A couple of handy tips to make working with your DotNetNuke site a little more user friendly and quicker to install those well used modules and move those 'less used ones' further down the selection box.

So here is a common scenario amongst site administrators and hosters. You've worked out that you need to get a few modules, or perhaps you've developed some modules for clients but the naming convention of them is too long....it's getting tough out there - the only modules that don't have prefixes are the default DNN ones. 

From what I've heard by developers, it's important to get yourself a naming convention that doesn't conflict with the core DotNetNuke modules or other developers... and what I've see is naming conventions that take in the whole company name and the module and in some instances when there are 'multi module' installations, further extensions to the name.

For example -I use the Catalook Store module from http://www.catalook.de and while there are only 3 modules to install, there are in fact about 23 modules that make up this application so when I need to choose a module for a specific page, I select from the dropdown selector, just like every other administrator.

But what I've notices is that the names are getting longer, and in some instances I have to try two or three times to get the module on the page to use.  I can see why we have a default setting here - apart from aesthetics, it's got to fit within an 800 x 600 space that has been allocated still for the default installation and for the majority of users who do nothing but use the default installation it's fine, but for those who are wanting to push dnn further, use third party modules, develop their own modules, well it's a bit awkward but as a site host (you need HOST access to perform one part of this tip and FTP access to perform the other), you can make management easier by customising a few things.

Taking all that into consideration, the list of modules in use is getting sooooo much longer that you almost have two scrolls to get to the most commonly used module - 'Text/HTML' module EVERY time you add it to the page.  These couple of tips will give you back those precious moments and increase efficiency.  (OK that's my story for now and I'm sticking to it)

There are two separate actions required to change your settings to make your working space optimised. One is regarded as 'core changes' since you are changing a file and ftping to server and the other is not a core change as you are changing a file in the  Host/Module Definitions area and that does not affect upgrades.

Tip 1 -Making the Text/HTML module appear up top of page

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• Log in as HOST
• Click the Module Definitions Tab under the Host/Settings page
• Scroll down to the Text/HTML module and click Edit - This will bring you to a new page.
• You will see a name called Friendly Name - and that's what you see in the dropdown box when you are actually adding a module to a page. And by changing to Add Text/HTML - it will now bring it right up to the tope under Account Login.
• You can then change the Account Login name to be something else like User Login and it will place it to the bottom of the drop down box which is quite acceptable as it's not the most used module and is also placed closer to it's partner - User Account - so it's sort of logically set isn't it.

Now the cool thing is you can do this with all your modules and for the ones that have long names to them- you can abbreviate them to make the shorter and show more of the actual module so when placing into the site - you're guess or flicking between the Host/Module definitions and if your site administrators who don't have this access willl be happy to be able to put in the correct module first time.

This is particularly the case when working with developers who have long unabbreviated names and multiple modules to run their sites.




Tip 2 - Changing the ASCX file to force a wider DropDown text box

BACKUP YOUR FILES FIRST AS ERRORS MAY STOP THIS PAGE FROM WORKING.

While this is regarded as a core change, it's relatively easy to do and even when you do an upgrade on the site to a later version of DNN you can go back in and change it quite quickly and it does make your life easier when you're installing modules.

All you need to do is track down the file called icon.ascx in the root folder -  \admin\ControlPanel\iconbar.ascx and look for this piece of code -
Change where it says 140 to 180 - or whatever size you think you need to display the words, save and then refresh the any page -to see the change.


Here you can see the end result -
Text/HTML Module nicely place right up the top where it's use the most
And you can now read the full module name.

This is something I do on most of my installs to make them user friendly and quicker to work with.

I hope you get some benefit from this.

Nina Meiers