DotNetNuke 5 User's Guide: Get Your Website Up and Running (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) (Paperback)

~ (Author), Patrick Renner (Author), Shaun Walker (Series Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

An authoritative introduction to implementing DotNetNuke Web sites, by experienced DotNetNuke implementers and trainers

An impressive author team shows you how to easily build Web sites with a variety of content features - no programming experience required.

If your goal is to build the site without worrying about the programming behind it, DotNetNuke 5 User's Guide gives you exactly what you need. After developing a groundwork in the DotNetNuke framework and DotNetNuke as a content management system, it provides installation and administration information. Then it takes you step by step through a variety of use cases, implementation strategies, and configuration decisions for various sites.

• Introduces the benefits of content management systems, open source, how DotNetNuke functions as a content management system, and DotNetNuke modules, pages, and skins
• Explains the installation process, options for installing DotNetNuke, and requirements, as well as administration functionality and content management fundamentals for DNN sites
• Examines different use cases, implementation strategies, and configuration decisions
• Shows how to develop and implement a personal Web site, a team or club community, a small business site, and an enterprise solution
• Looks at various advanced topics relevant to all use cases, ranging from advanced installation options to detailed administrative features
• Includes a foreword by Shaun Walker, creator of DotNetNuke and Wrox DotnetNuke series editor

DotNetNuke 5 User's Guide provides the tools you need to put this valuable technology to work.

From the Back Cover

DotNetNuke (DNN) is an open source web application framework that enables you to build websites and can also accommodate everything from single portals to multiple enterprise implementations. This book offers a firm understanding of the administrative tools and implementation choices available with DNN so that you can begin the process of building websites using DNN, regardless of your level of experience.

This unique guide introduces you to the platform, core DNN concepts, and installation and configuration options for a DNN website. You'll then learn how to apply these concepts to common uses of DNN while you discover core modules, skins, containers, and various other definitions within the platform. Plus, you'll get an overview of the various settings for your first portal and take a look at how DNN handles security.

The authors walk you through the steps for creating a personal website, a league website, and a small business website. You'll gradually acquire the knowledge and skills that are necessary to make the most of all the powerful features that DNN offers.

By the end of the book, you will be able to apply what you've learned and adapt the tools of DNN for your needs when building websites.

What you will learn from this book

• How to manage multiple websites under a single application

• Ways that roles and users are given rights to content through the permissions grid

• Techniques for adding pages to your website and content to those pages

• Tips for creating a robust website and keeping content current

• Additional advanced administrative functionality that DNN provides

Who is this book for?

This book is for anyone interested in building a website withDotNetNuke 5. No previous programming experience is required.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Wrox; 1 edition (June 22, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470462574
• ISBN-13: 978-0470462577
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #52,807 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I wish this book had come out years ago., July 9, 2009

By	Darrell L. Hardy - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As I read this book, I thought of all the people who could have put this book to good use over the last few years. Most DotNetNuke books are very technical and geared toward how the framework functions or extending the framework. This book focuses on how to use the DotNetNuke application out of the box.

If you are trying to get an introduction to the basic functionality of DotNetNuke, this book is for you. As with any framework/application of this size, it is easy to overlook many of the more important features that make life much easier. With a quick read of this book, you are sure to have been more-than-introduced to most of the functional features of DotNetNuke. Once you have finished this book, if you are wanting to know how to extend the functionally of DotNetNuke, or why it behaves in a specific way, or what is under the hood, then I would recommend Professional DotNetNuke 5: Open Source Web Application Framework for [...] (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)

Bottom Line: This is an easy read with lots of examples. I am recommending this book to all my end-user clients (programmers and non-programmers) who are not familiar with [...].

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Surprise! Surprise! A truly excellent User's Guide, September 17, 2009

By	G. Morton-haworth "yalaworld.net" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Yes, this book deserves a 5-star rating. It is not only quite the best book on DotNetNuke, it is also an object lesson in everything a User's Guide should be. It strikes the right balance between too technical and too superficial (unlike many other Wrox books whose unevenness no doubt reflect their multiple authorship). It guides you through three excellent and different worked examples (a personal site, a league website, and a small business website) introducing the key modules along the way.

I have been using DotNetNuke for years and I still found a lot in here that was helpful. For example, I have never bothered with the Banner module because I have no interest in hosting adverts on my site. But, of course, it makes a perfectly good content rotator as the authors point out.

One of the criticisms consistently leveled at DotNetNuke is that it is mainly for developers, as its capabilities have grown so the software has become bloated and inaccessible. There is some truth in this (try finding out how to update system emails and messages by navigating the Help system on the DotNetNuke site!).

So this book fills a important gap and, hopefully, will do a lot to introduce more people to the extraordinary tool that DotNetNuke has become.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not as useful as it could have been... missed the mark., October 14, 2009

By	John M. Molendyk "Da' Mole Jr." (Southern California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I guess maybe my assumptions about what this book is supposed to do were off, because while I found it helpful, I didn't find it to be very useful.

My assumption was that there would be how to's in the book that would guide me through the process of building a website and then publishing it. While the book gives you information "ABOUT" doing that, it is very light on the "HOW" to do it. The information is there, but it seems I had to struggle to find it as the book is more "ABOUT WHAT" various features and property settings should be used and how they act, but little in the way of "the complete picture", leaving a novice to figure it (a lot) out on their own.

The first 3 chapters are great, the 4th is ok but long and again, it is all about what DNN is and what the various properties are and setting up permissions using roles and groups. Unfortunately, from chapter 5 forward, the book, when needing to deliver more step-by-step information about how to build the first site, it assumes way too much and leaves the reader scratching their head about when I am going to get to step 1. The problem is, there is not step 1, or step 2 for that matter. If you look at most technical books, especially those addressing those with no prior programming experience, you would expect to be guided through step 1, step 2, step 3 and so forth, that is the general method in which the "HOW" to do something is delivered, this book doesn't do that when it needs to. Not to say it ever does it, but it is missing the mark 90% of the time and when it does use the step-by-step method, it seems unusual, especially since it wasn't used prior.

The delivery of roles and groups was a huge missed opportunity as it is explained as a feature, but never put into play when building the websites; instead the user is given a recommendation and told to reference the materials in chapter 4, where it was already discussed. In fact, roles and groups was not the only place that was done, that was done several times throughout the book, when the most helpful scenario would have been to reiterate what was already discussed, as showing you why is usually followed up by showing you how, or even vice versa.

Another issue was many of the screen shots in the book showed different terminology then the application showed for many of the features. While they weren't show stoppers, they did cause me to slow down repeatedly as I looked for what I was doing and trying to find the correct view. Has the software changed? Were the screen shots wrong? I don't know...

I also found the book didn't do a good job of explaining what I needed to do to install all of the modules that come with the application. The book tells you to place the blog and the gallery modules on the page, but I needed to go to the extensions module to install them. The explanation is there in the grey highlighted box, but the information is sounding like it was just some random information, not that it was necessary for the coming... hmmm... I want to exercises, but they weren't that, so let's say information. By the way, I never found the gallery and when you get to building the small business site, the store modules are not available either. Now is this a DNN issue or a book issue? I don't know, but those modules were not available as installable modules, so a couple of more lost opportunities for features that most would really want to learn.

My last gripe is the "other reviews"; I'll just say if you look at the 4 reviews for this book, all of the reviewers have ever only reviewed this book, with the exception of 1 guy who has reviewed only 3 DNN books, ever. I thought maybe I was a bit too skeptical, but then I noticed the 5 reviews for the book titled "Professional DotNetNuke 5: Open Source Web Application Framework for ASP.NET". Draw your own conclusion.

All in all, DNN is a great CMS package with great features and capabilities, but this book won't get you nearly as far as you need to even competently deploy your first site without much more work and learning from other sources.

Should you buy this book, well, if you really want to learn this tool, you really don't have much of a choice if you learn best from a book since this is currently the only one out there and probably the only one to be published anytime soon. Just don't' expect it to be all you need to deploy your first site. You'll learn a lot, but you'll do it in an awkward manner that will leave you feeling like you know a lot "ABOUT" the DNN without feeling like you know "HOW" to do it.

2.5 stars