It's time to get this going again. Now that the holiday s are over and people are starting to settle back into a routine, it's time to find out what's needed for the next version. I'll start off with a few items on my list:
* Caching on a web cluster - caching does not work on a web cluster when any changes are made to data, which includes admin changes tot he site. *
Better admin tools - When you get more than a dozen pages, trying to keep the site map in your head becomes harder and harder. Also, knowing what security each page has would be nice before clicking into it. My suggestion would be to have a tree control
(see the site map!) with a dozen or so labels/textboxes/etc to the right. When you click on a node the critical info of that page is displayed. You can then Edit the page if you like with a simple button click. *
Newsletters - it would be nice to have newsletters as a module rather than strictly an admin thing. Also, send to should be able to target groups within the site rather than all users. *
RSS feeds - these are still partially broken. It would also be nice to have a module for aggregation.
Advanced registration ideas 448734
What other ideas are there out there? :)
Keith Barrows
Ad Astra Per Aspera - "To the stars thru difficulties"
One of the reasons I moved away from GCN when it was back in it's hay day was the problem the URL. Such as if I typed http://www.aspinsiders.com/Information/ the site and URL no longer works. So the user can be mislead into thinking the site is down when if
they typed http://www.aspinsiders.com/Information/default.aspx it would have workd fine. It goes against everything everybody knows about HTTP especially if you are a user that is not use to the GCN bugs. That is one of the reasons I created http://www.omniportal.net
which does support the problem listed above. What I did was use Request.PathInfo to layout my directory structure that way no matter what is typed in my application will always handle the request and it requires no special setup on IIS. So my application can
handle any of the following: Http://www.somedomain.com Http://www.somedomain.com/ Http://www.somedomain.com/Default.aspx Http://www.somedomain.com/Default.aspx/ Http://www.somedomain.com/Default.aspx/Default.aspx Http://www.somedomain.com/Default.aspx/Help.aspx
http://www.somedomain.com/Default.aspx/About/ Http://www.somedomain.com/Default.aspx/About/Default.aspx By using this PathInfo method I was also able to make it possible to make it look like there were multip.e pages in one directory too. Everything is being
pulled from the database and the inner core of OmniPortal works on much of the same principals of GCN. To read more about the project goto
http://beta.omniportal.net/Default.aspx/About/ I actually wanted to merge the two projects in the begining and make my changes as a patch, but I realized that I needed a different module structure
for the changes that I needed. Also the theme support for my for my project is totally seperated, I didn't like the way the original Community software worked with themes, it just seemed to add an extra unnessisary layer to the code. So I just drop the idea
of a merger and moved on with developing my Portal. If you are interested in combining ideas I would be willing to talk. Currently my module structure is very propriatary, however I have made an OmniPortal Module that can use IBS Modules so to extend the functionality
of my software. I would eventually like to create an OmniPortal module that can use the GCN modules. But what I really am looking for is either for my project to really take off or have the code used, because I have put alot of work into the software and I
really think it is a good solution. However I haven't got much recognition because of my lack of Modules and a development community that can work on the core and modules. Maybe we can help each other. Nick
another wish list item: * Shared user base between communities - if a switch is thrown. In other words, when the admin sets up a community he can select the user base from another community or setup as an isolated community.
Keith Barrows
Ad Astra Per Aspera - "To the stars thru difficulties"
I don't know how far we got into this one, but the way communities are handled needs some overhaul. 1) Handle more than just 3 part domain names. Like foo.bar.com.uk 2) Handle sub-communities based on a single host name with different sub-folders. For example:
foo.bar.com/community1 and foo.bar.com/community2. The main complexity here is that the GCN would have to be installed at the site level, not in a sub-folder and the community names (sub-folder names) will have to be validated to ensure they aren't the same
as a real physical folder or section name. Mixing #2 and #1 for the same site would be nice, but not necessarily required. 3) Allow more than one URL mapping for a single community without requiring wildcards. For example: www.toast.com and www.mysite.com
should both be able to point to the same community. Again, mixing with #2 and #1 above would be good. 4) Allow wildcards to appear in any portion of a URL (I would recommand against allowing wild cards in sub-folder mappings like #2 though). For example: www.*.com
should be different than www.*.net which could be different than *.*.net. Some sort of rule engine would have to be developed for this though. This would work in conjunstion with #1 and #3 allowing as many URLs with wildcards as is needed to map to a single
community.
A couple things that I forgot to mention about my implimentation is. 1) The DAL is totally generic so currently there is support for both Access and SQL and MySQL is in the works. 2) Modules are added just by dragging and dropping a DLL. This is don't through
the use of Attributes that are populated into a DataTable at the start of the application. 3) Security authentication is also modularized, so currently their is support for a generic form implimentation and windows implimentation. But using my method of the
authentication module I have also got ASP.Net Forums authentication to work realitivly easily. 4) Since my modules are not just bound to one page per section. I have been enable to make the ASP.net Forum modular too. So I was able to add 3 forums on my one
site, but due to the limitations of ASP.Net Forum not supporting multiple instances from one database all the sections looked the same. This didn't require me to modify the ASP.Net DLL at all, I did have to change some of the ASP.Net Forum aspx pages to controls
inorder to support my module design but it worked really well. I really hope I can put my code to good use and both projects can benifit from each other. Nick
Redd, Currently the portal I proposed above supports your #1, #2, and #3 ideas. Also I have never really considered you #4 but it definitly is a easy idea to impliment. I don't think there would be any problem in doing it. Nick
Yeah. Though ASP.NET is not my primary job, and I've only had time for one community project at a time, I have looked in on OmniPortal from time to time. It is a very good design from what I've had time to look at. A lot of the functionality reminds me of stuff
coming down the ASP.NET 2.0 pipeline too :) But the systems are still quite different. Unfortunatly, I am in the middle of another project and don't have much spare time... but I'd love to see a combined effort. The main thing is figuring out how to combine
the two without leaving backwards compatibility behind. Borrowing some of the code is one thing, but Omni has a lot more to offer than just a few snippets of code to jack into the GCN. StarPilot, Omni does quite a bit of what you'd wanted for the GCN 1.2,
especially in the area of drop-in pre-compiled modules. The CSK modules implementation is very difficult to use currently as we've discussed before. Thing is, I haven't had time to actually see just how it works exactly. I just don't know enough about it to
figure out how to combine them. I may get some time next month to look into it more though...
One of the things we have to get going is CDN user activity. 90% (+) of the code changes were made by <10% of that user community. There have been ideas from that group but we need more involvement. I am going to post another 15 day get active or vacate notice
as I'm still getting 3 or 4 requests to join every week. As far as GCN 1.2 goes, I think it's time for a re-engineering of the basic plumbing. If we had 3 or 4 people willing to put in a few hours every week we could turn it around in a month or two. That
way, we could incorporate the good ideas in OmniPortal and come out with a real winner for the 1.0 and/ 1.1 ASP.NET frameworks. We would also have a good idea of the inner-pinings for future work.
Keith Barrows
Ad Astra Per Aspera - "To the stars thru difficulties"
I would agree. I can put in very limited time though for the next couple of weeks while I finish up a particularly big project I already have in progress. After that I should be able to put in more time.
>> It is a very good design from what I've had time to look at. A lot of the functionality reminds me of stuff coming down the ASP.NET 2.0 pipeline too :) That is one of the things that scares me. :) Because it makes everything that I have done pretty much
obsolete. But I guess that is the nature of the game. As to the other stuff about redesigning the plumbing of GCN. I don't forsee any problems in creating a Module that could handle the current GCN modules. Because I have already done this with RainbowPortal.
I have no problem with you guys using my core for version 2.0 as a starting point if you really like what I have done. I have no problem with changing anything in the core that you feel needs to be addressed. Currently how OmniPortal works is you have 3 layers:
_______________ DAL _______________ Core - Security, Module Loading, Section Handling, and other low level stuff _______________ Display/Module/Portlets So the core is very flexable in what it does, and I don't see any reason a module (wrapper) couldn't be
designed to encompas current older 1.x GCN modules. Or even the themes that are currently getting used, because if you didn't notice the theme that I am using is one for the original CSK. Well let me know. Nick
I like where this is headed. Redd is one of the 2 admins on the project on www.gotdotnet.com (GotCommunityNet is the workspace). I need to free up some slots so we can get you on board - and that will take a few days. Until then, we can collaborate via these
forums on design and issues. :)
Keith Barrows
Ad Astra Per Aspera - "To the stars thru difficulties"
Well if you want to put together a list of a couple people I can add them to the SF project that I am currently using for OmniPortal. Do you think it would be wise to check everything in right away since the structures of the two projects are totally different?
Could you elaborate on the framework Omniportal uses? (eg, where the source data for the DAL is, module structure, page rendering, etc?) It's one thing to try to merge two projects. It's quite another to merge two projects that are notably different. At some
point, it's easier to just abandon one or both in favor of a porting project. .. I don't lurk here much. Been a busy couple months of conferences and releases at work.
Hello StarPilot Is this thread is getting off topic and closing, or can I still post my wish list here ? Opening a new wish list thread or is "Architecture [GCN 1.2] - A discussion" meant for wish lists ?
I have a wish list for FTB: 1) Possibility to change background color and default font. In my GCN this doesn't work. No connection to Editor.css. Cannot find the bug. 2) Fix FTB bug for enabling the charcter Ø for Denmark (and Norway). How it can be fixed in
a very simple way: 403397 3) Image privacy: Upload of images to database or seperate community folders instead of as it is: a common folder, that can be viewed and deleted from any community.
Wish list for administration of registred users: 1) Added fields (International style) for Address. 2) A user should have the possibility to sign off. 3) In admin Edit Users better overview of users; more fields displayed. 4) In admin Edit Users full control
adding and deleting etc. users.
Here's probably an easy one. Advertisements. Having shared Advertisements between communities makes real commercial use of GCN not possible, each community needs to have it's own ad engine. Maybe one community does not want ads. I've been wanting to write a
simple admin page to upload new ads, change the frequency, etc. Try teaching a newbie how to FTP ads to their site and edit BannerAds.XML and BoxAds.XML! And here is a second vote for sending newsletters to specific roles in the community. Think I also saw
this up above, but I felt like I spent an entire afternoon once clicking that da*n little up arrow to move a page in the hierarchy. Tim
On my wishlist : a truly multilingual system This covers the following : 1/ Transform all programs where all (english) text in the code that is to be rendered to the end user is replaced with a call to a resource yielding the proper translation of the text
2/ Make sure all coding practices (like Alphapicker.cs or HTMLEditor ) are language neutral 3/ Transform all .ascx and .aspx files so that they become (through databinding?) language neutral 4/ Put in place a translation engine so that text translation is
stored in the database and is updatable to a given language by a volunteer and allowing resource files to be automatically regenerated, so that access to program code is not needed during localization 5/ document program patterns (for .cs, .ascx and .aspx
files) that are language independent 6/ make GCN core tables containing English text to become language neutral 7/ Add a language field to the user registration, and to community globals 8/ Add a language field to content pages 9/ Make the admin and the ISPAdmin
modules language neutral This is all rather ambitious and I cannot promise to do it all for GCN v1.2, but if priorities can be defined I can engage in the above directions. Architectural discussions must be adressed as this topic impacts almost all .ascx and
.aspx files and a fair amount of the .cs files
TimParsons: I like your idea. However it still leaves out the people that want to add a javascript ad banner system to their site. Much like those the banner ad companies offer. I had a big problem with this because I use a banner ad company for some of my
sites and you cannot add their javascript code into the way the XML file is setup. So I just ended up overloading the BannerAd control and pulling the information from the database. This turned out to be a really effecient method for OmniPortal, because it
allowed you to change everything from a simple interface. ejay: I have also struggled with finding the perfect method for making my software OmniPortal truley multi-lingual. What I came up with was the following. I would provide basic keywords. Like "Send",
"Okay", "Cancel", "Log in", etc. Something that every portal is going to use. And then provide a convient interface so that the module developers can create their own multi-lingual files and use them effectivlly. This will cut down on the massive databases
and resource files like RainbowPortal has, because they lump everything in one resource file. My idea was to make it more of a component thing where it gets included with the module instead of the system. This will put the pressure on the Module developer
to create a resource file and it won't force a system admin to recompile the resource file each time. Tell me what you think about the two ideas.
ejay > On my wishlist : a truly multilingual system ejay > [...] ejay > This is all rather ambitious and I cannot promise to do it ejay > all for GCN v1.2, but if priorities can be defined I can ejay > engage in the above directions. ejay, I played around with
a multilingual extension, not as sophisticated as you ask for, but which would be a first approximation. Mainly a theme can have multilingual support (for which resource files are used) and adding a culture parameter for the relevant tables in the database
Upon connection to the gcn, the culture preferences are stored in a cookie and I wrote a a culturechooser control which permits to change this setting (between the choices the theme permits [a theme author provides support say for french and english and german]
and in the administration menu while specifying the theme, the admin chooses among them those he wants to be allowed for his section). As it is a feature of a theme, a community site can even have different sections with different language support... Module
authors have anyway to provide skin files in the themes folder so have to provide the ressources files if they want make it multilingual (as Nick suggests) However, as you say, ejay > Architectural discussions must be adressed as this topic ejay > impacts
almost all .ascx ejay > and .aspx files and a fair amount of the .cs files So I stopped for the moment, not being sure how ASP.NET 2.0 will imply architectural changes in the very near future. As was sayed already in this thread, quite some ideas from the
starter kits and other portals as omniportal made their way into ASP.NET 2.0. I realized this while playing around with the alpha version so I aksed myself on which timeline we will merge the new features into GCN 2.0 and whether it would'nt be a better idea
to implement multilingual support from the ground for this new version than rewriting skins which will perhaps be handled differently in ther very near future. Resource files for instance are handled in the new code folder and are accessed without using the
resources manager. No recompile necessary. When thinking about this I asked myself whether we should'nt try to merge the good features of gcn, omniportal (among others, I really like eg the possibility to have different databases as MySQL!) and the new 2.0
ones as early as possible (perhaps as a branch until summer) ? Anyhow we will be confronted with this when the 2.0 rolls out. What do you think about this ? Is it too early ? Robert
These are feature requests for GCN 1.2, not 2.0. GCN 1.2 is still targeting the .NET 1.1 framework, so don't worry about the ASP.NET 2.0 features just yet. We can cross that bridge when it gets here, but ASP.NET 2.0 is still about a year away from release (maybe
more, maybe less).
Redd, I don't know if this could be done for v1.2, but there needs to be a quick install method for modules. Such as a setup file that the process can run through and install everything including SQL. Also I am not totally sure about the structure of the modules
in GCN but is there one entry point that all modules would have that people could add a ModuleAttribute on so to make it easier for the system to find new modules with out having to do a lot of SQL work? Also have you had a chance to check out the archectecure
thread? I am eager to start a collaboration project. However I am not sure if we could have it ready for version 1.2 if you guys want to proceed with the merger, also I don't think all the changes that we would make would just warrent a point release.
Wishes (may already be done/in-progress -- I just haven't been following along): - consistent CSS usage. At least in the earlier versions, in particular CSK, CSS support was lacking in a few spots, and inconsistent in others. Someone should go through and make
sure everything's referencing a CSS class. - consistent layout. Part of why I haven't updated my installation has been the knowledge that I had to spend a long time correcting differences in layout among the various modules. For out-of-the-box, they should
be very consistent. Has this been done?
Robert Sorger: "a theme can have multilingual support (for which resource files are used)": on the one hand I like this idea as it would not impact all the skin files but just the one related to that theme; on the other hand I do not like it as it would duplicate
in that theme all skin files already existing as english only files (in the default theme for instance) and make the whole system more complex another general remark on being multilingual : begin multilingual (or global in Microsoft parlance) imposes additional
constraints on the skins and engine developpers, as well as (slightly ?) on the run time since multilingual text must be marked as such during skins and programs development and localized dynamically at run time through resource files (or other to be found
methods); unless some one has a bright idea on how to escape this, we need to accept this extra cost if we want our system to be usable world wide. Redd : regarding ASP 2.0 : if that is at least one year away I agree we should not care about it yet; however
if we have some hints about where ASP 2.0 is going, we can perhaps bend the multilingual development in such a way so as not to break everything when ASP 2.0 comes in; can anyone provide a few links on where to find info on ASP 2.0? About why being multilingual
is necessary in a not too distant future: I have personally done already twice the translation (to French) - a first time with CSK V 0.5, a second time with CSK V 1.0 - I know I need to do it again with GCN V 1.1 and I know others have done the same (to German?
to Danish? to Italian?); its a total loss of resources on a very boring task, it slows down the adoption of new versions and therefore slows down usage feedback for the whole community.
Granted Roger it is going to make the system more complex, but the complexity is nessisary for GCN to move forward. Most of the themes that we have come in a pack of say 5 or 10 so you don't need to recreate the wheel for each one, and most other skins are
built off pre existing skins so many of the resource files would get reused for themes. However the tricky part comes in when you start talking about modules. Each module is going to have to have their own handling system. This is not that difficult at least
with my system, but the problem is I only speak English so it is tough getting people to translate files for me. I have thought of two methods to make it rather easy to produce globalized sites with out having each skin creater need to know the languages nessisary
to translate everything. The first way is to overload the complete set of webcontrols and make them multilingual compatible so that when they are called there is no need for the developer to do anything, they just have to put the name in of the resource key
and then the control handles everything else by fetching what is needed from the right resource file. The second way was to parse all child controls right before the page renders and depending on what is in the Text field is what is going to be used to fetch
from the resource file. There really isn't any great way of doing this and I tend to prefer the first suggestion over the second because it is very easy to impliment.
ejay: re asp.net 2 -- look up anything regarding "Whidbey". Including information on this website. Also, there are books: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index%3Daps%26field-keywords%3Dasp.net%2525202/104-3102729-0927964 The "First Look"
book, which I have, is decent. I don't how the others fare.
Regarding Nick's issue that user can use http://www.aspinsiders.com/Information/default.aspx but cannot use http://www.aspinsiders.com/Information/ to access the information, I think I can help address the issue at a more fundamental level. As I understood
it, when a user types http://www.aspinsiders.com/Information/, the request will not be handled by aspnet_isapi.dll. Instead, IIS will try to find one of the possible default files in the physical directory. If the physical directory does not exist, user will
get 401 - File not found error. To fix this problem, I can write an ISAPI filter and install it to the web application. The ISAPI filter will rewrite the path like /Information to /Information/default.aspx. Then the request could be mapped to asp.net isapi
extension. The limitation would be that we will not be able to setup anything other default documents. This is probably not too bad a limitation if we only load the ISAPI filter on asp.net applications. I am going to give it a try to see if the idea works.
OK.. Here is my two cents - Newsletter Module - ability to send to specific groups, ability to unsubscribe from email, and tracking of emails opened - Ecommerce Module - sell stuff! nuff said. - Stats Module - the ability to track things such as visitors and
page views - a replacement for webtrends - Sitemap - A non-tree view search engine friendly sitemap - Survey/Forms module - The ability for end non-technical users to create online forms and surveys and have that info stored in a DB - non-shared image and
banner galleries - Tree view for sections based on parents. Have a site more than a dozen pages and it is a pain to admin. - CSS tableless driven skins - Ability to have a dynamic alt tag for the 'logo' that can be inherited or set per page. - Better admin
skins or the ability to retain site skin for admin - Dynamic 404 error page - DHTML or CSS Dropdown Navigation Ethan
Sorry, I was not very precise on how to implement the multilingual extension in gcn, because this thread is more a wish list than architecural discussion. Let me just add that it is quite straight forward in ASP.NET using the resources manager and even though
not built in from ground into gcn, the skinning features make it possible to write a clean add-in which will not break any existing code. It requires, as ejay remarked, that the whole default theme has to be made culture neutral and that for most of the controls
of the engine some lines of code have to be added. nberardi, in what concerns the modules, actually in gcn 1.1, if you add a module, you need to add the approriate skin files to the default theme. A module author then just has to provide them culture neutral
with resource strings, making localisation to any language possible and straightforward. However this is quite a huge mod and my question was whether it wouldn't make more sens to schedule it for gcn 2.0 than 1.2 (given that exactly skinning features will
be added to and the way resources are handled will be changed in asp.net 2.0). I rewrote already once the complete default scheme in order to translate it to french so I know the time it needs. Perhaps ejay and I can think about this more in detail (if he
is interested) and then come to a decision. ejay, it seems asp.net 2.0 will go beta (and feature-complete) in spring; then one certainly has to add still some months for the final version. I played with the alpha which is not public but the beta will be publicly
available for download. www.asp.net/whidbey gives info as well as weblogs.asp.net/scottgu Let me come back to the whish list: -- Section handling: As starpilot pointed out, more than 20 sections is a pain for the admin. I have communities with a more than
150. These sections where automatically generated by an external program I wrote. Now when I want to make some changes eg move a section higher in the menu I have to to this programmatically : the arrows of the admin section are useless for this. Somehow presentation
of sections and moving sections should be handled differently. Another idea here is the following: Suppose I a have a community with 2 sections: sectionA and sectionB. Supposer that userA is responsible for sectionA and userB is responsible for sectionB, but
that I don't want them to be admins in order to prevent that userB messes up sectionA and vice versa. userB might want to add subsections to sectionB. However, as he is not an admin, he can't do it. Suggestion: adminsistring sections (or any other item of
the admin menu) should be possible for a "section admin" therefore creating somehow "intermediate" admins. -- Better searching: The starter kits had to be compatible with the MSDE, hence the search engine is very primitive as full text searching is not supported
in MSDE. However, one could think about having the possibility to enable full text search if the database provides it (as SQL Server does). -- HtmlEditing: This should be cross browser. Most of my users use Mozilla so I changed the FTB by a cross browser editor
here (which unluckily is not on a public licence so I can't put it into the gcn) but we could think about an admin have the possibility to choose among several choices. -- ImageGallery When Redd integrated FTB into gcn he broke a basic rule of the starter
kit : all user input has to go to the database. Now, in order to copy/move/backup a community it is not enough anymore to copy/move/backup the database but one also has to take of the imagegallery which is a folder. I even elaborated on this and made the ImagePicker
choose files in a userdependent folder in order to avoid the use of a common one which is not suitable for large communities. We should try to change this eg the ImagePicker should put images into the database (and whishlist: also handle other file types as
flash etc). Morover, it should follow some API in order that it is easy for other editors to use it. -- Plugins I wrote some simple modules here as a document module which is like an article module with the possibility to leave documents (a little bit like
attached documents in email) or a news module which is an article module but has the possibility to specify the period when the news will be displayed (such as the events section does) Of course I can add these modules to gcn 1.2 but they are not basically
new (being more or less derived modules). If a new user has the choice of many modules in the admin list he might get lost between an article or document or news module which are more or less the same except one feature that changes. Perhaps a good idea would
be to leave the basic modules as core modules and call new modules plugins (or whatever) which can be activated/disabled in an appropriate part of the admin ? Robert
-- Section handling: A) I agree with what you are talking about, there needs to be some kind of tree format. Also there needs to be some kind for way of seeing what subsections are in a current section that you are editing. OmniPortal supports the second part
that I just asked for, but I am still looking to add the tree functionality to my admin section. B) See this is where custom authentication handlers will come in very handy. Because as Robert says he needs to make each user that is defined as a role so that
they can edit specific sections. So he needs an anuthenticaion that has both roles and users that are like roles to the system, much of the way Windows handles security. Also sections should have somebody that is defined as an Administrator of the section.
I found this out when talking to a client and added this ability to OmniPortal, it is not fully functional yet, but it is there. To sum up section handling we need some better admin modules and the security system has to be plug-in enabled for custom solutions.
-- Better searching: Better searching is a great idea but if we want to support other databases we cannot lock out selves in. One solution that comes to mind is the following.
http://www.codeproject.com/cs/webservices/omnisearch.asp. -- ImageGallery I don't totally agree with putting images in the database, but it should be an option that the user can decide on
depending on what kind of server and load he wants on his database. -- Plugins We need to basically create a better plug-in model that is more user friendly. These were all reason why I created OmniPortal, my plug-in architecure isn't the best yet but it is
leaps and bounds past what GCN offers. I am hoping we can work soemthing out in the future to merge the two projects.
I have succeeded in creating a ISAPI filter that can convert a URL like http://www.gotdotnet.com/about to http://www.gotdotnet.com/about/default.aspx so we do not get 404 file or directory not found error. I am releasing it as an open source project. See http://www.gotdotnet.com/dir2aspx
I will post it under different thread to provide more detail.
One of the feature that I wish is to have "external sections", that is, an URL that links to other sites. The "external section" would display on the menu and the home page with an icon that indicates that the link will go to other sites. This will allow us
to link to a family of sites logically together.
My list is short, so I expect it will make it in...:-) Security - It would be better if during registration, the users password was encrypted in the database. Password Reminder would be nice. Instead of having to use roles and letting stupid visitors clog the
DB with registrations, it would be nice to have an "activation" feature that the site administrator would control. Other than that, the kit rocks! Todd
Forum II is now Alpha - we're trying to get as many people as possible to create a mod for GCN -
Forum II Mod Ideally, we'd love to create a section type, a forum II section type Thats pretty outrageous, so just getting Forum II as a custom mod is quite enough! Post your support on
forums.asp.net!
Here is another thought to add to the wish list, something that can be added immediately and with no testing and no downloads required. Everybody ought to stand back and take a deep breath. There, doesn’t that feel better? From months of non-activity on this
list, short of answering the same old database connection questions and image mapping hassles, we as a community have just exploded with ideas, energy, and, to be frank, technical mumbo-jumbo way over my head. Multiple forums, subforums, code on gotdotnet,
code on sourceforge, things could get ugly and confusing quick. A business without a mission statement and a plan is like, well, haven’t had enough coffee yet to throw a really bad cliché at you. What does the Community Kit do? What market are we serving?
As an example, does it need a shopping module? Some would argue that maybe that is the role of a portal. Who is to say? Well, that would be you and me. Where does the kit need to go in the .2 release, the .5 release, and up to the 2.0? I see Nicholas Berardi
wants to merge his project into GCN, or is it vice-versa? Seeing the Omniportal site I was not impressed at all, poor grammar, inactive forums, etc. would scare off most serious business users. Diving into his theory, however, I am impressed, and am glad the
GCN team has gaining such an enthusiastic volunteer. So, before we fracture into too many subgroups, drowning in the weight of our own ideas, let’s step back, draw some lines, and set some limits. Does GCN really need to be database independent? Would further
visual and engine core separation really matter to our end user (or us) or is it just fun to talk about, and not give any real business value? Following the architecture thread for 1.2, it looks like that may take many years internet time. Maybe it is really
a 2.0 discussion thread. This is where the deep breath comes in. Try it again. In. Now out. Great! Let’s keep up this enthusiasm, it’s been a pretty boring winter so far. Tim
Tim, Great to hear your thoughts, and know there is a real businessperson on this project. Sorry about the bad grammar and spelling. That is my fault, and that is something that I need to pay closer attention. I admit http://www.omniportal.net looks really
bland; I am the first one to say that, because I have spent most of my time and development in the theory of how a totally generic modular architecture should operate. That is why I am hopping to merge with another project that has talented front-end developers.
I assure you that I have optimized the core of OmniPortal to handle a portal in the most efficient manor. The thing is I developed OmniPortal as more of a framework than an actual program. I have developers and companies coming to me asking for rights to use
OmniPortal in their projects for such things as ERP's, CRM's, CMS's, and many other acronyms that are just jargon for a flexible web interface with module support. I also understand your concerns about adding support for other databases, and different authentication
plug-ins. But you are thinking about this as a product that is targeted towards one environment, maybe to meet your needs as a consumer. (i.e. Windows/SQL2000) I am thinking about this as a framework that has the goals of supporting the developer not the consumer.
As a developer I want plenty of options and the flexibility to for the framework to meet what ever task I may put towards it. (i.e. Linux/MySQL or Windows/Access or Windows/SQL200 or Windows/Oracle) That is why I am hoping GCN can be the consumer-oriented
part of OmniPortal (the developer oriented part). I am very interested in talking to you more Tim. Nick P.S. Spell checked by Microsoft Word [:)]
Okay so I was moving too fast again in writing and some of the grammar isn't really up to par. But don't associate that with my programming skills, because was I lack in grammar and spelling I sure as hell make up for in creativity. Looking forward to your
reply Tim. Or anybody.
I kind of agree with TimParsons that we should somehow draw a line on what we want the Community Kit to be. An idea of that line comes with Nick Berardi's remark : "I am thinking about this as a framework that has the goals of supporting the developer not the
consumer". If we agree we want to be supporting the developer then we are open to bright development ideas, but these ideas might go in all and any direction possibly with frustration from those wanting a more usable community kit. If we agree we want to be
supporting the consumer then we are open to bright customer ideas, for which we will need to find bright development ideas implementing them. Consumer might be less frustrated and developper might find it more motivating to work for something that somebody
will actually use. I think our motivation as a team should be that every (development) piece we bring in is usable for the majority of the users. Perhaps should we also compare ourselves to competition (like php-nuke) or near competition (portals like I Buy
Spy and the likes), and see where they succeed and why and what we should do to better succeed.
nberardi says "The first way (to globalization) is to overload the complete set of webcontrols " I noticed that Rainbow Portal does it that way (see www.rainbowportal.net). What I do not like about their implementation is that they invented a new webcontrol
attribute TEXTKEY which maps all texts to the resource file. I would rather directly map to the resource file from the English Message. Another thing apparently not covered by Rainbow is the English text residing as plain text in skin files (not un webcontrols),
which they do not provide a solution for. Anyway their achievement is quite impressive since they already have translated their system in 14 different languages; and their globalization module (called Esperantus) is worth digging into. I recommend it to anyone
interested.
> I think our motivation as a team should be that every (development) piece we bring in is usable for the majority of the users. That is why I suggested two projects. One project focused on the under lying system, lets call it OmniPortal, then a user friendly
layer display layer built off of the system, lets call it GCN. By having this kind of seperation the display layer team won't be modifying stuff in the core to make one of their modules work, and the core team won't be changing stuff in the display layer to
make something work in the core. Also as long as we keep a set interfaces for each release and the data coming out of those interfaces is verified there should be no problem with each team developing their own part. This also enhances our chances of really
getting the system out there, because I have already been contacted by some developers that say they totally hate my interface but love what I have done with the core. They are currently building a CRM off of the core and scrapping the interface, and this
is all attributed to the seperation of the display layer, components, and the core. I really like the seperate projects idea, because it alows so much more to be done.
two projects ? why not, although I do not quite see how the interface between the two would look like; the questions below might clarify where I see problems: 1/what kind of program elements would be in the user interface side of your interface (only skin files?)
- 2/what about issues that impact both layers (user and program) (like my favourite topic - globalization)? 3/we know ASP.NET 2.0 could impact a lot the current structure of CSK / GCN - Do we have enough info so as to try anticipate this impact? (see http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/whidbey/default.aspx
) Considering all this I feel we should not break the engine too much at this stage as many current issues (like db independence) will be vastly made easier with ASP.NET 2.0/Whidbey; after all Microsoft could come out with a CSK version 2 that would be based
on ASP.NET 2.0, just to demonstrate how nice the new technology is and all our engine-related efforts could be made useless. Another reason why I feel it is better to concentrate on user features than on developer (engine) tools.
There should NOT be Two projects. There's alot of 3rd party components (that cost money) that could be added into the GCN What
Should Happen is to support "snap-ins" An example of this can be seen at
forums II The data Layer is "snap-in" - so you can switch dbs without any recompiling. In 3 weeks, I have about 5 GCN developers so far gearing up for our commerce Module. By supporting "snap-ins" we will be able to support full blown e-commerce and still
offer a free GCN - off the shelf, there will be no payment processing or ship tracking.
well this is how I imagin the layers would be layed out. ------------------------- skins ------------------------- modules ============== authentication ------------------------- core ------------------------- data ------------------------- The "=" denotes
where the two projects would be split. It is a very valid idea to break up the work.
Just think if Linux had the kernel and display layer mixed together, how useless it would be for many of the applications out there. In addition, how useless it would be if it wasn't designed to be modular and designed for one specific goal in mind.
Anyways, I think it is a good idea to have a developer oriented project that focuses on what the developer needs and what kind of features they need for the creation of their modules and skins. And then you have a
consumer oriented project that focuses on what web admins want out of a portal technology. Both projects would be driving twords the same goal, and if the project was constructed like this in the begining we wouldn't have all the problems with creating
modules that we currently do. Because no offence to the guys that originally developed this but GCN as it currently is,
sucks on the development end and rocks on the consumer end. However with out both development and consumer being the best they can be this probject is never going to take off, much like we have seen DNN take off. They have their project on some
really high profile sites. We need to put teams together much like DotNetNuke has, so we can continue to move GCN forward and not be stuck how we currently are just patching the system to add new features. WE NEED A REDESIGN OF THE SYSTEM IF WE EVER WANT TO
MAKE THIS DEVELOPER FRIENDLY. This was one of the reasons I started with the GCN library and started to correct the problems that I saw on the development end. Because what we need to move this project forward is an easy upgrade to ASP.Net 2.0, and currently
how the system exists that is going to be very difficult. Because there is an inner-mixing of modules and the skins, and it is very had to add another module to the system because the modules aren't compartmentalized. So anybody creating modules has to make
sure they won't overwrite another modules ascx file. Basically what I am trying to say is we need a rewrite of the system for GCN 2.0. I know that their is going to be a lot of resistance to this since people have just started to learn how GCN currently works.
But the current model isn't very expandable and that is what we need inorder to propel GCN into the market that DNN is currently dominating. Developers can create modules for DNN and resell them with out any worries that it is going to interfear with
any other module. GCN can't currently say that. Also has anybody come across any sites currently selling GCN modules? Well I look forward to the comments on my statements. I made my self pretty clear why two projects are needed, and why a rewrite of the underlying
system is needed. I just hope you look at the statements for what they are, and you don't bring any alteriour motives in to the conversation. I imagine that Sedgewick has some alteriour motives since he is currently developing a product off the current system,
so he don't want to see the system changed because that will upset the project that he is working on.
1/what kind of program elements would be in the user interface side of your interface (only skin files?) -
Modules and Skin files. But like in my previous post the skins sit on the top most layer and the modules sit right below them.
2/what about issues that impact both layers (user and program) (like my favourite topic - globalization)?
Authentication would be handled through a plug-in architecture much like we have been talking about in the architecuture forum. I don't know what you mean by program. Globalization is a totally display layer technology. Because if the core is designed right,
it will never touch the text of the display layer. 3/we know ASP.NET 2.0 could impact a lot the current structure of CSK / GCN - Do we have enough info so as to try anticipate this impact? (see http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/whidbey/default.aspx )
Yes I have been using Whidbey for about 1 month now, and it is going to change much of what we do. I mean we can still compile it in 2.0, but if we want to take advantage of many of the features it offers we are going to need to redesign how the current
system handles modules. It won't effect anything on the underlayer all that much, but it is going to heavily effect the display layer. But inorder to design a good display layer that takes advantage of ASP.Net 2.0 we are going to have to change underlying
stuff too. Considering all this I feel we should not break the engine too much at this stage as many current issues (like db independence) will be vastly made easier with ASP.NET 2.0/Whidbey; after all Microsoft could come out with a CSK version 2 that
would be based on ASP.NET 2.0, just to demonstrate how nice the new technology is and all our engine-related efforts could be made useless.
Take a look at my comments above. Even if they bring out a CSK 2.0, which we have no idea if they are going to or not, we need to start designing for Whidbey right now. Because the first project to the market that takes advantage of ASP.Net 2.0 is going
to be the leader of the pack. So inorder to make the transition easier we need to start design for that right now! We have all the interfaces that we need from the .Net 1.2 Framework site, so we need to design controls that currently "act" like those
of ASP.Net 2.0. Such as the HtmlHead tag that currently adds in a style sheet from a tag that can get added to the the control. Also we need to have a master page concept. A themes concept. In addition to taking the modules out of the theme directory, but
allowing the theme to override the modules look. Much like what ASP.Net 2.0 is going to offer. All of these features are currently available in one open source probject that is currently out there.
A point of clarification: Microsoft did not write CSK 1.0 nor are they writting a CSK 2.0. CSK 1.0 was written by Stephen Walther. I took over the project during the 1.1 upgrade (and changed the name to GotCommunityNet). I am hoping to continue the GCN into
version 1.2 (written in .NET 2003) so we can better align the application to what Whidbey promises (making the transition easier). I still have no information on CSK 2.0 but have a feeling that it will gain sponsorship and should break ground in a few months.
Hope that clears up some thoughts . . .
Keith Barrows
Ad Astra Per Aspera - "To the stars thru difficulties"
"We have all the interfaces that we need from the .Net 1.2 Framework site, so we need to design controls that currently "act" like those of ASP.Net 2.0. " hear hear! As much as reasonable, drop-in changes would make life easier 1 year from now.
That is why I think the 1.x line should become a maintence line, and we could branch off to 2.0. I don't know if that is possible in GotDotNet. But that would be the ideal thing to do.
Since the Whidbey Beta is not too far away, and some of us have the PDC bits for Whidbey I would suggest concentrating on the CSK/GCN 2.0 design moving forward...
Keith Barrows
Ad Astra Per Aspera - "To the stars thru difficulties"
One more idea. I would find the ability to load up items to the site, with a timed start - I mean I would set a date and time that they would appear and also an expiry that would stop them appearing at a particular time. Something like it happens already in
the events module but I could use it right across the CSK/GCN. Also, something that I have been working on myself is email updates, by sending information by email to a particular address, an automatic tasks creates a new item on the site.
I wish the ability to choose the Community ID by code, so if we haven´t a provider with multiple subdomains we can make a combobox or a clickable list that user chooses what community he wants, and so the community id is choosed.
Well there are going to be two types of possible communities. WAN or LAN WAN you will only be alowed to use a GUID that is auto generated. This is for reasons of seperating communities out from one another and making it easy to share information via RSS. LAN
you will be able to specifiy you own community id. Then in addition to the community id there will be an indexed id for database repitition.
Section menu - Free search engine friendly dropdown menu I would reccommend this nice free and search engine friendly menu for the comming GCN version: http://www.webdevtips.com/dropmenu/overview.shtml Check it out.
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* Caching on a web cluster - caching does not work on a web cluster when any changes are made to data, which includes admin changes tot he site. * Better admin tools - When you get more than a dozen pages, trying to keep the site map in your head becomes harder and harder. Also, knowing what security each page has would be nice before clicking into it. My suggestion would be to have a tree control (see the site map!) with a dozen or so labels/textboxes/etc to the right. When you click on a node the critical info of that page is displayed. You can then Edit the page if you like with a simple button click. * Newsletters - it would be nice to have newsletters as a module rather than strictly an admin thing. Also, send to should be able to target groups within the site rather than all users. * RSS feeds - these are still partially broken. It would also be nice to have a module for aggregation.
Advanced registration ideas 448734
What other ideas are there out there? :)
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