11 DotNetNuke Video Tutorials - Professional DotNetNuke Administration using SQL (Part 2)

DNN Creative have released issue 33 of the DotNetNuke Magazine.

This month we are dedicating another full issue of DNN Creative Magazine to improving the efficiency of your administration time with DotNetNuke using SQL queries.

The SQL methods we show you in this issue are very powerful techniques which will reduce weeks of work into seconds. The tutorials are especially useful if you are re-skinning a large DNN installation.

To start with we show you how to update the Page Settings of a page using SQL queries.

We demonstrate how to use SQL queries to delete a group of modules from a page, move modules between content panes and insert a copy of a module to a page. Manually moving, deleting and inserting modules when re-skinning your DotNetNuke installation can take up to 10 minutes per page, for a 500 page website this would take 5000 minutes. Using SQL queries will allow you to apply changes across your entire site within seconds.

We then take a look at the DotNetNuke SQL Module. This module comes free with Dot Net Nuke and is only available to the host user on your DotNetNuke installation. Although we thoroughly recommend you use SQL Server Express to build and check your queries, this module is very useful if you already have a good understanding of SQL queries.

Finally, we show you how to work with Skins and Containers in DNN using SQL queries. In the previous tutorials we demonstrated how to change a container on a single page, in this tutorial we show you how to change the container for a copied module that is displayed on several or all pages, how to change the container of a module to a new container based on the name of the old container, and how to change the skin of a page to a new skin based on the name of the old skin.

Using the techniques outlined in this issue will literally save you weeks of work.

Shadow Modules in DotNetNuke using SQL

DNN Creative Magazine is still in the land of SQL!

As I mentioned earlier in the blog, we have been responding to enquires from readers on how they can update DotNetNuke websites more efficiently.

So another tip we would like to share with you, that will save you lots of time, is how to use Shadow or copied modules.

Shadow or Copied modules can be used to update the same content on several pages from one central area. In issue 32 we demonstrate how to setup a shadow page which contains modules that are displayed on several pages across our Dot Net Nuke portal. From this one central shadow page we can administer the content of several modules at once.

We also show you how to use SQL queries to easily maintain these copied modules, including re-ordering the modules in a content pane across all pages in a DotNetNuke portal, updating the container of a module copied across several pages and how to update the container of a module based on the name of the current container the module is using.

If you were to try and manually update copied modules across a large DNN portal, it would more than likely take weeks of work. With the powerful SQL techniques shown in this tutorial you can apply the updates in seconds.

Here is a short list of what the tutorial covers:

Video 1 - Introduction, Shadow Modules, Add Existing Module
Video 2 - Copy Module to All Pages and Reordering Modules
Video 3 - SQL Queries to Update the Module Order in Content Panes
Video 4 - How to Update the Container for All Shadow / Copied Modules in a Portal Using SQL
Video 5 - Using SQL to Update a Module Container to a New Container Based on the Name of the Old Container

Learn SQL Queries in DotNetNuke to reduce administration time

So, it’s been a busy month on DNN Creative as we’ve stepped into the realms of SQL Queries.

We've had several enquiries from the readers asking if we know of any ways to speed up the process of updating their DotNetNuke websites without having to change each page one after another.

From our experience of re-skinning and updating already established websites, we found that with simple SQL queries you can quickly and efficiently update multiple elements from modules, pages, and skins to alter the look and layout of your site within seconds – which for some large DNN site updates would take months of work through manually administering the site.

If you are new to using SQL Queries and would like to learn more about this powerful administration tool, checkout issue 32 of DNN Creative magazine. The first tutorial is an Introduction to SQL Queries with SQL Server Express, DotNetNuke and Vista.

This tutorial is especially helpful if you are using windows vista, as setting up SQL Server Express isn’t as straight forward as you would think. We show you how to install and configure SQL Server, and then start you off with simple queries so you can get well on the way to improving your site.

Here’s a quick breakdown of what this tutorial covers:

Video 1 - How to Attach a DotNetNuke Database to SQL Server Express using Windows Vista
Video 2 - How to Create a User Account and set up Permissions
Video 3 - How to Edit the Web.config Connection String
Video 4 - How to Create a SQL Query, How to Connect to a Live Database

11 DotNetNuke Video Tutorials - Powerful Efficient Techniques for DotNetNuke Administration using SQL

DNN Creative have released issue 32 of the DotNetNuke Magazine.

This very special issue of DNN Creative Magazine is dedicated to improving the efficiency of your administration time with DotNetNuke.

In this issue we focus on using SQL queries to automate some of the repetitive tasks that you have to carry out as an administrator on a DotNetNuke portal.

These are very powerful techniques which for large Dot Net Nuke websites can reduce a week of work into seconds.

If you are new to SQL you can follow each of these tutorials through step by step. We provide a quick start guide to using SQL queries with SQL Server Express. We also show you how to set up SQL Server Management Studio Express using Windows Vista so that you can execute a basic query on both a localhost and live DotNetNuke database.

Following this we demonstrate using SQL queries for working with DotNetNuke security roles and users, focusing on exporting registered users to Excel and removing users from a security role based on their email address.

To finish we demonstrate working with shadow / copied modules. This is an essential and powerful administration task that can enhance your DNN portals and reduce administration time. Shadow or Copied modules can be used to update the same content on several pages from one central area. We demonstrate how you can use SQL queries to easily maintain these copied modules.

The SQL techniques outlined in this tutorial are very powerful techniques for easily and quickly manipulating multiple copied modules across thousands of pages in a DotNetNuke portal and are particularly useful if you are re-skinning an already established site.

Dot Net Nuke

Dot Net Nuke is an open source Web Application framework ideal for creating, deploying and managing interactive web, intranet and extranet sites. Dot Net Nuke is designed to make it easy for administrators, content editors, developers, and designers to manage all aspects of their web assets. Wizards, content-sensitive help, and a well-researched user interface provide a superior user experience.

Dot Net Nuke is a powerful tool for creating websites, once you have used it, you will never turn back and here is a list of its key features:

1. Skins: Change the look of your website in seconds by using skins, without affecting the content. Further information about skinning can be found at The Skinning Toolkit
2. Modules: Dot Net Nuke comes with a selection of free modules which you use to add content to your site. Modules vary from adding text to images, documents, events, RSS feeds, forums etc.
3. Security: Every element of your Dot Net Nuke website can have specific security settings applied to allow or deny users from seeing, editing, or administering the different parts of your site.
4. Easily keep your website up to date. Simply login from anywhere in the world and add the content you require

DotNetNuke is a trademarked name, and a brand widely recognized and respected in the open source community. With over 500,000 registered users, Dot Net Nuke continues to evolve its software through participation, real world trial, and end-user feedback.

To learn more about Dot Net Nuke check out the tutorials, videos and interviews at DNN Creative Magazine.

6 DotNetNuke Video Tutorials - Installing DotNetNuke to Vista and using Virtual PC

DNN Creative have released issue 31 of the DotNetNuke Magazine.

In this issue we demonstrate how to install DotNetNuke to Windows Vista and how to use Virtual PC 2007. To begin with, we walk you through how to configure and install the required programmes for DotNetNuke using a fresh installation of Windows Vista Ultimate and then demonstrate the installation of DotNetNuke to Windows Vista.

Following this, we show you how to setup and use Microsoft’s Virtual PC 2007. Virtual PC virtualizes the hardware of a physical computer; this means that a Virtual PC uses a standard hardware configuration which is not reliant on the hardware of the host computer. Therefore you can transfer a Virtual PC to another host computer without any software driver issues.

Virtual PC is ideal for setting up various applications when working with DotNetNuke. There are many possibilities for improving your working environment by using Virtual PC and in this tutorial we provide a quick start guide to Virtual PC.

Due to demand we are now also releasing the videos in 2 formats, Flash and WMV, and of course the videos will still be available to download direct to your computer – no streaming!

Create your own DotNetNuke Skin

If you are looking to create your own DotNetNuke skin there are several tutorials available which will walk you through from the very beginning through to advanced skinning techniques.

If you look at Issues 5 and 6 - Working with skins this introduces you to the basics of DotNetNuke skinning, where you are introduced to the concepts of skinning, setup preparations, and how to create a skin and container using tables.

Once you have got to grips with the basic techniques further advanced techniques are developed in Issue 7 – Developing and enhancing skins where you can learn how to create resizable text, how to test the skins, standard compliance modes.

Pure CSS skinning is then taught in Issue 9 – Advanced Content Styling Techniques and CSS and the following issues, more advanced techniques of CSS skinning are demonstrated in Issue 25 – Pure CSS SEO Layouts for DotNetNuke skins

There are thousands of free CSS XHTML templates available, if you wish to convert one of those templates into a DotNetNuke skin you can learn how to do that in
Issue 28 - CSS Skinning from a XHTML Template, OpenForce 07, Podcasts - part 2
Issue 27 - CSS Skinning from a XHTML Template, OpenForce 07, Podcasts

If you wish to learn DotNetNuke skinning we recommend that you view the issues released on DNN creative magazine in issue number order as each issue builds on the knowledge taught in the previous issues.

DotNetNuke CSS Skinning from a XHTML Template, OpenForce 07

This tutorial is in two parts, part 1 covers how to transfer the structure of an XHTML template into a DotNetNuke skin and how to adapt it to create the content panes, the menu and various DotNetNuke tokens and part 2 (released in the next issue) covers how to create the containers, semantically coding the content, styling and formatting the content, overriding the DotNetNuke default classes, how to easily add the additional skin layout variations, and how to setup and create a print.css file so that you can style your own print layout of the skin.

The tutorials demonstrate the skinning presentation that Lee Sykes gave at the OpenForce conference, except for in much more detail! The skinning demonstration at the conference was 30 minutes; we have turned this into 2 x 1 hour video tutorials.

Checkout:
How to create a DotNetNuke CSS skin from an XHTML template – part 1

How to create a DotNetNuke CSS skin from an XHTML template – part 2