I created my first DotNetNuke custom module for DNN version 2 and later. A website I maintain, IdahoIrish.com, wanted a calendar display module to enable a quick reference to their scheduled events. Since I do not get paid for any of their work, they are pretty much at my liberty when it comes to deliverables and deadlines. The work I put into their site does pay for my dues to the Notre Dame Club of Idaho. After a couple of days of development and testing, perhaps more of the former, I bundled up my module into a zip file and uploaded it to DNN. DNN has made the installation of modules extremely easy.

DNN is written in VB.NET, which is not my language of choice, so I decided to develop my calendar control in C# as a standalone assembly to be referenced. The calendar’s source is an XML file of calendar events which I can edit once authenticated with the site. The calendar display uses a mixture of dhtml, javascript, and back-end code. I tested the functionality using IE 6, Firefox 1.0, Netscape 7.2, and Opera 7.54. I had to handle my javascript differently for the non-IE browsers.

DNN is a sound application that I am liking more and more. It is intuitive and provides a stable base for a portal framework. Since it is written in VB.NET, I do find the development environment a little different. I guess with VB projects we cannot have post-build steps in Visual Studio 2003? This is annoying since I then have to manually copy my C# assemblies to the DNN bin directory. If anyone knows of a work-around, please let me know.

Check out the calendar here.