Firstly I need to apologise for some 'mis information' about new features for DNN 5 that I discovered while upgrading some sites.

The initial information about the host settings features are in fact in DNN 4.8.2 & above from my understanding.  I have been doing quite a few upgrades of late, and missed this feature until I was looking at the host settings on another site yesterday - so I am sorry that I might have given you some wrong information.

I don't know why but it took me about 5 installs to get it working correctly, including the html editor installed first time.  Nevertheless, I'm happy to say that it's working correctly.  Add vendors is not yet, but that's ok - there are some other functions to discuss here.

Now, I am pretty sure there might have been some news around with these new features, but I'll share with you anyway- and I've used the latest News Article from http://www.ventrian.com as my example of installing a module and going through the steps.

All functions relating to anything uploaded (except for the files that you use on your site eg.. images, content) can be uploaded from another area.  I'm not sure if it will be in replacement of the existing Module Definition.  Perhaps Module definitions will be phased out but not ready at this stage. I hope there will be only one defined section because I'm seeing it's getting a little messy with installations able to be carried out in several places.  I am not sure if it will give more overhead to the build, but for now, I'm just guessing it's the first step to bringing in all installations to one location.

As you can see here, modules, languages, skins, containers and authentication options are listed clearly on one page.

You can see with the skins / containers - there was a .resource file in the root/install/skins folder, giving me the option of installing the skin at time of build, or, when I get to the extensions page.

I need to point out that I found it a little challenging with all the places to find things.  The only way I could get to this page was the 'install modules' link under the Add/Copy modules on icon bar.  Every other link took me to a different page.  But that's where it is.



There are two options when installing an 'extension'. 
One is the Install Extension link and the other is the wizard.

The Intall Extnsion Link - was for modules and skins with the .resources extension, found in the install/modules or install/skins folder - so I guess if you had licensing and terms as shown in theh following images, when uploading the news article module, then perhaps you could install and by pass the licensing.  Sure the terms would be on there if you checked the 'installed module' but as part of the 'licensing and terms' process, the concept of ticking the box and accepting the terms seems to be been diluted by the fact you wouldn't be asked to do so, if using the 'resources' method of packaging.

Just a thought while I work my way around this new function and analyse its purpose from my perspective, since that is all I can do at the moment.



Shown above you can see the 'ignore file restrictions' and I would think as host, you would be responsible enough to ensure that modules and skins you have don't have any malicious code or other elements that could be uploaded.

I guess again, from my perspective, this could dilute the security aspect of DNN.  Maybe I'm paranoid, but in the current method, you MUST PUT IN the extensions you will allow to be uploaded.  I know for some this is a pain if you have to back in and put in an extension because some unusual file wasn't in there, but the point is... it's pretty locked down.  I know that swf and js files were not in the settings for host, but you could put them in there and then the skins would be uploaded without issues and js files missing, and I think in later versions - swf is an allowed extension.

But here we're saying - ignore the rules and just install whatever.  Again, my thoughts are that I can't see why it was necessary if there is a rule already set in the host / settings for a super user to go in and add the extensions they need.  Maybe someone could shed some light on the benefit of this function.



Every install allows the author / creator of the module or skin the ability to display their information on the module. This is visible to both Host and Admin.  There a .dnn file in the skin folder which has all this information on there.

Now, if you are  reseller of DNN and want some ability to do some whitelabelling - you will be wanting to hide this function from the administrator of the site - or perhaps you could remove the file altogether.

While I think this is an excellent idea, there are many MANY companies who use DNN as their business model and might not like the concept of the 'nothing is sacred' any more as their site adminstrators can view all the infrastructure.

If you are administrator, you can access each module and set permissions (I wasn't able to get them to correctly work - I may need to spend more time on it) but the thought behind this from my perspective was the ability to add lots of the admin modules to the main site and allow site administrators to do more with multi users/managers - but they have restricted access.  I'll cover this later in my thoughts as I type all this.  (thank goodness I taught myself typing when I was only 12, over a long hot summer, on one of those old remington portable typewriters with the round keys and ribbon ink with black and red print)




In this section above, you can see the release notes functionality - This is a great way for users to see the notes that developers and skinners can now provide as part of the install.  I think this is a great function.  Now, as savvy and up to date people, we need to make sure we keep this as updated as possible.   I can see alot work for skinning people to bring all their skins up to date.




The licensing option - this now makes it possible for you to enforce a 'check this to agree to terms' before proceeding further.  As I pointed out earlier, if you have a module that is part of the install, this would probably not be acknowledged.  Not really a big thing I guess, but again, an observation on something that has taken alot to imlpement into the dnn build, but could be completely useless if you use the .resources method.

Having said that - I will give it a crack to see how it works with commercial modules. Perhaps that's something that will be part of the build in the future - can't install without agreeing to terms.



I installed the news article module successfully and that was actually quite good since again, the only element that didn't work as expected was the text html module in the 'summary section - but i'm sure it won't ben an issue on the release.



I then jumped back to the home page - and, as you can see in the picture above, there are quite a few modules now, visible to the host only.  I'm still working out the reason for this.  I'm sure it will come to me.. shown below are the modules that are only visible by the adminstrator, but you can as host, put them on the page, which I don't really quite understand.

For example - on http://www.dnnbeta.com - I put in the extension manager on the front page, visible to all people, but not visible in module dropdown box, when logged in as administrator to put on a page, but editable by administrator when logged in.




Still trying to work out why all these things are being done.. I know there is talk of the social networking phenomenon which will blow us all out of the water, but I hope they are hiding something from us all at this stage because I'm not seeing anything here that makes me think this is a mind blowing release. 

Not that I'm trying to be over critical, but really want to analyse these builds now, and the 8 months or more we've been hearing talk of this Cambrian release, but to this stage, I'm seeing mainly lots more adminstration headaches and things to learn and buttons to push and places to install things.




There is no Skins folder in the admin / dropdown any more.  It's all handled by the 'extensions' manager.

In fact, I couldn't find anywhere now for the host to give the administrator upload permission for skins.  It was not in the normal Host / Settings  - Other location as I remembered it being, so even after looking in all the obvious places, I was unable to find anywhere that lets me allow my portal owners - the customer - the ability to upload their own skins.

I'm sure it's somewhere but I gave up after serveral minutes of looking and will keep my eye out for this.





I think this still must be under some development.  There is an extra place for management of permissions where the site administrator can in fact, add users to be able to 'deploy' the module.  By deploy - I'm not sure what that means - because although I set all users to be able to deploy some of the modules,  and then logged out, nothing happened, meaning that either I need to learn more about what it does, or, it doesn't quite work.

I am feeling there is like a third level of management here - whether or not it's related to versioning  - whatever, I can't quite work it out yet - and will need to spend some more time looking at it.



Shown in the images above and below you can see the same pages, from the perspective of admin (above) and host (below)  Administrators can see the extensions, modify permissions, read licenses, terms developer details... all of that - but only HOST as shown below can actually do something.

Now, here is my thought on this - What was this all for for the administrators, if they can't do anything in the first place.. Unless of course they are able to install the modules in the install/modules folder, I think a LOT of time has been spent on something that I for one will be removing from my clients visibility.  Like the solutions explorer, google adsense which takes you to the DotNetNukeCorp site, like the market explorer - I don't mind them on some sites, but the sites I deploy and manage, I think this is not required but quite difficult to remove.



So, there you have it - another perspective on the new build - I will be looking at the skin functionality over the next few days but I'm quite busy at the moment with upgrades, new work and some really stunning sites to be launched - I am going to get my portfolio updated at last.. It has not been done since 2004  .. yep 2004  - that's 4 years of work I need to tell the world about.

My next approach will be on looking for the sizzle and whizz bang... I'm looking hard but I can't honestly see a single thing at the moment that makes me stop in my tracks and say - wow that was worth waiting for.

After so many months of waiting, I'm sure there are many people keen to see all these great features we've been reading about.

That's all from me for now - Look out for Part 3 - when I tackle the skins... I'm nervous - since I was not able to get one working - so we'll see what happens now that I have a build that appears to be error free.

Nina Meiers