GirlWithRedGlasses wrote:

loyd wrote: to allow me to create a simple site for my hair and beauty salon Do not use DNN for this purpose. If you want a simple site, find or buy a nice little website template that allows you to add your own title, photos, and text. DNN is an overengineered bit of software that only a geek could love. More importantly, perhaps, DNN sites are among the ugliest on the internet. No-one will visit a beauty salon if its website is ugly. Which site would a bride visit: Elegant Events (DNN) or Jasmin Bridal? If you are in the business of selling beauty, your website should not be ugly.

Girl you better get new glasses. The links you posted are supposed to back up your statement of Dnn and the way Dnn sites look. Well many of the users here have been around Dnn sometime now, and we have seen a lot of cool, slick, nice, spectaular sites made with Dnn.

What you need to remember is that "all" Dnn is is a framework. The skinnning and the look and feel of a Dnn site are totally possible to change in anyway you like. For instance I and many with me here could easily design a site like your Jasmin Bridal site and have it run on Dnn. There have been produced so many good Dnn sites that I think before coming with a statement like yours one need to get the facts straight. Some developers are coders, other are designers and some are a mix. If a coder feel he/she should focus on the possibilities or functionlity I can see now wrong with that, the layout and look can easily be upgraded any time they like. They can even have professional designers do it for them.

Your statement is  wrong. It shows just how little you know about Dnn and it's skinablility.

Ok, Dnn is not for everybody, I agree. If you only need static pages, with no dynamic functions other then a postback script other options can be more correct for you. But do not say that Dnn look is a reasson not to choose Dnn. If you don't like it simply change it, there are some really good and free tutorials on skinning. They give you all in details.

loyd wrote:

Hi again and thanks to all the contributors and theire posts. I just want to reply in order to put things into perspective, all I was saying initially is that in general terms DNN is advertised as being 'very eay to use' and 'simple'. Those that advertise it, presumably as a marketing ploy to sell their hosting packages etc. do not make it clear that before it becomes 'user freindly', 'very easy to use' and 'simple', a significant amount of prior programming knowledge is required, irrelevant of the level of that persons individual knowledge and skills in their particular field. I truly thought I was aquiring a wysiwyg program, perhaps in the end I did............................ thanks loyd

Loyd, as Phil (IWonder) pointed out, saying a machine (or software) is simple to use, does not mean no skills are required. The only way you need to have programming skills with DNN is when you want to create your own custom modules. The other skills you are probably refering to have to with some knowledge how to set up a database, some knowledge how to set up a website etc. Depending on the hosting solution you chose, you might receive also some help from the hosting provider. Compare it with buying a computer ... would you buy a bare bone computer, and set it up yourself, or would you buy your computer set up and ready to run from a knowledgeable source, that can help you when you run into trouble.

BTW, once you started to use DNN, it IS wysiwig ... just like MSWord is wysiwyg, but you'd have to install Word first too .... Installation processes are typically something that "non-geek" persons find very difficult, that is not only a problem with DNN. If you say "Those that advertise it, presumably as a marketing ploy to sell their hosting packages etc" you might be right, but you might be wrong too, it just depends on the party that is selling it. Whenever i sell a dnn solution to a client, i set it up for him completely, and add the contents he wants, so he has a starting point. Along the road, i keep giving support .... All that comes at a cost .... if the client does not want to pay for that, that is his choice.

So, basically, all i can advise you, if you dont feel comfortable installing software like dnn yourself, and you don't have the skills to make it look the way you want, contact one of the many providers that can offer you a various range of support for your site. You will pay a little more, but in the end you will get the site you want, and once it's up and running it's a trully wysiwyg application ... not many web applications can say that ...

cheers,

Erik

loyd,

I must ask, is the DNN site set up for you all ready?  What I mean by that is that if the hosting provider is providing this free, I am guessing that they have all ready established the database and connected your URL to your folder running DNN.  If so, then I am guessing you might be going through some confusion on the DNN Moniker (Waht are Tabs, Roles, Modules, etc.)  If this is the case, ready support is available.  Ask away.  Do you have a URL?  Normally when a DNN website is set up for you, a default portal with a few tabs (pages in DNN 3.x) with a few modules on them.  The simple WYSIWYG component the hosting company is probably referring to is adding content to your site.  Once you log in with your administrator account, probably provided to you by your hosting provider, you should see additional links such as "Edit Text" on your front page.

While I can understand your frustration, any technology requires a small amount of learning to understand the terminology used in the application.  As has been stated before, unless you need customize functionality, a website can be set up quickly by anyone who knows how to use Word.  Use this forum and its resources to answer questions for you to get you up to speed.  I know I wouldn't mind helping you get over the "hump".

If you can be a little more specific about where you are and what is available to you, then you might get a better response to hopefully show you how easy DNN is to use.

Programming knowledge? What programming knowledge. You don't need to know ASP.NET, VB.NET, CSS, DHTML, or anything about web technologies. Out of the box, Assuming your hosting company set up DNN for you, You configure and run the entire thing by filling in forms no harder than a questionaire. Really how hard is this?
Title:
Description:
Logo: (A drop down box)
Body Background: (Another drop down)
and so on. Same thing goes with modules, You pick one from a list, fill in a title and hit the add button. Some modules require you to fill in a few settings but the core modules are very simplistic. IF you don't know what a setting does you just leave it alone or click the little question mark next to it.

I just don't get where you can say you need programming knowledge or geekness to use DNN. DNN is easier than frontpage.

All of this is assuming DNN is already running for you. And if you don't have the skill to install it you simply use a host that installs it for you.

BTW: Sure DNN can get complicated if you want to create skins or custom modules. But you've been saying you want a simple site.

Hey guys! Notice Loyd hasn't replied in a while. It would take more time to read through all of these posts than it would to figure out how to create the "small" website he wants. :)

Well alexdresko I'm still here, I've been reading the posts whilst ditching DNN and have created a very nice site, albeit simple, using another program. Thanks for all your comments and help. My criticisms were meant only to be constructive.

cheers
loyd

GirlWithRedGlasses wrote:

More importantly, perhaps, DNN sites are among the ugliest on the internet. No-one will visit a beauty salon if its website is ugly. Which site would a bride visit: Elegant Events (DNN) or Jasmin Bridal? If you are in the business of selling beauty, your website should not be ugly.

Judging a program based on the site that are created with it is like comparing apples and oranges.  Any good skin designer could recreate the look of the Elegent Events site.  Since a skin can be created completely with HTML using some custom tags to insert skin objects, anyone that knows HTML can learn to create DNN skins pretty easily.  I actually have taken templates I found on the web and created skin based on as ways to learn how to create DNN skins.  DNN has nothing to do with the look and feel of a web site, excpet if you use one of the default skins that comes with the core.

Also, once the database is setup and DNN is up an running, you do not have to have any programming experience to use DNN.  I have created a site for non-programmers and they have been able to update their sites on thier own almost from day one.  Yes, I had to install it for them and get it up an running because they had not idea how to setup an MSDE or SQL Database, but I would not expect them to know that either.  I would definately recommend the new book that was just released.  I got my copy last week and it is a very good book For both technical and non-technical users.  I am not one of the core members that was involved in writing this, so this is not a cheap plug for the book.

loyd wrote:

, a significant amount of prior programming knowledge is required, irrelevant of the level of that persons individual knowledge and skills in their particular field.

Sorry, but that is simply wrong.

I'm not absolutely sure you really understand:
a) what 'programming' actually is
b) what WYSIWYG means.

Until you do, I don't really think its worth commenting on.