SunBlogNuke - DotNetNuke Blog Module

Recently some client of our DNN blog module requested a customized feature, he wanted to out the posted time of SunBlogNuke in a format that included the two letter suffix added to the day number, like "December 25th, 2009" as opposed to "December 25, 2009". After some investigation, it seems this is not supported out of the box (not surprising really). Finally I found the MarkGwilliam’s post (How To Append 'st', 'nd', 'rd' or 'th' To Day Numbers in Dates) which provided a ".NET Framework friendly" to implement this behavior and therefore offers good reuse value and is intuitive for .NET developers to use. I thought that is what we want and then extended it in our customized way which allows SunBlogNuke developers to consume the code more easily and flexible. Now I shared the VB.Net Function below and hope it helps if you also have the similar requirement:

Protected Function FormatPostedTimeWithDayNumberSuffix(Optional ByVal format As String = "MMMM d{0}, yyyy") As String
    Dim dateTime As DateTime = Date.Parse(Entry.PostedTime)
    If Not Null.IsNull(dateTime) Then
        Dim formatTime As String = dateTime.ToString(format)

        Dim day As Integer = dateTime.Day
        Dim dayFormat As String = String.Empty
        Select Case day
            Case 1, 21, 31
                dayFormat = "st"
            Case 2, 22
                dayFormat = "nd"
            Case 3, 23
                dayFormat = "rd"
            Case Else
                dayFormat = "th"
        End Select

        Return String.Format(formatTime, dayFormat)
    End If

    Return Entry.PostedTime
End Function

If you have more better or elegant solution appreciate your comments here. Thanks a lot.

As our blogging module #SunBlogNuke# are applied in more DNN websites, some clients requires customization based on their specific requirements. The unique UI layout including theme will be a common issue. Toady we would like to share tokens reference of theme view with some samples so that you can get started to customization easily. As our blogging module #SunBlogNuke# are applied in more DNN websites, some clients requires customization based on their specific requirements. The unique UI layout including theme will be a common issue. Toady we would like to share tokens reference of theme view with some samples so that you can get started to customization easily. Useful built-in methods CategoryLinks(string delimiter): to build separated category links with desired delimiter(such as commas. Code Sample: <%=CategoryLinks(", ")%> CategoryLinks(string delimiter, string token): to build separated category links with desired delimiter(such as commas) and format token. ...

Today our team released a new optional widget (named 'Photo Viewer Widget') for Ultimate DNN Blog Module – #SunBlogNuke. If you are the client of our module and finding some similar stuffs, that is yours and feel free to get it from widget page (Required Login). It is free, customizable image gallery. It allows you to display the thumbnail of your blog posts on any dnn website in a professional and intuitive way.  Take a look at the screenshot below:

The customizable image viewing widget is based on popular and awesome component – SimpleViewer. Initially the widget was inspired by our showcase gallery and we would like to provide the alternative way to present those excellent websites with their thumbnails.

Then we made some searches in Google and finally got that SimpleViewer is what we want. It is so lightweight and easy to use, it features smart preloading, a resizable interface, thumbnail menu and optional description text. The only thing is that we need to load gallery xml data from our showcase gallery. That should be so easy. Then I took 2 hours to program it with retrieving all the target posts with their thumbnails and provide some basic options for customizing the personation of flash component .

All look great. Please visit the case-studies page to see how it actions.

Note that its minimal required environment is DNN v5.x and SunBlogNuke v4.2.5 and  it is not core widget so we may not support all the possible issues. You can extend it as you want due to the available source code, such as category select support.

Also feel free to leave your thoughts and suggestions here if you indeed would like to let us make it more awesome and we may enhance it for you. In the latest version we will integrated it with Flickr Gallery. That will make it look more awesome.

There are some awesome ways to optimize your post footers, like related articles, subscription options, and social bookmarking icons allow readers to browse and share your content. Today I would like to share another ways you may be also interested in, display the author information at the bottom of each post. The following tutorial will provide you with the ability to show off the avatar, the biography with Ultimate DNN Blog Module - SunBlogNuke on your DNN website.

In common, the most important feature for blog platform is its usability so that your reader can get what they want easily. In order to keep your blog clutter-free, you must pay more attentions on your blog’s design, such as the sidebar content & widgets. Today I would like to share you some tips & tricks about monthly archives widget of Ultimate DNN Blog Module - SunBlogNuke. You will learn alterative awesome to display monthly archives list with usability.

Today we would like to release an enhanced version 4.3 for Ultimate DNN Blog Module – SunBlogNuke. Please feel free to get it for upgrade. In this building we enhanced theme mechanism with providing more ways to customizations, in the mean time it began to support EditArea (the code editor in a textarea) to highlight the theme view files and now you can easily deal with those customizations. For example, from the v4.3 you are able to take control of the layout or UI of your customized theme, such as bookmark, vote and related posts  section. The awesome sample is the tutorial - Integrate SexyBookmarks into DNN Blog.  As usual, the complete details for all of the changes can be found in the Release Notes.

Major Highlights in v4.3:

• ENH – Supported EditArea (the code editor in a textarea) to highlight the theme view files and now you can easily deal with those customizations.
• ENH - Refactored styles for all themes.
• ENH - Enhanced theme mechanism with providing more ways to customizations.
• ENH - Supported imageurl/icon for Categories Widget.
• FIX - Fail to fall back '_default/commentview.ascx' when the comment view file of the current theme does not exists.
• FIX - The 'Print' link opens a blank page in the browser and the resource cannot be found.
• FIX - Enhanced digg feature and made it work again.
• Lots of other fixes & enhancements.

NOTE: As with any release, we recommend you perform a complete file and database backup before performing any upgrade on a production website and that you first conduct a trial upgrade on a staging version of the site. Following these guidelines will ensure that you are able to recover should any unforeseen problems arise during the upgrade process.

Note that some issues may occur if your original version of SunBlogNuke is lower version, like 3.x, and you've developed your customized theme. Please refer to the tutorial - Must-Read Note for SunBlogNuke v4.x and follow the instructions. Hope it makes sense.

You can get it here. Blog your way and enjoy life. :)

The SunBlogNuke Team

Finally our development team implemented the custom fields feature for Ultimate DNN Blog Module – SunBlogNuke in the upcoming version 4.2, which will be available soon. The use of custom fields will be one of the keys to SunBlogNuke's flexibility and endless possibilities. Essentially, all a Custom Field does is allow you to add extra pieces of data to individual DNN Blog posts that otherwise aren’t there by default. We hope that it will change the way people look at SunBlogNuke and rise in popularity of SunBlogNuke, too.  We’ll look at how to put custom fields into practice and continues to show you some potential uses of custom fields later. Hope it makes you easier or more productive to use custom fields.

As you know, the Ultimate DNN Blog Module - SunBlogNuke v4.0 will be available to download for free upgrade. In this building we took more attentions on "Refactor". With refactor you will be able to extend more features easily. However, if you would like to upgrade it and also you ever developed any customized theme or did some customizations, you MUST modify all view files lightly, including BasicView.ascx, DetailView.ascx, CommentView.ascx, TagsView.ascx, SearchView.ascx, and PrintView.ascx. Otherwise the "Event Viewer" of your dnn website will be filled with lots of errors, like "Could not load type 'SunBlogNuke.Framework.PostViewBase'.". Actually that task will be so easy that just follow some simple following steps.

We’ve received a feature request from our client Tyler. He hoped that we can provide a handy way to deal with the datestamp of their dnn posts, including format and style, for example, he want to be able to pull out the day (27) and convert the month to abbreviated form, e.g., Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec.

I also agree his point and indeed blog calendar date icons, which show the publication date next to each entry, provide a simple way to spice up your blog design. Using just a single image, a bit of CSS and some simple configurations this tutorial will show you how to implement something similar in the Content Slider Widget (& your own themes, which will be supported in next building). Plus we share some resources for you to use. Note that you should apply those customizations with Ultimate DNN Blog Module – SunBlogNuke v3.6.x or later version which had been integrated with DNN Core Token APIs and provides you more extendibility and flexibility.

Active Social has some powerful extensibility capabilities which you can leverage with your SunBlogNuke installation. For example, you can add an additional tab to the Active Social user profile page, and load the SunBlogNuke "Content Slider" widget within it - giving you a "My Blogs" tab.The cool thing about this is that then you can apply the same learning to integrate other modules that can use a custom user key. Today this tutorial will cover how to integrate SunBlogNuke to Active Social User Profile Tabs and show you the flexible capability it owns.