Dot Net Nuke

[brand1m]

We are beginning the process of redesigning our site (http://www.christchurch-ag.org) from the ground up.

We have had dotnetnuke (http://dotnetnuke.com/) pitched to us. Has anyone here used it? I know that there are several churches that have used it, but I'm more curious in the strengths/weaknesses from a church's perspective.

Our current system was custom written, but it was written a little sloppy (several different coders over several years) and it is just out of hand now. Basically, we have one person that all content has to pass through because it is too difficult for the office staff to figure out.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

[wccarmichael]

We are also playing with DNN as a possible environment for a re-design. Our primary site is via Cool Page (yep, it' That Old: http://theorchardchurch.org.) I've built a couple of "sub-sites" in DNN for specific ministries here:

http://theorchardchurch.info/staff - just to see the extent to which our staff would update their own personal pages. Uses ugly "stock" DNN skin

http://theOband.org - specialty site for our church praise band. This uses a "free" skin - not the skin we will end up with. About 30% of the content on this site was provided by the worship leader (lay content management) and the rest by me as developer.

Conceptually I like DNN. Another (professional) web developer member of our church is helping redesign our site at .info but building a custom skin for it has been a real challenge.

My biggest concern is throughput. I'm just not used to the lag time of the initial page builds... maybe that's true for all .asp sites, I dunno. I'm also concerned about crashing... what happens if you load a new content module that's "tested" but you end up with no site response. It's already happened to me once on the testbed. Fortunately, our web host tech support really is great, especially for the little $$ we pay.

Our primary reasons for wanting DNN are not really user-content management... it is share-access management by several volunteer web developers in a hosted environment.

I'd sure love to hear from ANY church using DNN (successfully or otherwise.)

CYA - bill

[Faithhb_lutheran]

My church is running a system based off of DNN and it hasn't given us any problems.

[AtlanticWebfitters]

Hi... DNN is great, but it's best to make sure you have support, like Bill said. I have a demo up and running... you are more than welcome to have a look, login and see the back end... http://metromix.atlanticwebfitters.ca/ph

[David Gillaspey]

Hi,

I just reviewed this really nice site based on DNN:

http://www.johnsonferry.org

However, there's a minor user interface faux pas throughout the site. Can anyone spot it?

Sincerely,

David Gillaspey
President
Great Church Websites

[JackWolfgang]

However, there's a minor user interface faux pas throughout the site. Can anyone spot it?

I assume you are not talking about the "Click here to download plugin" on the home page.

OK, my thought is the links in the footer of the page. There's not enough contrast between them and the normal text for a person with color-blindness:

http://graybit.com/files/graybit.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.johnsonferry.org%2F

Or it could be that we are more than halfway through 2007, and the copyright date hasn't been updated.

[cmsguy]

Much of the success or failure with Dotnetnuke depends on who is setting it up. For example, my parent company (not related to churches) used dnn on a few websites, and it was an absolute failure. They had menu modules that search engines couldn't crawl, out of date installations, etc.

Conversely there are some companies like webmedley (http://www.webmedley.com) that offer church content management systems and do a very good job. Yeah, DNN is free, but if you can offload some of the setup time and support questions when staff members invariably need help, it's worth the expense. The example I mentioned said they have 1,500ish clients so I'm sure they would give you some urls if you wanted to go direct and ask them how happy they are.

[David Gillaspey]

Hi Matt (cmsguy),

Thanks for joining the forum, and sharing your insights on this subject with us.

[jdbino]

Hi David,

I'm not sure if this post is OK or not but we are a DNN House who focuses specifically on churches.

We deliver the complete solution: hardware, software, live tech support, images, logos, etc.... everything in one service.

www.connectingmembers.com (http://www.connectingmembers.com)

Our goal is to give a church webmaster everything he/she needs in his toolbox to easily publish a great site. The purpose of our live support is so that we are available when additional editors from the church need help with things. That way the church webmaster isn't the only one who has to train the other 'admins'.

Hope this helps.

[AbbottF@Verizon.net]

I've been using DNN since version 2. I am setting up a new web presence for my church and like what you have done with yours. Which modules did you use and who set up your skin?

The sites I work on are mostly intranets, which don't have great skins.

I'm going to allow anyone to register. Active church members will then be given roles according to their involvement.

As part of my development for this site I am planning to allow members to maintain their profiles (coordinating family members, addresses, schools) and connecting members with their mistry and committee assignments. I'm a C# developer, so, if I have to, I'll build my own custom modules.

What did you use for handling your audio/video media?

Thanks for any information. This is the start of a long journey.

Abbott

[cmsguy]

Hi David, thanks.

In case anyone here goes the route of their own DNN installation & maintenance (which I would only recommend if you have some volunteers or staff with a ton of time on their hands and nothing better to do with it), look into subscribing to DNN creative magazine - they have a bunch of videos that help you through some of the more complicated DNN topics and advanced techniques. The documentation for DNN is really, really horrible and they don't have a very good community for support like wordpress, openoffice, or other open source projects (yet, hopefully) so getting all the backup support you can get is crucial.

[harlowmedia]

I'm new to the forum but have years of expereince with DNN. My church uses it and the staff at the church (Pastor, Youth Minister..etc) are the ones who keep the content fresh. I simply configured and the tool and let them run it.

I'm a huge advocate of DNN and would be glad to answer any questions you might have.

thanks
jason

[JackWolfgang]

However, there's a minor user interface faux pas throughout the site. Can anyone spot it?

I'm still curious about this.....it would be a nice teachable moment.

[flutem3]

As part of my development for this site I am planning to allow members to maintain their profiles (coordinating family members, addresses, schools) and connecting members with their ministry and committee assignments.

Hi, Abbot,

Welcome. I am a bit behind. I know nothing about Dot Net Nuke. It sounds complicated to me.

However, that is not why I am writing. Who has access to the above information on the website? Is the information password protected? We do not have that kind of information on our website and do not intend to do so. We could, but we think the risk is too high.

I think part of my job as website editor is to be protective of our membership and not expose them to contacts they would rather not have. In fact on our website we have a "contact us" page, the church phone number, and that is it. No individual has any information on the website.

Personally, I don't see any necessity to have that kind of personal information on a website. But I can think of a number of reasons not to.

I hope you enjoy this forum as much as I do. It is a wonderful place to learn. I will always be grateful to David (forum administrator)!

Carol

[David Gillaspey]

However, there's a minor user interface faux pas throughout the site. Can anyone spot it?

I'm still curious about this.....it would be a nice teachable moment.Hi Jack,

Take a look at this screenshot

http://www.greatchurchwebsites.org/art/FORUM/jc_nav.jpg (http://www.johnsonferry.org/NewsEvents/tabid/102/Default.aspx)

In my history of using the computer (both Mac and PC), a right-facing triangle has meant there could be more content or features to be seen. You click on it, the extra content appears, and the triangle (or arrow) turns clockwise so it faces down.

In fact, on this website, clicking the little arrows on the left side (and throughout the site) as shown does nothing. However, you'll see in the middle of the screenshot a link that is preceded by a slightly larger right-facing arrow. That is an active link.

Thus, there's two, not one, problems on this site. The little arrows are inconsistently used (sometimes they indicate a link, sometimes not), and the little arrows can be used to indicate more content, but aren't on this site. Here's an example from the panels in Dreamweaver:

http://www.greatchurchwebsites.org/art/FORUM/jc_nav_dreamweaver.jpg

The church actually uses a little plus sign in a box (see bottom right in the first screenshot) to indicate more content.

[mbro]

In case anyone here goes the route of their own DNN installation & maintenance (which I would only recommend if you have some volunteers or staff with a ton of time on their hands and nothing better to do with it)

What is it about DNN that would take so much time? Any details or specific examples would be appreciated. Our site is going to be overhauled and DNN is one of the CMS candidates.

Thanks.

[mbro]

I'm new to the forum but have years of expereince with DNN. My church uses it and the staff at the church (Pastor, Youth Minister..etc) are the ones who keep the content fresh. I simply configured and the tool and let them run it. I'm a huge advocate of DNN and would be glad to answer any questions you might have.

Hi Jason,

I have limited experience with DNN...really just on my own test sites to get a feel for it. I'm glad to hear that you're comfortable with DNN as a church CMS. It's one of the candidates that we're considering for our site so I have a couple of questions for you (I'll probably have more as we go along).

Have you ever upgraded DNN major versions on a production site (like from V3 to V4)? If so, how did it go?

I get the feeling that many of the add-on modules that you can purchase (from Snowcovered, for example) might not work across DNN versions. Seems like upgrading them would be difficult. Any experience with third party modules?

The thing I like most about DNN (and most CMS's) is that the content creation and update can be done by non-technical people. I don't want to spend my time updating content. At least that's the promise on paper. Does it really play out like that in reality? How good is the built-in editor? Does it manage uploading and embedding pictures well?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts you can provide.

Mike

[ibda12u]

In case anyone here goes the route of their own DNN installation & maintenance (which I would only recommend if you have some volunteers or staff with a ton of time on their hands and nothing better to do with it)

What is it about DNN that would take so much time? Any details or specific examples would be appreciated. Our site is going to be overhauled and DNN is one of the CMS candidates.

Thanks.

I use DNN for several several church websites I've put together.
I think the biggest time thing is the time it takes to getting used to the page permissions. Such as how do you prevent users from seeing this page, and which pages do we want them to be able to see. Once you get a good feel for how to DNN Membership (user/login) system works, I think you've fixed a lot of your battles.

The other obstacle would be creating custom skins. Of course you can always go out an buy some skins, but if you want to implement your own, it just takes a bit of trial and error, before you get used to what command DNN needs in order to implement what you imagine onto the screen.

I will say, that you DO NOT need to be a programmer, or an ASP.NET guru to effectively use DNN. Although if you're wanting to create some custom modules, then it's helpful.

And on that note, understanding that DNN is made of of skins, and modules. Everything is a module. If you want to add text to your page, you insert a Text/HTML module onto the page, then place your text and html into it. If you want a newsletter, you add the newsletter module, etc...

I'm really impressed with DNN, and the strides they have been making with every new release.

So I say go for it, and I'd be more than happy to offer any assistance I can regarding DNN on the boards.

[ibda12u]

I'm new to the forum but have years of expereince with DNN. My church uses it and the staff at the church (Pastor, Youth Minister..etc) are the ones who keep the content fresh. I simply configured and the tool and let them run it. I'm a huge advocate of DNN and would be glad to answer any questions you might have.

Hi Jason,

I have limited experience with DNN...really just on my own test sites to get a feel for it. I'm glad to hear that you're comfortable with DNN as a church CMS. It's one of the candidates that we're considering for our site so I have a couple of questions for you (I'll probably have more as we go along).

Have you ever upgraded DNN major versions on a production site (like from V3 to V4)? If so, how did it go?

I get the feeling that many of the add-on modules that you can purchase (from Snowcovered, for example) might not work across DNN versions. Seems like upgrading them would be difficult. Any experience with third party modules?

The thing I like most about DNN (and most CMS's) is that the content creation and update can be done by non-technical people. I don't want to spend my time updating content. At least that's the promise on paper. Does it really play out like that in reality? How good is the built-in editor? Does it manage uploading and embedding pictures well?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts you can provide.

Mike

Mike, (Sorry I know you were asking Jason, but I'll add some of my experiences as well)

I've upgraded from version 3.x to 4.x a few times for some client sites. And most of everything went smoothly, except for some custom modules that didn't work well with the 4.x code. Also of note the 4.3.x and greater code is different than some of the 4.2.x code. I think in particular the Membership stuff (users/logins). So honestly I'd start out on the highest version you can get. like 4.6.0 or greater.

I was able to train many non technical people to upload their pages, with text changes. I was able to train a couple admins who can manage an entire site with DNN. So yes, the learning curve to train people to manage content is greatly reduced!

The text editor works fine for most content management jobs. If there is some especially tricky HTML code that you need to add, then I sometimes hit the source tab, and just copy and paste it from "notepad, frontpage, dreamweaver etc.."

Here is one major thing! DNN pages use Forms (as a lot of ASP.NET is), so if you have a user accidently add an html form into your page, it will bomb out :). There really should never be a reason for a user to add a form to a page, because you can create custom forms using DNN modules. But I've seen it happen a couple times, where a user puts a form, or copies some code from a website that happens to have the form tag in it, and it kinda prevents the user from being able to edit the page. (There are ways to fix it, without having to re-install :)).

Anyways, I think you'll really enjoy it.

And I'm always able to assist.

[mbro]

Mike, (Sorry I know you were asking Jason, but I'll add some of my experiences as well)
<snip>
And I'm always able to assist.

Thanks, I appreciate the info and offer to help. And it's good to hear some real world positive experiences with DNN. I'll probably have other questions for you regarding backup/restore, staging content from test to prod, etc. as I get farther into it.

Now, if I can just convince the rest of the team of the benefits of a CMS over DreamWeaver, etc... I think I'll put up a test DNN site and give them some hands-on experience with it.

Mike

[rkaine]

DNN is a great open source tool for content management.

Like anything you get out what you put in.

Find someone you know and trust to help you set it up.

Don't let people tell you it won't work for you because...

If you want to be able to maintain your own website simply and efficiently, if you don't want to be tied down to some expensive monthly CMS subscription, and if you want a open source widely supported platform then DNN will work for you.

I developed our churches website using DNN www.pinedale.org (http://www.pinedale.org), as well a few others, www.teacherassistants.org (http://www.teacherassistants.org), and www.hgktech.com (http://www.hgktech.com)

DNN is only limited by the developers creativity.

[rkaine]

There is a free DNN Dreamweaver Extension available just Google for it...

[rkaine]

I designed the following three sites using DNN, the church one is my home church and they love it, check it out, subscribe to our Podcast :), preacher's pretty good...

www.pinedale.org (http://www.pinedale.org/)
www.teacherassistants.org (http://www.teacherassistants.org/)
www.hgktech.com (http://www.hgktech.com/)

[David Gillaspey]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for joining the forum and sharing with us your experience with DNN.

Your first post got caught in a queue to be moderated, which is why it didn't appear right away. That shouldn't have happened. I've approved it now, at any rate.

(Everyone, that's why it appears that Bob posted twice saying nearly the same thing.)

[rkaine]

Thanks for the welcome and yes I did wonder what happened to my original post. Thanks for the clarification.

Also if anyone has any questions about DNN, it's implementation, shortcomings, etc. just let me know and I'll share whatever knowledge I have.

[GaryMinor]

What is your website address?