Well, I said I wanted to upgrade DNN, so I did it. I'm now on 4.7. I got in one of those moods this morning and just wanted to attack it. I'm glad it's done. The 4.7 upgrade was odd because there was a lot of cleanup, it seems. I'm definitely glad to see it. If all projects had the same cleanup efforts, the world would be a better place, don't you think? This one wasn't huge, but it was nice to see.

Just wanted to make a quick status update. I just upgraded my server from DotNetNuke (DNN) 4.0.3 to 4.5.5. I've been slacking over the past year and it's well past time to upgrade. I guess not working on DNN on a daily basis has caused me to neglect the site. I still need to finish the complete upgrade to 4.7, but wanted to make a smaller jump, first. I'm excited to dig into the new features. The biggest thing I gain from this jump was the use of FCK Editor instead of Free TextBox, which I've learned to abhor. So far, so good!

Tim Barcz   talks about options when it comes to implementing search for a custom site . He suggests two answers: Google and custom built. I'd recommend two more; both of which I've used and been very happy with.

From what I've seen, Google is not quite what I'm looking for when I think about integrating search into my site. It's not bad, but it doesn't give me the feel I'm looking for. Admittedly, I haven't played with it. I'm simply going off of what I've seen around the web. I want something wholly integrated into my web application, not just Google with a logo. Ok, I understand there's more than just that, but I have yet to see a Google search inserted into a site; every implementation I've seen has been the other way around. On the other hand, there are ways to do this with a bit more work... but I'm lazy.

The second option is just plain crazy. Sure, if you've got the time, go for it. Who does, tho? Even if you do have the time, who says you'll implement something completely bug-free? Yeah, right. For this, I have one suggestion that gives you search and a host of other capabilities without limiting your ability to create great .NET sites: DotNetNuke (DNN) . DNN is an open source portal framework or content management system, depending on who you ask. It's absolutely wonderful. That's what I use. While I'll probably get some flack on this comment, think about it as SharePoint-light. DNN is a little rough around the edges and I don't think I'd want to claim the vast majority of the code I've seen, but it is a very good foundation with an excellent extensibility story. Since I'm mentioning it, tho, SharePoint would also be an option; however, I'm not convinced it's the best story for anyone looking for a website. It'll do what you need it to do and then some, but it might be overkill. SharePoint is much more polished and provides a host of features DNN couldn't touch, but the developer experience isn't all it's cracked up to be. I'm going to stay hopeful for the next release, tho. But, I digress...

Lastly, I have to mention my favorite: Live Search Box . I love this one because it's totally non-intrusive. Try it for yourself. The search box I have at the top-right of every page is Live Search. A nice AJAX-y popup shows your results without intruding on your look and feel. In a sense, it adds to it. I love it! As if that wasn't enough, I was able to be as lazy as I wanted. It's simply takes adding a little JavaScript and you're done. Like I said, I love it.

As you can probably tell, if you're familiar with the module, I use Ventrian Systems' News Articles module for my weblog. I really like what the module has to offer and, with the latest release, I can now work on something I've been putting off for a long, long time: replacing the default table-based layout with a div-based layout. I finished the initial run-thru and simply need to test it against the many scenarios to make sure I covered all the bases. I am much more happy with this div-based layout because it's a lot easier to modify from the CSS, which means I can simply add some special code in each portal's CSS file to customize it for that particular instance. It's such a beautiful thing! If anyone's interested, I'm willing to share this code. If enough interest is sparked, I'll donate it to Ventrian, assuming the interest is there.

Now, I need to finish working on my skins and containers for the site. I've been putting that off for a while, too. And, with my recent MSDN subscription, I don't know if I'll be getting to it anytime in the very near future!

I noticed a problem when I uploaded the IGERSoft Rating module to a test server the other day -- the module installed fine, but when added to a page, had an error, which turned out to be because the stored procedures weren't taking the object qualifier into account. Not a big deal, and luckily, it was something I could fix myself. I posted in the vreboton Rating module forum for the module, but haven't heard a response. Just wanted to get the word out for those interested. The module is pretty nice.

Unofficial IGERSoft Rating 3.1.1
Disclaimer: This version is not supported by IGERSoft or the vreboton website. This is an unofficial download which has nothing to do with IGERSoft/vreboton. Once a publicly available version of the module with the aforementioned fix has been provided, this download will be removed.

I recently had to upgrade one of my clients from 3.2.2 to the latest release and ran into a bit of a snag. We started with 3.3.1 and decided to use 3.3.2 in hopes that the problem would be fixed. Unfortunately, it wasn't. Here's what I found...

Symptoms

After upgrading DNN source to 3.3.0-2 or 4.3.0-2 and browsing to the website, you receive an error message that is similar to the following:

System.IndexOutOfRangeException: DisplayName

Cause

When accessing the website, even during an upgrade, the website is authenticating the request. During the authentication process, the membership provider doesn't take into consideration that the SQL scripts haven't been applied. Since the pre-3.3 scripts did not obtain the DisplayName column, the assembly raises the aforementioned exception.

Resolution

You may not like this one...

1. Download the source version of the release
2. Open the ...\Providers\MembershipProviders\AspNetMembershipProvider\AspNetMembershipProvider.vb file
3. In 3.3.2, Starting on line 301, change the entire if block to the following...
   If bContinue Then objUserInfo = New UserInfo objUserInfo.PortalID = portalId objUserInfo.UserID = Convert.ToInt32(dr("UserID")) objUserInfo.FirstName = Convert.ToString(dr("FirstName")) objUserInfo.LastName = Convert.ToString(dr("LastName")) Try objUserInfo.DisplayName = Convert.ToString(dr("DisplayName")) Catch End Try objUserInfo.IsSuperUser = Convert.ToBoolean(dr("IsSuperUser")) Try objUserInfo.AffiliateID = Convert.ToInt32(Null.SetNull(dr("AffiliateID"), objUserInfo.AffiliateID)) Catch End Try 'store username and email in local variables for later use 'as assigning them now will trigger a GetUser membership call userName = Convert.ToString(dr("Username")) Try email = Convert.ToString(dr("Email")) Catch End Try Try updatePassword = Convert.ToBoolean(dr("UpdatePassword")) Catch End Try If objUserInfo.IsSuperUser Then isApproved = True Else Try isApproved = Convert.ToBoolean(dr("Authorised")) Catch End Try End If End If
   I'm assuming the code is the same in 4.3.2. For those interested in the actual changes, I simply encapsulated teh following properties in try blocks: DisplayName, AffiliateID, Email, UpdatePassword, and IsApproved
   
4. Compile and continue as if the problem never happened

I will work on getting have a compiled assembly (3.3.2) available for download. If I get a chance, I'll work on getting 4.3.2 up, but anyone should be able to use this assembly for DNN 4.3.2, also. Let me know if you have any problems with it.

More Information

• Applies to: DotNetNuke 3.3.0 - 3.3.2, 4.3.0 - 4.3.2