNuke Website?How To Open An Existing DotNetNuke Website?
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3/5/2015 3:42 PM
 

Mike

As I said in the third sentence of the first post in this thread I couldn't get the website to run in Visual Studio, so I installed DotNetNuke.  So can you answer my two questions?

1 - How do I set the default page?

2 - How do I run and develop this existing website in DotNetNuke?

There's a lot more detail about what I have tried so far in DotNetNuke up above.

 

 
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3/5/2015 4:08 PM
 
Yes - I saw your comments. It sounds like you are approaching DNN by trying to edit it in Visual Studio - that's almost certainly not what you want to do. I have done DNN development for years but never tried to run the site directly through Visual Studio as it isn't that useful of a way to do DNN development.

Once you have DNN running, to change the default page, go to "Site Settings" in the Admin menu. Under "Advanced Settings" you'll find the option to set the home page.

As for developing DNN, that's usually done by creating custom modules, skins, and other extensions. Creating a module is like creating a normal website in Visual Studio, but you reference the DNN dlls as needed and have to follow a few normal standards. Once your module is built, you use the Host account in DNN to install it into your DNN site.

Mike
 
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3/5/2015 4:17 PM
 
Sorry - to clarify, you can run a whole DNN site in Visual Studio, but I've only found it useful when you're trying to do development work on the DNN Core. That's not needed for normal site management or maintenance.

The stuff you're talking about sounds like content management, all of which is done through the web interface. You just log in as an Admin or Host and you can add/edit content and pages as needed.
 
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3/5/2015 4:17 PM
 
Thanks for trying to help. I'll go "play around" with DNN and maybe I'll begin to grasp it's poorly documented concepts.
 
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3/5/2015 4:30 PM
 
Sure... and there are huge manuals for admins and superusers.

http://www.dnnsoftware.com/community/...

You can also find online help here:

http://www.dnnsoftware.com/help

Generally, a lot of confusion for first-timers seems to come from the fact that DNN is a CMS - so, it's doing most of the work for you. You are just interacting with it through the web. I've found that once you log in with the host account, most normal activities are self explanatory.

For basic content management, a lot starts with your "Skin". The "Skin" is basically an HTML (actually an ascx) file that tells DNN the design and structure of your pages. The skin also defines "Panes" which are little zones that you will be able to add content through the site. In the site, you can add a "Page" using the "Pages" menu. Once created, your page will use a "Skin" to know how they should look and what panes will exist to hold "Modules". "Modules" are like little apps that get placed into the panes on a page. They then display content or perform tasks. The most common module is the "HTML Module", which shows text/HTML.

Putting all of that together... When you log into a DNN install as an admin, you'll see the "Pages" menu, which will allow you to add a page. When you do, it will default to using the site's default skin... Once that page is created, it will have one HTML module on it. In edit mode, you will see a little pencil icon by the HTML module, which you can use to switch the module into edit mode and then change the content on the page. You can add new modules using the "Modules" menu.
 
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HomeHomeGetting StartedGetting StartedNew to DNN Plat...New to DNN Plat...How To Open An Existing DotNetNuke Website?How To Open An Existing DotNetNuke Website?


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