SunBlogNuke - DotNetNuke Blog Module

Today we are glad to announce that SunBlogNuke v6.1 is available to free upgrade. It looks a long time without any updates from our team, however, don’t worry about this project and we are still paying lots of attentions on developing better software/products for you and it will be never dead :)

As more and more websites built by SunBlogNuke, our clients not only focused on the efficiency and better usability but also asked more requests about the performance of this publishing tool. Indeed it is time to speed up another performance action. We reviewed the performance of all the store procedures with SQL Server Profiler and invested where it was running slow and why. In the process, we built accurate iteration to fix them with running lots of testing. Even through we may missed something else,  there had been no sacrifice of quality and stability in the SunBlogNuke product and we assured you that the SunBlogNuke v6.1 will be speeded up in your DotNetNuke website.

Why not have a try? Get started now.

Major Highlights in v6.1:
Min DotNetNuke version required: v6.0.0

• ENH - SQL optimizations with better performance, mainly for default blog view and Content Slider Widget.
• ENH - supported new tokens "DigNum" and "BuryNum" for post entity.
• FIX - upgrade issue from "4.8.0" to "6.0" caused by SQL script.
• FIX - approved/rejected links always show when posting new comment.
• FIX - date time not referring to the preferred timezone of every current user any more.
• FIX - email notification not delivered when new comment posted.
• FIX - threw exception when aggregate feed based on portal level.

If you are applying upgrade process, please BACK UP YOUR CHANGES BEFORE PROCEEDING and follow up the suggested upgrade path: v2.1->v5.2->v6.0+.

NOTE: from v6.0 the SunBlogNuke will begin to not support DotNetNuke 5.x any more because it will utilize core APIs introduced from DNN6+, such as daylight savings time. If you are still using the dnn5, you don’t have to be worry about it because we will also maintain independent branch of the older version 5.8.x, which will always be compatible with dnn5 and may be updated with fixes without new features any more.

You can get it here. We hope that with this generation dnn blog module you can enjoy the blog writing and it will make your life better; plus if you have any good advice about our products, please feel free to leave a comment or contact us.

The SunBlogNuke Team

As we promised ever, we always maintain the independent branch of SunBlogNuke and build it compatible well with older version DNN4.x. Even through you are still using the DotNetNuke 4, you don’t have to be worry about it and just feel free to let it there without any update as you like. Yes, the development status is active, too; we may include some updates with fixes if necessary.

Today we would like to announce that we had updated the latest package of SunBlogNuke for DNN4 from v4.8 to v5.2, which is available for free upgrade.

In this version we had included lots of cool features introduced by the main building and fixed some urgent bugs introduced by the last building, including SQL script and installation manifest conflict with DNN4.

You can get it here. We hope that with this generation dnn blog module  you can enjoy the blog writing and it will make your life better; plus if you have any good advice about our products, please feel free to leave a comment or contact us.

BTW,  if you would like to upgrade it with latest package in your DNN5/DNN6/DNN7+ website, the recommended upgrade path will be changed as follows:

v2.x/v3.x/v4.x –> v5.2 –> v6.1 or the latest package

And if you are troubleshooting with upgrade, please take a look at these tutorials below:

Common problems with SunBlogNuke

Known issues related with upgrade

Finally the SunBlogNuke 6.0 is available to free upgrade today and it will be first version of next generation blog optimized for DNN6 & DNN7. In this building we fixed some critical issues, including daylight savings time issue with removing timezone option and Windows Azure Cloud Compatibility; plus implemented lots of enhancements, such as feature related posts with thumbnail and posts migration between blog instances in the same portal/website.

And next we will focus more attentions on mobile devices, including responsible theme and App to manage blog posts/comments. Now we are trying to find professional designer, if you are interested in our blogging/article module or familiar with DNN skin design, you can contact us and help us design better theme with HTML5.

Major Highlights in v6.0:
Min DotNetNuke version required: v6.0.0

• ENH - supported to feature related posts with thumbnails.
• ENH - implemented posts migration between blog instances in the same portal/website.
• ENH - compatible with Windows Azure Cloud.
• ENH - supported embed slideshow with optional extension "FancyGallery".
• ENH - supported "subscription management" panel and notification for blog owners/website admin about subscription changed, such as subscribed or unsubscribed.
• FIX - thumbnail issue with png transparent.
• FIX - daylight savings time issue with removing timezone option.
• FIX - always exception occurred when saving blog settings.
• FIX - meta description with html entities like '&amp ;' etc.
• FIX - trackback bug not based on blog settings.
• FIX - 'keywords' issue in the tag view and resolved it as "NOINDEX, FOLLOW".
• FIX - comments with HTML tags.
• FIX - resolved the upload button of post thumbnail not clickable.

NOTE: from v6.0 the SunBlogNuke will begin to not support DotNetNuke 5.x any more because it will utilize core APIs introduced from DNN6+, such as daylight savings time. If you are still using the dnn5, you don’t have to be worry about it because we will also maintain independent branch of the older version 5.8.x, which will always be compatible with dnn5 and may be updated with fixes without new features any more.

You can get it here. We hope that with this generation dnn blog module  you can enjoy the blog writing and it will make your life better; plus if you have any good advice about our products, please feel free to leave a comment or contact us.

The SunBlogNuke Team

Today I would like to show you one alternative way to feature related posts on your dnn blog. That is a external plugin [LinkWithin]. You should know most blogging platforms now feature a number of third-party plugins that can display a list of related stories on your blog, or even on other blogs on the Internet. Typically, these plugins will look at how a story was tagged and then display a short list of similar stories that use the same keywords. LinkWithin is the newest contender in this market. The plugin looks at tags, but it also analyzes other factors like relevancy, popularity, and recency. Unlike similar plugins, however, LinkWithin doesn't just display a list of headlines underneath each post, but also a thumbnail with a picture from each post, which makes it far more attractive than most of its competitors and is why I recommend it for you here.

I’m pleased to announce that the SunBlogNuke 6.0 Technology Preview is now available for download. Keep in mind that this is not intended to be a production quality release.  You are sure to find many bugs and features that are not ready for prime-time.  The purpose of a release like this is to have an opportunity to collect feedback about new features.  This is especially important when we are building new features that impact the overall user experience and interface.  Continue reading to learn more about some of the exciting new features coming in SunBlogNuke 6.0.

We are excited to announce the final release of SunBlogNuke 5.8.0. This release brings a totally new design feature with subscription, which will allow visitors to subscribe blog newsletter in handy. As a result, the optional widget called "Subscription" now included in the core package and you can add it in any page to build target blog newsletter sign up form. Yes, that is initial version so welcome any feedback/advices about this feature after your trying. And, we refactored core theme "Simplicity" to support built-in post thumbnail since there are lots of questions/requests raised in the forum and asked why their thumbnail not expected to show in the post list. As DotNetNuke focus more attentions on social share and online community, we also followed the trend and enhanced all the social features on our DNN blogging module, including fixes with social issues.

We’d like to thank the community, sponsors and most of all the amazing feedback that have supported and guided this unique #dnn #blogging #module. We encourage you to participate wherever you can, you input and help are always appreciated. Thanks a lot for your trust on our dnn products.

Major Highlights in v5.8:
Min dnn version required: dnn 5.3.1

• ENH - added optional 'Subscription' widget into core package and supported visitors to subscribe.
• ENH - removed those outdated icons in social widget. such as MySpace.
• ENH - supported core 'Simplicity' theme with post thumbnail.
• ENH - supported 'PubSubHubbub' protocol in rss feed.
• ENH - supported social bookmark with any external customized code/script, including addthis service.
• ENH - moved "show all archives link" option into archives widget settings.
• ENH - optimized export content and fixed issues in the import process.
• FIX - tag archives view with security problem and "itemsmax" option in rss feed.
• FIX - invalid author ids caused lots of ThreadAbortExceptions.
• FIX - failure to delete blog authors.
• FIX - email notification not show html format correctly.
• FIX - shortcut link to approve comment not work.

The complete details for all of the changes can be found in the Release Notes.

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

The SunBlogNuke Team

That is one review post about our blogging module - #SunBlogNuke in depth, and you will find compare SunBlogNuke vs other DotNetNuke blogging modules and why clients choose our DNN modules. And the most benefits you get from us and what SunBlogNuke is the most flexible and user friendly module of the bunch. If you are hesitant to order our blogging module, I think that this review is what exactly you need go through :)

As the most popular #DNN #Blog #Module, SunBlogNuke would like to build better user experience for your blog writing & shared actions. Also clients ever raised issue that the bookmark configure looks little difficulty and no idea how to make it work. Fortunately, the SunBlogNuke v5.0 simplify the settings configure without losing flexibility.

Our Ultimate DNN Blog Module – SunBlogNuke can be integrated with third-party services via the MetaWeblog API and RSD (Really Simple Discoverability), like Flickr and Posterous. Recently our client Tyler just completed integration with Flickr and also contribute a awesome tutorial for us, in which you will learn how to add blog posts directly from your Flickr account and share a Photo Slideshow into your dnn blog. Now we would like to share it for our community, which you can access from the download page, and hope it makes sense when you are trying to do the same thing but not any clues. In a word, I though that it is awesome gift for us. With the contributed guideline, we would be happy to thank him with a two month extension on his license's access to support and updates. We encourage any sharing for our module because they will be helpful in our community.  If you have more tricks and tips about SunBlogNuke, please share it here or contribute it to us. If necessary, you can get the same prize. :)

PS: we just released one new Flickr feed widget for DNN blog page and you may be interested in it. Please feel free to download it and have a try if you are our license account.

In common, you can build the awesome blog post with some media files, and sometimes you would like to share lots of images with your friends. Yes, you want to build an album with those images in the blog post content. But it looks difficulty to incorporate display for larger images, which under normal situations would break the layout of this site. It will save lots of our time if there is some way to automatically organized images with clean & elegant layout and we just copy/insert images into Rich-Editor or WLW.

Congratulations. The "Fancy Gallery" extension is the exact tool for your dnn blog. And it is another extension for Ultimate DNN Blog Module – SunBlogNuke. You just feel free to add your images and this extension will do the rest for you – automatically convert them into one fancy gallery with lightbox effect.