Exactly what I want to say. I really need an book on how to develop complex DNN modules.  The two books out there are pretty good, but not strong enough on module development.

thanks

Frank

SmilingFrank wrote:

Exactly what I want to say. I really need an book on how to develop complex DNN modules.  The two books out there are pretty good, but not strong enough on module development. thanks Frank

Actually, I feel the First Book (or books) can be considered as a taste.

I guess, both the Books (I have purchased both) were merely primer. While they ignited your anxity, I doubt if one can go jumping on Module Development, after reading them. The real world scenario, are pretty far different. (and there is no place other than this Forum and few techy friend on IM, who help you)

However, probably they justifed, since it served the three classes as enumerated above. I hope, the new book has basically three versions, suitable for each class, now. I would also expect, that it should only have the incremental content. Those who need full, can very well purchase the first book too. (Hey, that would be real good revenue, since both (or all four ) books will sell simultaniously )

Hi JWhite,

I agree, the choice is not simple. I also agree that having two version (at least for the overlap time) is necessary evil. I was only displaying my concern, since as a Module Developer, one has very little control over the Client's Installation(s)/choice(s). And in order to be in business, every Module Developer WILL HAVE TO have atleast two Code-sets (however, similar they are )

I would further like to request.

The Book(s) should be available in India (Indian Edtions), since more than the price, the shipping cost pinches

Why is it whenever web standards are mentioned in this forum, everyone ignores it.  Does no one care about web standards?

It is not that people don't care about standards.  It is that standards that are not achievable, or that are difficult to achieve, using the existing toolset are not worth striving for.  If it takes me 100 hours to make a standards compliant site vs 50 hours for a non-standards compliant site that works in all the browsers, then my vote is for the non-standard approach.  Even where tools are supporting a standard, there is still room for interpretation.  If you don't believe me try developing some interoperable Web Services.  You will quickly find that MS, SUN, IBM and others all have a different interpretation of the standards, hence the need for WS-I.  Throw a bunch of bugs into the mix and you see that even for CSS, which most browsers claim to support, achieving standards is not the end-all-be-all.

So in the end, I try to be as standards compliant as my tools allow me to be, and push my tool vendors to correct their problems.  You will see more people getting on the standards bandwagon as IE7 and VS.Net 2005 are released.

But they are very much achievable, particularly with the release of ASP.NET 2.  Infact I'm fairly sure with a bit a tweaking, you could produce a web standards compliant site with the CURRENT version of DNN.  It would require a couple of small changes to the core - namely a slightly modified default.aspx, and a couple of other things.

Once I have some spare time, I hope to do just that, but the point is I shouldn't have to.  There should be support right out the box.

Yes, as I said earlier VS.Net 2005 will make it much easier to create standards compliant sites.  Depending on which standard you are talking about.  CSS 1.  Yes.  CSS 2.  Mostly.  CSS 3 No.  HTML 3.2 Yes.  HTML 4.01 Yes.  XHTML 1.0 No.So exactly which standard is it that you are interested in? 

The great thing about about being an Open Source project is that we freely invite community members to particpate and provide feedback and assistance.  So if you you don't like what comes out of the box, then make some concrete suggestions or submit some code.  The more detailed and specific you are the more likely that you will be taken seriously: code is better than comments, and specific comments are better than general comments about some nebulous "standard".  If you are still unsatisfied, then I am sure we are more than willing to offer you a complete refund for what we charged you for the software.

Well as we're talking about the markup, versions of CSS are irrelevant.  The markup should be configurable, so HTML 3.2, HTML 4.01, and all versions of XHTML - the rest would be down to using appropriate skinning techniques (i.e. use divs etc if you want nice tableless markup), the menu you use (which is already configurable - I'm using a CSS menu on some sites rather than Solpart), and what modules you use to present the content (e.g. if you are using a WYSIWYG editor in a Text/HTML module, then it's up to you to produce valid markup).

DNN shouldn't enforce a particular DOCTYPE as it does at the moment.  In fact, thinking about it, the ONLY change to the Core which I would like to see is a configurable DOCTYPE (there may be other requirements, but that's the most obvious one).  There!  A specific comment. 

I'm not sure how this would work technically, or even it is possible without further investigation.  So I can't provide code at the moment :)

configurable doctype isnt that hard im using it too in a modified dnn that I use for soem of my more strict css layout portals

in my portalsettings i an simply type the doctype and then this will be used in the default.aspx page

I have replced the doctype of he original default ascx with a literal ltrDocType

this literal is then replaced with the correct doctype I entered for my portal. I always use literal instead of lables because this is the cleanest form of output ( you get just the html code you want and not with a span around it - as you would get with a label )

and the latest telerik controls all have wa accessibillity xhtml and more so they can also be used perfectly in css designs

Excellent, there we are then - can we have a configurable DOCTYPE in the next version of DNN please? ;)

nokiko wrote:

configurable doctype isnt that hard im using it too in a modified dnn that I use for soem of my more strict css layout portals in my portalsettings i an simply type the doctype and then this will be used in the default.aspx page  I have replced the doctype of he original default ascx with a literal ltrDocType this literal is then replaced with the correct doctype I entered for my portal.

Nokiko, you're the man!  Now just take it one step further and change that TextBox to a DropDownList (to help guide the noobies and cut down the typos from even we more experienced...).

Is this code public?  Are you contributing it to the DNN core?

One other feature while we're talking about web standards, is the ability to configure what style sheets are included as well.  It would be nice to just have one style sheet included, and not any of the default.css, portal.css etc which are quite large and unnecessary. 

It might be easier if just the whole document header was configurable.

nokiko wrote:

configurable doctype isnt that hard im using it too in a modified dnn that I use for soem of my more strict css layout portals in my portalsettings i an simply type the doctype and then this will be used in the default.aspx page I have replced the doctype of he original default ascx with a literal ltrDocType this literal is then replaced with the correct doctype I entered for my portal. I always use literal instead of lables because this is the cleanest form of output ( you get just the html code you want and not with a span around it - as you would get with a label ) and the latest telerik controls all have wa accessibillity xhtml and more so they can also be used perfectly in css designs

Can you please explain, what is this DocType thing ?
From where to get this code ?