Jeremy this makes it all so much easier, and neater. After reading Bo's setup I just realized that I had my modules building right on the main bin folder which is not a good thing. The BuildSupport project is a brilliant idea. Hats off to the development team for the Dotnetnuke.All.sln.

One thing I found useful, was to create a custom configuration in vs.net, so that the only projects building were the ones I was working on, which can save a lot of time.

@Dave, thanks for all your help. I got the localization deal working.

I asked this in another thread, but perhaps one of you knows the answer: How can I tweak the VS.net IDE to color code dnn and sqlprovider files without having to change the file extension to .xml and .sql respectively.

DBuckner / jwhite / anyone else!

Your posts have been a lifesaver. A few more questions related to custom module development in DNN 3:

I have Bo’s DAL Builder pro. Should I not use it anymore or wait for an update? When I use DAL Builder Pro I get errors like 'DataCache' is not a member of 'DotNetNuke'. Is this because the class members changed? How do I fix this? Is there a class browser I can look through to find the member I am looking for?

When I look at “Datprovider.vb” file in the survey module it looks completely different than the old one. Should I simply use the examples like survey as a guide and start coding differently? It looks like a lot less code. Is this a DotNetNuke improvement? Did the DAL change?

Thank You for any help anyone can provide!

I use DNN Jungle templates, and what I did was to replace the top part of both my abstract class, and my sqldataprovider class. I replaced this with the survey module's code, and I was able to access the db without problems.

It seems that they are now using a different method to cache the connection. Another part that was changed greatly was the module settings, the custom settings are now integrated with the module settings. I had to take a hard look at the settings.ascx.vb of the survey module to figure out the changes.

Leigh Pointier posted a class browser in his site.

Posted too fast, that one was for DNN 2
This one is for DNN 3

All core modules are now PA's so you can learn from any of them, not just survey.

I just started looking at DNN 3.x and I'm a bit confused about all the solution files. If I want to make my own custom modules, which solution file should I use?

And can someone explain to me what the "BuildSupport" project does and how that differs with the "Solutions" bin folders?

The Build Support project allows you to use a separate bin folder for each of the modules, and it has a reference to all the projects which in turn results in the compiled files being copied over to the main bin folder.

Personally I use the dotnetnuke.all.sln and then place a reference of my projects in the BuildSupport project

Ok, so this is what I should do (correct me if I'm wrong please) if I want to create my own solution?

1) Create a blank solution.
2) Add the DotNetNuke web project to the solution.
3) Add the "Solutions\DotNetNuke.Core\BuildSupport" to the solution.
4) Whenever I create a new module, I add a reference to the module's project in the BuildSupport project.

All of this works, and my dll's are being copied over appropriately to the maing \bin folder. But for some reason, when I try to run my module, it keeps giving me an error:

"DotNetNuke.Services.Exceptions.ModuleLoadException: Parser Error: Could not load type .... "

All the DLL's are in the \bin folder like I said, and it's still giving me the same error. I think something may be wrong with the DotNetNuke install, because I'm even missing the admin text for the icons. Gonna re-install. =)

bigkat, this is what I do to setup the development environment, and it works for me:

1. Install DNN
2. Modify the solution file "DotNetNuke.All.sln" on the second line to reflect the path.
3. Open DotNetNuke.All.sln in VS.Net 2003.
4. Go to Build/Configuration Manager, and uncheck all the projects. This prevents the compiler from building them every time.
5. Add my module project and dataprovider project to the solution.
6. Add references to the projects in the BuildSupport project at the top.
7. Setup Dotnetnuke as the start project, and Default.aspx as the start page.
8. Begin coding.

It will probably be beneficial if you post the complete error. Some of the guys whom hang out in this forum can tell you the problem just by looking at the complete error. From what I can tell, there is something wrong with your classes and or namespaces which is preventing DNN from loading the type (class).

thanks for the help.

I re-installed DNN 3.0.5 and everything started working with the same code. I should've figured something was wrong with the install since all the "Page Functions" text was missing below the icons ("Add", "Delete", etc). =)

Thanks though, and this is a good reference for other ppl to read!

@jangeador2:

can you please tell me re: #5, what kind of project are you adding ? Also, what kind of files do I need to add to create a simple HelloWorld module ?

Please help.
thanks

Dot_Net_Boy:

I downloaded and installed the DNN Jungle Templates for VS 2003 you can get them here:
http://dnnjungle.vmasanas.net/Default.aspx?tabid=28.

After you add this you will have several project templates available in your VS.net 2003 projects, such as DNN Skin Object Project, DNN Module Project, DNN Data Provider Project. Once you select one of these it will create the project with all the necessary files for you.

One thing is that these module templates are for DNN 2.12, so you will have to modify the file Imports to reflect the new namespaces, change the dataprovider objects to use the new methods, and all the other things that changed from 2.12 to 3.0x...

I find that even not being updated they still save me a lot of time to setup the basics of my project.

I also use the CodeSmith templates from the same site to build my Data Access Layer and my Business Layer.

Hope this helps.

Thanks !

I been following the information on this thread to setup my development environment. When I open the DotNetNuke.All.sln from 3.05 Beta 2 Build, and try to look at any ACSX file logic, it gives me following error in a message box:

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The file could not be loaded into the web forms designer. Please correct the following error and then try loading it again.

The designer could not be shown for this file because none of the classes within it can be designed. The designer inspected the following classes in the file.

Discussion -- The base class 'DotNetNuke.Entities.Modules.PortalModuleBase' could not be loaded. Ensure the assembly has been referenced or built if it part of the project.

Make sure all the classes used in the page are built or referenced in the project.

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donot know how to fix this error. Any help in this regard will be really appreciated