Contents tagged with DotNetNuke 5.x
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Why isn’t My Scheduled Task Executing?
A quick diversion from the JavaScript Common Difficulties and Misconceptions series (I have another post queued up, just need to write the sample code), for an issue I just ran into.
Created a scheduled task for DNN, but it’s sitting in the scheduler queue, just getting more and more overdue. Why won’t my task run?
Somehow I missed the constructor from the tasks I copied. Your task needs a constructor that takes a
ScheduleHistoryItemto run via the scheduler. -
Chicago Day Of DotNetNuke 2010 Recap
Saturday, October 2nd was the Day of DotNetNuke in Chicago. A number of us from Engage attended and spoke. I gave two presentations, which are now available on SlideShare (linked below). I’ve added some notes (be sure to click the “Notes on slide 1” tab when viewing on SlideShare) to give context if you weren’t able to attend the session.
Considerations with Writing JavaScript in your DotNetNuke® site Overall, we definitely were glad to participate in the event. The logistics were pulled off excellently (you certainly couldn’t tell that none of the organizers had organized an event of this magnitude before). I was also great to see the number of community leaders that were presenting and available. It really was a treasure-trove of DNN knowledge.
Nik Kalyani, the keynote speaker, did a great job of emphasizing the role that the community needs to play in guiding the development of DNN. A lot of us walked away excited about what we could contribute to move the community and platform forward.
Nik introduced the concept of a DNN Meme. This is an idea about DNN that catches on with the community in a way that it cannot be ignored. The basic idea is that if an idea is too good to resist, we need to share it so that something actually happens with it. Nik suggested that we use the hashtag #dnnmeme on twitter, and post bigger ideas to dnnmeme.com (via emailing post@dnnmeme.posterous.com). I’m not sure that the “DNN Meme” name is going to take off, but I can definitely get behind getting our ideas out there, gauging community interest, and pursuing the things that we all know that DNN needs.
In Nik’s session at the end of the day, we discussed a couple of things (documented on dnnmeme.com). The biggest of which was the need for module developers to get together and see where we can come to some agreements on how to implement our modules (whether that be a more standard set of markup/CSS, new features in the DNN core, or an agreement on how to implement large amounts of settings). Based on that discussion, Will Morgenweck created the DotNetNuke Module Standards project on CodePlex, where we can start the discussion of standardizing our approaches to modules.
If you are a module developer, we’d love your input on the patterns that you use when developing modules. Specifically, where you find yourself working around what the core provides, or find that the core doesn’t provide anything to support what you’re doing. We’ve gotten the discussion started with what we do and would like to do, but we need more voices so that we can come up with some real consensus on how to reconcile our different approaches.
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Packaging Modules for DotNetNuke 5
So, the first thing I noticed when testing Events in [DNN] 5 was that it seemed like some of our shared base assemblies weren't being updated to the latest version that comes with Events. Looking into it further, I realized that those assemblies were associated with the other Engage module I had installed on the site, Engage: Locator. The short story is that [DNN] now keeps track of assemblies when you install them, to help keep assemblies from being uninstalled or overwritten incorrectly. When you install a [DNN] 4 module, it appears that it sets the version of the assemblies that it installs to the version of the module. So, I had installed Locator 1.4, which gave Engage.Dnn.Framework.dll a version of 1.4.0 in the [DNN] database. When I installed Events 1.1, [DNN] thought it was an older version of Engage.Dnn.Framework.dll (1.1.0), even though it was actually the most recent version.
So, to help fix this as much as we could, I decided it was time to figure out this 5.0 packaging stuff and create a 5.0 package for Engage: Events. First, I asked [DNN] to make a module package of Events, based on the [DNN] 4 package I had installed. I looked through that and updated and removed parts to get it closer to what we wanted. Specifically, I removed the <eventMessage> section from the Module component, since... I couldn't figure out any reason we'd need that. I think it might be necessary now if you implement IUpgradeable, but it's best to try it out for yourself.
I also removed all of the files other than scripts, cleanup, and assemblies, since we use a Resource File .zip to avoid having to change the manifest whenever the content files in the module change. In [DNN] 4 manifests, this looked like a <resourceFile> element in the <folder> element for your module, pointing to the file to unzip with all of your files. In [DNN] 5, that didn't work. After a bit of searching, I found Erik's blog post, DotNetNuke 5 Extention Packaging. This helped my a ways along my path, showing that these Resource File .zips have their own section in the manifest file. After a bit of trying to figure out why his example wasn't working for me, I figured out that he'd left out one of the elements (the interior <resourceFile>) in the XML. With that figured out, my section looks like this:
<component type="ResourceFile">
<resourceFiles>
<basePath>DesktopModules/EngageEvents</basePath>
<resourceFile>
<name>Resources.zip</name>
</resourceFile>
</resourceFiles>
</component>
Back to the first issue I had experienced, I could now specify my own versions for the assemblies that I included in the package. This isn't necessarily a magic bullet, though, until all of our modules have a [DNN] 5 package. This is because the correct version of some of the shared assemblies (e.g. Engage.Dnn.Framework.dll) is still lower than the version of some of our [DNN] 4 modules. (For example, the version of Engage.Dnn.Framework.dll released with Events is 1.1.0, but the latest version of Locator is 1.4.0). So, if those are installed, we'll see the same inability to overwrite the shared assemblies with newer versions. But, this is the first step towards getting there. Accurate information is better than inaccurate, in my book.
The next change to be made to the generated manifest is to fill in the <owner> section at the top of the package. We can supply a <name>, <organization>,<url>, and <email> that is shown when the module is installed. This makes sure people know who wrote the module and how to find us. From Erik's post, I also found out that you can include HTML in those fields, so you can make the <url> and <email> links, rather than plain text. Our section looks like this:
<owner>
<name>Engage Software</name>
<organization>Engage Software</organization>
<url><![CDATA[<a href="http://www.engagesoftware.com/">http://www.engagesoftware.com/</a>]]></url>
<email><![CDATA[<a href="mailto:support@engagemodules.com">support@engagemodules.com</a>]]></email>
</owner>
The last bit of new functionality in the manifest that I worked with is the License and Release Notes. These are new fields that users see when they install the module. We were already including a copy of the license in our [DNN] 4 packages, but now we can link to that file and make sure that users explicitly agree to it before installing the module. We also keep release notes on our website that we can now show upon install, rather than making folks search for them.
So, at this point, I think I'm done with this process. However, I try to install, and see the following:
Tracking this down, I realized that I had deleted elements with default values in the <moduleControls> section of the manifest. I didn't want to have a <viewOrder> element making it seem like someone was specifically setting that value, when really we don't care, it's just a default. Well, one of the elements I deleted was <controlKey> from the default module control. This is how our [DNN] 4 manifest looks, since the default module control doesn't have a key assigned. Looking at the error, it looked like that was no longer an acceptable practice, so I added a <controlKey/> to that <moduleControl> entry, and it worked like a charm. And, really, that makes sense. I care that <controlKey> is empty, I'm not just accepting the default value for lack of a better value, I'm actively choosing to use an empty <controlKey>.
So, those are the hassles, issues, and features that I encountered while creating a [DNN] 5 package for our module. Hopefully this'll give you some better understanding of some of what's involved, and get you more quickly around those obstacles that I ran up against.
[Cross-posted from http://www.engagesoftware.com/Blog/EntryId/194/Packaging-Modules-for-DotNetNuke-5.aspx]
