DotNetNuke
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| DotNetNuke | |
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| Developer: | DotNetNuke® Corporation [1][2] |
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| Latest release: | 4.3.7 - 3.3.7 / 02-12-2006 |
| OS: | ASP.NET / Microsoft Windows |
| Use: | web application framework[3] |
| License: | BSD style license[4] |
| Website: | http://www.dotnetnuke.com/ |
DotNetNuke is an open source [5] web application framework [6] written in VB.NET for the ASP.NET framework. The application's content management system is extensible and customizable through the use of skins and modules, and it can be used to create, deploy, and manage intranet, extranet, and web sites.
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[edit] Introduction
The DotNetNuke® application originally evolved out of another project, called the IBuySpy Workshop. [7] The IBuySpy Workshop application had been created by Shaun Walker [8] as an enhancement to the IBuySpy Portal starter kit.[9] Microsoft had earlier released the IBuySpy Portal as a sample application for the .NET Framework.
Shaun Walker has implied that the name DotNetNuke® was coined by combining the term .NET with the word "nuke" which had been popular with pre-existing frameworks such as PHP-Nuke and PostNuke.[10] A trademark submission for the name DotNetNuke, filed by Walker's company, Perpetual Motion Interactive Systems Inc., was approved on November 15th, 2004 (TMA 625,364.)[11]
In September of 2006, four members of the project's board of directors formed a corporation to oversee the development of the project. The new DotNetNuke® Corporation was co-founded by Shaun Walker[12], Joe Brinkman[13], Nik Kalyani[14] and Scott Willhite[15] and will be replacing Perpetual Motion Interactive Systems Inc. as the corporate entity behind the project. [16] Subsequently, the DotNetNuke Corporation announced that it would be represented by Mark F. Radcliffe[17] from the firm of DLA Piper[18].
As of late October 2006, the DotNetNuke application had seen 23 releases since April 24th, 2004, and is currently in its fourth edition.[19] Version 4.0 or later requires version 2.0 of the ASP.NET Framework, but earlier versions will run on ASP.NET 1.1.[20]
[edit] Features
A single DotNetNuke installation can serve multiple websites, each with its own look and feel and its own user community. The latest versions have multilingual support.
[edit] Extensibility
DotNetNuke has a basic core which can be extended using pluggable modules and providers that enable additional functionality; the look and feel of individual sites can be customized using skins.
[edit] Modules
About a dozen basic modules are included with the core DotNetNuke distribution, and further modules can be downloaded from the DotNetNuke website including e-commerce systems, photo galleries, blogs, forums, wiki and mailing list options. Additional third party modules are provided by both the open source community and proprietary commercial developers.
Modules can be installed easily and automatically by uploading them through the administration pages.
[edit] Skins
DotNetNuke has a skinning architecture which provides a clear separation between design and content, enabling a web designer to develop skins without requiring any specialist knowledge of development in ASP.NET: only a knowledge of HTML and an understanding of how to prepare and package the skins themselves is required. Skins consist of basic HTML files with placeholders for content, menus and other functionality, along with support files such as images, stylesheets and Javascript, packaged in a Zip file.
Like modules, skins can be uploaded and automatically installed through the administration pages.
[edit] Criticisms
There is in general a lack of support for cross-platform, free software runtimes such as Mono.
DotNetNuke also suffers from a number of limitations. Some users have reported difficulty in developing standards-compliant and tableless skins. The default skins and the core framework use a table-based layout and the DocType declaration is hard coded into the core framework, necessitating at least minor tweaks to the core if standards-compliant XHTML output is required.[21]. The DotNetNuke core team have committed to fixing this weakness [22], with the changes scheduled for the 4.4 release.
[edit] External links
- DotNetNuke - The Official DotNetNuke Site
- DotNetNuke Directory - The official DotNetNuke Directory
- DotNetNuke Wiki - DotNetNuke Wiki web site for documentation and information
[edit] References
- DotNetNuke Corp. "Project Owner" page. Retrieved October 27th, 2006.
- DotNetNuke Corp. (Sept 21, 2006). Newly Formed DotNetNuke Corporation to Manage Future Growth of Open-Source Web Application Framework Project. Press release.
- DotNetNuke Corp. "Licensing, Copyrights, and Trademarks" page. Retrieved October 27th, 2006.
- Walker, Shaun (Nov. 30, 2005). "ASP.NET - Introducing the 'DotNetNuke' Web Application Framework". Sys-Con. Retrieved October 27th, 2006.
- DotNetNuke Corp. "What Is The History of DotNetNuke?" page. Retrieved October 27th, 2006.
- Microsoft Corp. (Nov. 15, 2005). Shared Source Leads to Internationally Successful DotNetNuke Open Source Project. Microsoft Corp. Retrieved October 27th, 2006.
- Wiley Publishing. (2005). Professional DotNetNuke ASP.NET Portals Wiley Press. Page 4. ISBN 0-7645-9563-6. Retrieved October 27th, 2006.
- Walker, Shaun (2005). Professional DotNetNuke ASP.NET Portals. Wiley Publishing. ISBN 0-7645-9563-6. Excerpt on-site reprinted with permission of Wiley Publishing. Retrieved October 27th, 2006.
- Wiley Publishing. (2005). Professional DotNetNuke ASP.NET Portals Wiley Press. Page 17. ISBN 0-7645-9563-6. Retrieved October 27th, 2006.
- DotNetNuke Corp. (Sept 27, 2006). DotNetNuke® Corporation Retains DLA Piper Attorney Radcliffe as Legal Counsel. Press release. Retrieved October 27th, 2006.
- DotNetNuke Corp. (Nov. 7, 2005). DotNetNuke 3.2 & 4.0 Now Available. Press release. Retrieved October 27th, 2006.
