Net Data Design, LLC Blog

Recently we had a project that required a social networking set-up (like Facebook.), but without the nasty habit of selling users information to the highest bidder; but that’s another topic within itself. We have developed such a module ourselves, but this project had a number of requirements that fit Active Module’s Active Social better than our own. Humbling, but true. That said, we will not be developing our own module any longer. Active Social (AS) not only fit the bill for this project, but we’ll continue to use it for the reasons I’ll cover below.

The primary reason for using AS was the integration of Active Forums (AF). Active Forums in my estimation is the best forum module for DotNetNuke (DNN). It is robust and feature rich and is far easier to set-up than any other. The user-interface (UI) is more intuitive than that of DNN’s core module and well worth the investment. I have used AF for many years with great success.

The other main reason was we needed to tie it into a blog/article module. AS had hooks for doing so with Ventrian’s News Articles module. And while I’m covering this, with News Article v7.69 , Scott McCulloch (developer) includes an option for Active Social journal integration. Sweet! <digression>And if you haven’t used modules from Ventrian yet, I have a question…What the hell is wrong with you? Ventrian offers the best module subscription on the planet, period. </digression>

First, setup was relatively easy armed with the products documentation and a wealth of knowledge at Active Modules knowledge base and forums. The AS package includes two modules,  Active Social and Active Forums. The AS module once installed and placed on a page has 3 different set-up options.

The Simple install creates 4 pages that host modules for:

• Forums – Contains the Active Forums module, which has your discussion forums and your Active Social group forums.
• Groups – A single page contains the Listing of all the Groups and displays individual groups when selected.
• Members – This page will show the member list and the profile of a chosen member.
• Inbox – Contains the private messaging interface.

The Standard install contains 9 pages and has some definite SEO advantages, this was the configuration that we choose. Those pages are:

• Forums – Same as Simple
• Group Directory – Contains the list of all the groups in the network.
• Group Details – Default view of a group profile. Only visible once a group has been created.
• Members – Searchable listing of all members of the network.
• Profile – This is the page used to display a member’s profile.
• Inbox – Same as Basic Configuration.
• Social Summary – The Social Stream. This page will show you updates and activity for members and groups on the site. It can be filtered to show specific types of information or certain user types.
• Login – Create a separate page containing only the active social login. This will be used for verified registration or other non-standard logins.
• Sign-Up – A page containing the Active Social Sign-Up wizard. Set this page as the “User Page” in the site settings. It will automatically redirect users to their profile.

Lastly there is the Expert Option, which is according to the user manual is not for the faint of heart and in fact isn’t really covered.

The next step is to configure the modules on the pages and set the functionality your looking for. This is probably a good place to stop and resign myself that there will be a part two of this blog.

Comments welcome…

WebMatrix is a stack of tools designed to make web development easy. The stack contains IIS Developer Express web server, SQL Server Compact Edition web database and the ASP.NET “Razor”. Razor is Microsoft’s new view engine for ASP.NET.

WebMatrix was developed to be easy and focus on getting results for your website. It has integrated the code editor, database editor, web server manager, all while focusing on SEO. And as your needs grow, you can seamlessly move to Visual Studio.

There are two ways to get started using WebMatrix once you have it installed (download here). You can start with a your own project from scratch or start with one of the web popular Open Source web applications such as DotNetNuke, Umbraco, WordPress and Joomla!.

After you’ve begun working, because WebMatrix integrates with IIS Developer Express and is tightly linked with the Web server components that your site runs on, you can directly monitor real-time Web requests and responses to track down problems right at the source. You can even resolve the little peeves like images that are missing.

SEO tools, much like those available in IIS 7.5 , make optimizing your web application easy and will even take you to your weak spots with suggested solutions.

WebMatrix is the easiest way to learn standards-based Web development and makes it simple to build and publish Web sites on the internet. Start with HTML, CSS and JavaScript and then seamlessly connect to a database or add in dynamic server code using the new ‘Razor’ syntax for ASP.NET Web pages. Your code is easy to read, simple to learn, short to write and works with any text editor. Use built-in helper functions to connect to a database, display a Twitter feed, or embed a video. And with a seamless path to ASP.NET MVC it is now easier than ever to create powerful ASP.NET Web applications.

I’ll provide some feedback as soon as I’ve had the time to fully “kick the tires.” Stay tuned.

There have been many questions on how to install and configure DotNetNuke on IIS 7.5 which ships in Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2. I will outline the procedure I use to do so. For this example I will be using Windows 2008 R2 64-bit.

When you first login to 2008 R2 you will be greeted with the Server Manager.

Server Manager

After you expand the Roles node and the Web Server node in the left pane you will be in the main IIS Manager.

IIS Manager 7.5

Right Click on the “Sites” folder and select “Add Web Site.”

Add Web Site

In the next screen we enter the web sites specifics. Fill in the highlighted areas with your information. Note that as you enter your site name an new Application Pool is created.

Web Site Details

During the above process you will create a new directory to which you will deploy your DNN code.

Create Website Directory

After this is complete, select Application Pools from the IIS Manager node. The detailed view should indicate that the AppPool is in Integrated Pipeline mode.

AppPool View

If you have not already done so, copy your DNN files to your website directory. In IIS Manager right click your new website and:

1. Select “Edit Permissions.”
2. Select the “Security” tab.
3. Click the “Edit” and then “Add” button
4. Click the “Locations” button and make sure you select your machine.
5. Enter “IIS AppPool\<YourAppPoolName>” in the “Enter the object names to select:” text box.
6. Click the “Check Names” button and click “OK”.
7. Grant <YourAppPoolName> modify permissions on the directory.

Securing Resources for your Process Identity

At this point you are ready to edit your web.config for your database connection., and get started.

If you have any questions on the Application pool details, I have covered this in an earlier Blog, you can read that here.

So, what do I mean by new look? Well, the powers-that-be have moved DotNetNuke (DNN) to an open repository. Since it’s inception from the iBuySpy days the repository has been closed.  I should note that the project has always released a “source” version of the application to the public, and for the first few years this system worked for a majority of the DNN community.

Times change however, and DotNetNuke Corporation is adapting to these changes. For instance the Issue Tracking has been reworked, and the new “Just like Clockwork” release dates. The later replacing the “When it’s Ready” policy. I was never a big fan of this policy but I do understand that a project that relied on a largely volunteer staff, this was a best fit model for DNN. Again, times change.

A few personal observations from someone (me) who has used, developed to and profited from DNN since version 1.5, the iBuySpy fork:

1. I have noticed that the quality of releases since DNN incorporated has risen greatly. There seems to be more attention paid to details and the QA/Testing group appears to have things well in hand.
2. The security of a DNN build has always been handled well, but the newer releases have been outstanding with no critical issues in well over a year. Kudos go to Cathal Connolly for an outstanding effort.

If you haven’t installed and tested this rich development platform, or perhaps you have in the past and lost favor; you need to check-it out. You’ll find a robust community and user-groups world-wide. Give it a shot.