DotNetNuke OpenForce
The OpenForce Event happens once a year at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. There is also a companion event several weeks earlier in Europe. If you have never attended, I would highly encourage you to attend at least one. Not only are there 4-5 days of DotNetNuke at the Vegas event, you may also attend any of the many DevConnection sessions of Asp.Net Connections, VisualStudio.Net Connections, Architect Connections, and SQL Server Connections.
DotNetNuke Upcoming Features
The upcoming release 5.2.0 of DNN will include some core groundwork in the localization API, as well as the inclusion of the Telerik commercial web controls suite. While both the CE (Community Edition) and PE (Professional Edition) will include the latest version of the asp.net controls, only PE will include the RadEditor as a replacement to the usual FckEditor. The decision to include the controls is a watershed event - the UI will be greatly enhanced, the hierarchical menu will offer much better SEO and caching, module interfaces will be much more consistent, and the end user experience will be much enhanced. Combined with the native availability and increased use of the jQuery library, this year will see significant improvements in the DNN form and function.
The next major version, 5.3.0, is planned for Q1 2010. It will include distributed data stores such as to Amazon S3, an overhaul to the native DNN search engine, the sharing of users across portals (portal groups), further work on content localization, and improvements to the UI.
On the horizon are such things as content staging and publishing, content taxonomy and tagging, document management, and SEO refinements.
DotNetNuke Editions and Licensing
It was reported that there were 250 licensed customers of the Professional Edition in the first 9 months of the program, a very encouraging number. The existing license model was repeatedly brought up for questioning during the week, including being posed several times during the closing panel Q&A. The gist of it is that DNN Corp. is standing firm on the existing price points, and there isn't any give on the need to buy an individual license for each server in a web farm.
DotNetNuke User Experience - A Look Ahead
Nik Kalyani
Nik gave a very engaging talk about what lies ahead for the DotNetNuke end user experience. Among the top level items that are being actively pursued are graceful degradation of the interface among various mainstream browsers, standards compliance, increased use of AJAX in the interface, and semantic rendering primarily due to the inclusion and use of the Telerik controls.
Nik presented many interface prototypes that he composed using a software tool from Balsamiq Studios called Balsamiq Mockups. Definitely worth a look if you have the need for quickly creating sophisticated interface design prototypes that can be easily modified.
Nik also reminded the audience of the DotNetNuke Blueprint Project on Codeplex - a project that provides a WYSIWYG reference implementation of a DotNetNuke skin to help designers get started with skin design.
Other items of note:
- jQuery and Telerik controls will be wrapped up into task-centric widgets for use by module developers in their projects
- The DotNetNuke Starter Kit offerings will be expanded to include further use cases that will help module developers be more productive
Deploying DNN in the Enterprise
Jason Kergosien
Jason presented an overview of a recent project implementing DNN as a content management system for one of the largest school districts in Dallas, Texas that involved 50 web sites managed by hundreds of content managers.
He found the project management software Basecamp indispensible - a web-based collaboration tool by 37signals.
For a look at a nice way to institute a support area, check the Grand Prairie Web Site Support portal.
And don't get the wrong idea, it wasn't a presentation filled with product placement - simply products he finds indispensable such as the Markit SlideShow module.
Secure Module Development: Theory, Technique, and Practice
Brandon Haynes
While some may find the subject of security an unexciting topic, Brandon's presentation was actually very entertaining. He discussed the related concepts of STRIDE and DREAD, attack trees, and encryption technologies, and then applied these techniques to DNN module development.
The key takeaways were to develop using the "default deny" approach whereby user rights are granted as needed (instead of removed as needed), and the importance of utilizing the core functionality to securitize your module. For example, PortalSecurity includes useful input filters (no markup, no scripting, no SQL), ForceSecureConnection to force the page into SSL, and IsInRole for checking user memberships. FileSystemUtils can ensure that file uploads are inline with the portal security settings for allowed file types.
STRIDE Attack Types
Spoofing
Tampering
Repudiation
Information Disclosure
Denial of Service
Elevation of Privilege
DREAD Categories of Risk
Damage Potential
Reproducibility
Exploitability
Affected Users
Discoverability
Microsoft offers a static analysis tool to analyze software security issues called CAT.NET, but you might want to wait until v2.
DotNetNuke in the Cloud
Charles Nurse
Charles presented a strong overview of the existing options for running DNN in a cloud. However, there are still some remaining issues to complete before DNN will run cleanly in either Amazon EC2 or Windows Azure Services.
On a related note, Charles demonstrated the Amazon S3 provider that Brandon Haynes put up on Codeplex. It provides seamless (and painless) integration of S3 into the file management portion of the DNN framework. If I'm not mistaken, this will be wrapped into the core in the not too distant future.
Also, an attendee made mention of GoGrid, which they preferred because they don't charge extra for OS licenses.
Note: AppTheory blogged about scaling out DNN PE on EC2 here. While they mention some remaining obstacles, this might provide some useful information for you.
Content Localization in DNN
Peter Donker
Peter presented the latest developments in content localization for DNN. The effort is starting to hit full stride, with this weeks core release adding some key enhancements and revisions to enable core localization in an future release point.
As Peter presented, the issues surrounding proper content localization can quickly become quite complex. The struggle is to find a good balance between a sane content management strategy while also achieving ease of use.
The module Peter demonstrated was a localized version of the DNN Links module - a project he will post on Codeplex after doing some code cleanup. An interesting strategy he took was to create a companion table alongside the existing Links table that would house all of the localizations, including the default localization. At run time, an ISNULL in the sql query would pull down the localization of choice and if null, would instead pull down the default localization. The link editor also included a nice set of controls for quickly adding any/all instances of localized content.
DotNetNuke and the Facebook/Flickr APIs
Chris Hammond
This talk was primarily a demo on pulling information from a Facebook profile via the Facebook Open Stream API, which was released in April (documentation here, forums here). The Facebook API can be used to both pull and post from/to Facebook profiles.
In addition, Microsoft re;eased a Facebook SDK this month that adds the ability to easily view indigenous Facebook Platform methods within the Microsoft Development environment with intellisense. While there are 5 dll's in the SDK, you really only need to reference two of them in your projects - Facebook.dll and Facebook.Web.dll.
To get started, simply add an application to your facebook profile which will generate an API Key and Application Secret. This key pair, and the accompanying link URL is all you need to then get started. On the site side, place xd_receiver.htm to the root of your site to provide the required facebook scripts.
Chris had mentioned that he would post a VS Project on his site but it hasn't appeared yet. As an alternative, there's some quick start tutorials here.
A secondary portion of the talk was a short demo on using the FlickrNet API Library to display a Flickr gallery. Just as with Facebook, the first step is to generate an API Key and Shared Secret via a Flickr account. For your reference, here is a drilldown on the Flickr API methods.
Windows Workflow and DotNetNuke
Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and DotNetNuke
Steve Fabian
Steve presented a great topic on how to use Microsoft's Windows Workflow Foundation in your custom DNN modules. He was so well received that he has begun a blog series to step you through the entire process.
His other topic demonstrated the use of a WCF Service to access and expose some DNN data with both a SOAP and REST endpoint. The above blog link will lead you to a blog series on this topic as well.
If that wasn't enough, Steve is preparing a DNN Developer Framework that he is planning on putting up to Codeplex in December. The toolkit will provide some useful tools for the DNN developer.
jQuery, JavaScript and DotNetNuke
Kevin Schreiner
Kevin demonstrated clearly just how easily jQuery can be taken advantage of in your DNN modules and skins. With the inclusion of the jQuery library into both the DNN core and Visual Studio, the library is easily taken advantage of.
As Kevin pointed out, the most important concept to remember is "Find an element...do something with it."
Some useful links to get you started:
Although I didn't personally attend his other talk, Kevin also presented DotNetNuke on Speed and Performance. Some takeaways from this talk included the use of CSS Sprites (info here) to dramatically decrease load time for your site content, and the use of ySlow, a Firefox plugin that analyzes web pages and suggests ways to improve their performance based on a set of rules for high performance.