SunBlogNuke - DotNetNuke Blog Module

If you are developing a slightly complex DNN module, how to pack it in the installation package with DNN module manifest should be one important task. It will make your module looks elegant and better flexibility - reasonable folder structure, clean installation points, easy maintenance. We recommend that you should follow up the top 5 tips Bruce Chapman mentioned in this article below:

Top 5 DotNetNuke Manifest file Module Packaging Tips

1. Use Html in the File for better layout in the install pages
2. Use a resources.zip file for all your files
3. Use a html file for your Licence Agreement
4. Make your module DNN 4.x and DNN5.x compatible by using two separate manifest files.
5. Use the ‘sourceFileName’ attribute for your assembly files.

And refer to official wiki and guideline of DNN manifest schema:

Types of Manifests

The DNN Manifest Schema

Right now we found out that the node of releasenotes only can be used like that：

<releaseNotes src="Installation\ReleaseNotes\Release.07.03.00.txt"></releaseNotes>

Wrong usage： (Who know why?)

<releaseNotes> 
   <releaseNote src="Installation\ReleaseNotes\Release.07.03.00.txt"/> 
</releaseNotes>

As you know, the simple method GetTab(int tabid) was obsolete and has been replaced by GetTab(ByVal TabId As Integer, ByVal PortalId As Integer, ByVal ignoreCache As Boolean). If you want to call the new method, we have to pass the additional parameter “PortalId”.

In common,  the object PortalSettings can be easy to get with DNN context, such as special dnn module & page; however, it may be inaccessible in some sceneries, such as separate aspx page or handler. Then is there any way to get the correct tab info with this new method? Now there is a simple trick to do it with passing into Null.NullInteger as the parameter PortalId. So the coding looks like that:

var tabController = new TabController();
var blogPage = tabController.GetTab(tabID, Null.NullInteger, false);

Deeping into the source code, you will find out that it always tries to get the correct PortalId for this tab/page object:

//if we do not know the PortalId then try to find it in the Portals Dictionary using the TabId
portalId = GetPortalId(tabId, portalId);

//if we have the PortalId then try to get the TabInfo object
tab = GetTabsByPortal(portalId).WithTabId(tabId) ??
        GetTabsByPortal(GetPortalId(tabId, Null.NullInteger)).WithTabId(tabId);

Hope this trick & tip helps if someone has the same issue.

If you are a customized DNN developer, in common you way utilize the built-in module settings with inheriting the base class "ModuleSettingsBase".  You should be careful with your use of the two types of settings that can be associated with an instance of a custom module - there are Module settings and Tab-Module settings. As Chris Cant shared in his post [DNN module and tab-module settings]:

The Module settings are associated with all instances of a module on several pages, while the Tab-Modulesettings are only associated with one instance (on a single page).

 

When you copy a module instance to a new page with Add Existing Module, only the Module settings are available on the new page. So, if you want settings to be available after a module has been copied, then use Module settings, not Tab-Module settings.

 

When a module's content is exported using Export Content, the module controller is called with the ModuleId only (i.e. without the TabModuleId). This only provides easy access to the Module settings.

So when you are developing your DNN modules, the specific requirements will decide what you want to utilize. Now I would like to share some sample coding about how to migration DNN module settings based these discussed above. Yep, at first your module controller must implement IPortable interface of DNN framework and then you must implement two methods "public string ExportModule(int moduleID)" and "public void ImportModule(int moduleID, string content, string version, int userId)":

The coding to export your module settings:

var objModuleController = new ModuleController();
var objSettings = objModuleController.GetModuleSettings(moduleID);
var settingsElem = new XElement("settings");
foreach (var key in objSettings.Keys)
{
    var item = new XElement("setting");
    var keyElem = new XElement("key", key);
    var valueElem = new XElement("value", objSettings[key].ToString());
    item.Add(keyElem);
    item.Add(valueElem);

    settingsElem.Add(item);
}

XElement root = new XElement("Root");
root.Add(settingsElem);

return root.ToString();

The coding to import external module settings:

XElement xSettings = xRoot.Element("settings");
var objModuleController = new ModuleController();
foreach (var xField in xSettings.Elements())
{
    objModuleController.UpdateModuleSetting(moduleID, xField.Element("key").Value, xField.Element("value").Value);
}

If you have better solution or any question please feel free to share with us in the comments.

We’ve been using SunBlog since November of 2009 and have been supremely impressed with this development group. The blogging module is reliable, chock full of awesome features and they continue to add new ones each release. Baldwin is responsive to community needs and requests and he welcomes input from users that result in a better application. We highly recommend SunBlogNuke as a publishing tool for any dnn website.

- Tyler Jones, SystemTrends, LLC (systemtrends.net)

Today I finally converted the navigation menu of our website as an unordered list, which is originally built with TABLEs and so ugly for SEO. It is updated with DNN Nav Menu, which is a lightweight menu based on semantic markup like UL, LI tags. It will help search engines to better understand the menu structure. So it is an excellent news for us and our website with ultimate dnn blog module – SunBlogNuke.

We just successfully upgraded our blogging platform website from DotNetNuke version 05.01.00, to version 05.05.00. So far, so good. We finally upgraded to dnn v5.5 because this fantastic release includes lots of stabilization and new killer features, especially content localization and enhanced performance, which are what we were looking forwards to.

Another good news is that our Ultimate Blogging Module - SunBlogNuke also have been fully tested with DotNetNuke 5.5.  We are not aware of any issues at this time and it just work as we expected. Later we will release a new building v3.7.5  with fixing some more bugs and issue. Hope it makes sense for you.

Enjoy Blogging and Writing. :)

The basic blogging module in DNN was not sufficient for my blogging aspirations. I found SunBlogNuke, tried it out, and am very happy with module. It has great features and I especially like the admin dashboard for the module.

Julie Heinrich (JulieHeinrich.com)

Here I would like to share how to fix the culture issue for DNN and our blog module [SunBlogNuke]. Hope it can helps someone who has the same issue. What is the Culture issue? When there is only one language in your DNN website, like the initial installation, the culture and language dropdown list may be blank. All right, let’s go ahead the topic.

While our DNN Blog Module are used by more and more clients, we are trying to provide more documents and support information in the Official Website. So if you are finding how to get started with SunBlogNuke for your DNN blog, here you go. Let's take a step-by-step tour through your setup process and learn about how all the different functions work and how to create a new blog on your own.

1. If you want to know that how to set up SunBlogNuke, please get the more information from this post [The ultimate content workflow platform :: SunBlogNuke].
2. If you want to know that how to writing a post in SunBlogNuke, please visit the post [Basic Usage of the SunBlog Module].
3. If you want to know that how to integrate SunBlogNuke with third-party services or other client tools via the MetaWeblog API, please get it from here.
4. Don’t just limit yourself when you are applying our dnn blog module, please visit the tutorial for more tricks and tips 10 Awesome Tips and Tricks to Improve Your DNN Blog.

Actually you can find more blog help documentation on our Team Blog. Here you will find tutorials, documentation, tips and tricks and much more, for example, the latest building or release.

Good luck and happy writing.

The SunBlog team

Q: How to manage my blog? And where is the manage entrance?

A: That is easy to find the blog manage entrance. As long as you login the website as your blog owner account, you will obviously find the manage link in your blog page. There exist 4 links with which you can enter the manage page for your blog management. If you can not find those links, maybe you have not been authorized as a standrad “SunBlog Owner” role successfully. Please contact the admin for more details.

Q: How to create my first post?

A: Please refer to the new tutorial [Writing New Post] updated for compatible with latest version of SunBlogNuke.

If you click the "Admin Blog" link which mentioned in last demo picture, you will should enter the administrative panel and find some options for your management as follows:

To create your first post you should choose the [Add New Entry] link. Actually writing new post is so easy that there is not any tutorial here and you just know the actual meaning for the following options:

Pinned Option : you can make your post pinned in the post list and let the reader clearly know it important. When the post is about the instruction or any other similar, this option is useful.

Display in HomePage: Sometime you maybe want this post excluded in the Home Page of your blog.

Full Show in Entrylist: If you want to let the post fully show in the entries list as the classic blog view, you can check the option.

EntryName: Maybe you are guessing that it is the post title alias, yes, you are right. That is alternative post title for SEO consideration. For example, you want to make the original title("How to install and configure SunBlog Module?") more concise("install and configure SunBlog").

Q: How to manage my posts?

A: Please refer to the new tutorial [Manage Posts] updated for compatible with latest version of SunBlogNuke.