DNN Tips

Author: mamlin Created: 12/5/2008 3:31 PM
Brief tips on administration of DotNetNuke portals and management of users and content.

DNN Hosting Tips: GoDaddy upgrade 04.09.00 to 04.09.05
By mamlin on 9/3/2009 1:08 AM
Using GoDaddy's DNN auto-installation feature saves time and headache, but the installed version is still 04.09.00. Well here's the lowdown on upgrading from the auto-installed version to the latest 04.09.05 version...
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TIP: Enable substring search for DNN Search
By mamlin on 6/7/2009 10:15 PM
For some reason I can't fathom, DNN Search does not perform substring searches. In this tip we'll look at the one-line tweak needed to enable this common search feature...
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DNN Hosting Tips: DotNetNuke on GoDaddy
By mamlin on 4/15/2009 11:26 PM
Want to install DNN on GoDaddy (but also want it to be easy)? Here's a brief overview of options and a handy tip -- removing subfolder name from URL -- when auto-installing DNN under GoDaddy's "Deluxe" hosting plan...
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Tip: Force DISPLAYNAME to a predetermined pattern
By mamlin on 4/13/2009 5:17 AM
For sites where users' DISPLAYNAMEs are made public (via forum postings, etc) it is desirable to allow users to pick their own DISPLAYNAME values. If you have a site where DISPLAYNAMEs are NOT public, however, you may save yourself some headache by forcing DISPLAYNAME to a predetermined pattern (plus you'll simplify your site signup process to boot...)
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DNN Hosting Tips: DotNetNuke on Network Solutions
By mamlin on 3/20/2009 12:46 PM
This is the first of what I hope will become a series of tips focused on DNN hosting providers. I'm not advocating any particular provider (there are plenty of good ones). I'm simply sharing operational tips regarding various providers I've dealt with when setting up DNN sites for clients. Hopefully these tips will save others some time and a few headaches when setting up their own DNN sites in shared hosting environments...
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Add "Save as PDF" feature to your Blog for free
By mamlin on 3/4/2009 1:47 AM
Easily let users save your blog entries (or any web page) as PDF files for free with Web2PDF. Although this service has been available for nearly two years, I've rarely run across any blogs that make use of it or anything like it. The service does not place ads on your site or in the rendered PDFs and it works even with DotNetNuke's dynamically-generated pages. To top it off, adding the feature to your DNN site is simplicity itself...
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Filter out "static" in Google Analytics results with a single click
By mamlin on 2/25/2009 5:06 AM
Google Analytics (GA) use is as widespread as it is useful. Unfortunately, the default results can often be misleading to the uninformed Analytics user. I'll share one method to filter out a lot of the "static" in GA by clicking a single checkbox within the recently-introduced Advanced Segments feature...
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DotNetNuke USER ROLES and ROLEGROUPS
By mamlin on 2/3/2009 5:00 PM
Some thoughts and tips on USER ROLES and ROLEGROUPS in DotNetNuke. ROLES provide the fundamental means of determining who gets to see what content. ROLEGROUPS help organize ROLES by defining collections of ROLES but...ROLEGROUPS are not as helpful as you might expect...
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Tip: Stop DNN page from scrolling on page load
By mamlin on 1/30/2009 8:54 AM
Here's a scenario that can drive your users crazy: A certain page on your site always seems to open in the middle instead of at the top, making users scroll up to see the start of the page. This has happened to me more than once (thanks to the LOGIN module), but I have a simple solution...
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List of DNN 5.0 problems fixed (and not fixed) in DNN 5.0.1 (updated 1-23-2009)
By mamlin on 1/22/2009 10:50 AM
(Updated 2-17-2009) DNN 5.0 represents a good step forward on a number of fronts. Unfortuantely, 5.0 was not exactly "ready for primetime". The upcoming 5.0.1 "stabilization release" fixes a good number of 5.0's problems. This post lists a number of more notable items both fixed AND not fixed in 5.0.1...
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DotNetNuke SiteMap Submittal, Warnings and Priority Rules
By mamlin on 1/12/2009 7:31 AM
These SiteMap-related tips include another way around the Google page-priority warning, places to submit your sitemap and thoughts on creating page-priority-value "rules". This post fills the void between the "Improve Page Prioirty Feature of DNN's Google SiteMap" and our upcoming release (free!) of an enhanced sitemap that enables per-page sitemap priority settings...
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DNN 5 - List of Changes and Additions from DNN 4.x to DNN 5
By mamlin on 12/5/2008 2:23 AM
I've seen quite a few people around the 'net asking for a list of major changes from DNN 4.x to DNN 5. I have always found it a little frustrating that there never seems to be such a list (outside of brief Gemini Change Logs) when new versions of the DNN framework or even new module versions are released. We often get bits and pieces via blogs and forums but rarely a solid list of features as you'd normally find for a commercial product release. To this end, I decided to make and share my own list of notable DNN 5 features...
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How to hide TERMS OF USE, PRIVACY STATEMENT and/or COPYRIGHT
By mamlin on 12/2/2008 8:50 AM
Sometimes DNN provides more default features than the average admin needs. A common example is the collection of links that appear on every page for TERMS OF USE, PRIVACY STATEMENT and COPYRIGHT. Fortunately it's very easy to remove any or all of these without editing your DotNetNuke skin...
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Format and Sort your DNN Events RSS feed results with the DNN NewsFeed module
By mamlin on 9/4/2008 11:45 AM
(Updated 1-29-2009) If you like to stick to using the core DotNetNuke modules as much as possible (hey, they're free!) and you use or have thought about using the DNN NewsFeed module, you'll likely appreciate this post. Specifically, we're going to look at using the NewsFeed module to list calendar entries from the DNN Events module. By default, the results of mating these two modules is not impressive, so we're going to tweak and improve upon the original using nothing but Notepad and without changing any core DNN code...
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Add custom registration instructions to the DNN user account registration page
By mamlin on 3/12/2008 5:11 PM
Have a DotNetNuke portal with open registration and wish you could freely add your OWN instructions to the DNN user account registration screen? Sure, you can edit the input field names (to change "Username" to "LoginName", for example) but what if you wanted to put the message "*** Please use your Email address as your Username ***" at the top of the user account registration page? Here's one FREE way to do it without changing any DNN code...
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Lost and Corrupted LinkClick links in DNN modules
By mamlin on 2/13/2008 7:04 PM
Have you experienced a sudden corruption of document links in your DNN "Documents" module? If the documents are still physically present in your Portal folder but the links in the Documents module no longer work, this may be the reason why...
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There are many great DNN modules.
A few we highly recommend are:
 
Dynamic Registration
Total control over the user signup process.  Create custom forms, execute your own SQL, use the integrated payment processing features to assign user roles, validate USERNAMEs via AJAX and much more.  Very cool.
 
URL Master
Change to friendly URLs that really ARE friendly.  Add keywords into your page URLs for better SEO.  Create 301 redirects for individual pages.  Force visitors (and search bots) to a single domain (i.e., make everyone use the "www" version of your site's URL or vice versa).  One of the single best upgrades for any DNN site.
 
Document Exchange 5 (DMX5)
Drag-and-drop from Windows Explorer directly into the DMX file manager!  File versioning, file and folder moderation, extend user permissions down to the file level (for user groups and even for individual users).  Infinite file and file info presentation options via custom display templates.  Store files locally or remotely via UNC (i.e., can securely store files somewhere besides your web server).  Much more.
 
XMOD by DNNDev
Rock-solid form module for data collection.  From simple feedback / email forms to complex, multi-part tabbed forms.  XMOD is different from other form modules because XMOD does not create a new database table for every new form definition -- an important feature if you plan to create dozens or hundreds of forms over the life of your DNN instance!  Excellent support from the developer and an active community around this module.
 
If you desire your form module to create a new DB table for each new form definition, a great alternative to XMOD is the Dynamic Forms module from DataSprings.  Dynamic Forms offers direct DB access beyond that found in XMOD as well as an easy drag-and-drop form builder option to help you get up and running very quickly.

 
     

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