For developers, chapters on the core architecture, skinning and custom modules, including coverage of the DAL+, give you the skills to customize and extend your site. The book starts off by giving you a deep understanding of working with basic DotNetNuke sites, guiding you through the features and giving you the confidence to create and manage your site. After that, you will journey to the heart of DotNetNuke, and learn about its core architecture. Always concise, relevant and practical, you will find out what makes DotNetNuke tick, and from there, you will be ready to customize DotNetNuke. Developers will enjoy the detailed walkthrough of creating a new custom modules. Special emphasis is given to the DAL+, an extended feature set of the DotNetNuke Data Access Layer (DAL). You will see how to create custom modules with the DAL+, and invigorate your module development. Web designers will enjoy the material on skinning, helping them to create a new look for their site. You will learn about creating new skins, and packaging them up for easy deployment. You will master all of this as you leap into the development of a DotNetNuke 4 site. This book will give you the skills to create and manage DotNetNuke websites as quickly as possible. You will:
* Install and configure DotNetNuke
* Master the standard modules
* Understand the core architecture of DotNetNuke
* Explore the inner workings of DotNetNuke modules
* Extend DotNetNuke using the DAL and DAL+ to create powerful custom modules
* Create your own skin using a HTML Editor
* Find out about where and how to host and deploy your site
You can use this book to help you set up and administer a DotNetNuke portal, even if you have a limited knowledge of ASP.NET. You will learn how to setup and administer an example site, stepping through all the tasks to ease your learning. If you are a developer, this book will help you extend the DotNetNuke portal by first helping you understand how the core framework works and then show you how to create custom modules and skins. A rudimentary knowledge of VB.NET programming is assumed, but the emphasis is not on becoming a better VB.NET programmer but on taming DotNetNuke. This book has been written for both the beginner wanting to set up a website and also ASP.NET developers with a grasp of VB.NET who want a deeper understanding of how to work with DotNetNuke. To work with the DotNetNuke code, you will need access to Visual Web Developer Express or Visual Studio .NET 2005. No prior knowledge of DotNetNuke is assumed.