A website and online store created for the Mount Pleasant Winery. The store was implemented using a customized version of the Catalook .Net Store. New features and functionality are still in the works.   Read More...

A site created for a new loft development in downtown St. Louis. The site features a virtual tour, photo galleries, data driven pricing and availability, a full featured registration and broadcast email solution, and lots more. Coming soon, a great interactive map for showing off the neighborhood!   Read More...

Version 4.2.0 of Efficion's Articles Module for DotNetNuke is now available. This release adds lots of features and fixes and sets the ground work for new improvements.

Key amoung the features are the new Comment Moderation features that let selected roles moderate comments before they go live. Another key change was reworking the architecture so that list templates can use Repeaters instead of just DataLists which will enable us to better make use of jQuery effects and much more. Look for new templates coming soon to show off our new capabilities.   Read More...

Makaboo.com, let's you create custom embroidered gifts for babies, infants & toddlers. Makaboo is built on top of AbleCommerce and features a custom-built Personalization Engine, customized checkout workflow, top quality lifestyle and product photography, and lots of little touches to make the site the ideal site for creating perfect personalized gifts.   Read More...

CRMagnetics needed a new website that provided E-Commerce capabilities, backend integration with their existing inventory and pricing system, improved search engine rankings, intuitive navigation, and a modern and unique appearance. Efficion implemented CRMagnetics.com as a hybrid solution that combined DotNetNuke, AbleCommerce and jQuery to provide a rich and efficient experience for their customers.   Read More...

Efficion performed a complete overhaul of Missouri Partnership's DotNetNuke-based website. The new site went live in November 2010. The site makes extensive use of Efficion's Articles module for content rotators, news, blogs, and more. We also focused on presenting complex data in a way that allows businesses that are evaluating Missouri to explore the data that matters to them.   Read More...

I'm working on a jQuery based rotator template for the next release of the Articles module. In order to do this properly, I needed to replace the DataList control that Articles usually uses with a Repeater control because the Tables rendered by the DataList weren't compatible (or necessary). Luckily, the nice clean architecture of the Articles module made it quite easy to make it so templates can use either a Repeater or a DataList.

This change will be included in the next release. It shouldn't have any impact on existing DataList-based templates.   

This release fixes an issue with the More Articles link. The Dropdown list that let admins select which page to link to wasn't populating properly.   

This is a very minor upgrade that fixes one issue with the new "Delete Comment" functionality, improves the styling of the edit and settings pages, and also does some code and markup cleanup in Comments.   

Version 4.1.2 of Efficion's Articles module is now available. This release includes a variety of fixes, improvements, and new features.

View the complete list of changes   

One of the under-utilized features in the DotNetNuke module development API is the ability to utilize DotNetNuke's built in Permissions architecture within your own custom modules.

Rather than having to write your own code to display a grid of available roles and special permissions, it's fairly easy to add your permissions to the existing permissions grid that usually just displays "View" and "Edit".

I found a nice article that gives a very good overview on how to do this
Extending DotNetNuke Module Permissions for Custom Modules   

As I build out the settings for DotNetNuke modules, I only like to display settings that are relevant to the other selections the user has made. The best way to do this is with Javascript so users don't have to wait for a postback everytime they change a relevant control.

In trying to put these things in place, I often find the code often doesn't work quite the way I expect (or at least used to expect) it to. The issue usually has to do with the way asp.net renders controls. I usually find I have to dig into the source view a bit to see exactly how asp.net rendered something and then fiddle a bit to get everything working right.

Here, I'll describe, one particular case where I had two checkboxes linked. The 2nd checkbox should only be displayed when the first checkbox is checked...   Read More...

 Efficion recently unveiled a new website for NetCom, Inc. The new site is a fairly simple, budget-friendly site built on top of DotNetNuke. The site features integrated video, search engine friendly URLs, photo galleries, rotating photos and quotes, and more. Visit NetComStl.com   

Efficion has taken over hosting, skinning, maintenance, and updates of Jazz Cruises LLC's websites including: The Jazz Cruise and The Smooth Jazz Cruise. A major overhaul has been completed on all their sites and we're working on helping them take their business to the next level through integration of their accounting software, booking software, credit card processing, and web sites.   

A question that I see a lot of is, "Can DotNetNuke run on top of MySQL?" The short answer: while It is possible, it is a terrible idea. The same answer is also true for Oracle. But that doesn't mean you can't write DotNetNuke modules that consume data from MySQL, Oracle, or any external data source.

The Long Answer

While DNN does provide a data abstraction layer so that it can, in theory, be run on top of any modern DBMS, the reality is DNN is a very large and complicated system that relies heavily on SQL Server specific Stored Procedures. The SQL used for DotNetNuke is chock full of Stored Procedures. The Stored Procedures improve the performance and security of the system.

A few intrepid souls have attempted to create and maintain MySQL providers but, with the availability of cheap hosting and free versions of SQL Server, there simply isn't enough need for that in order to make it worthwhile and those providers are long out of date.

Even if someone does manage get the latest version of DNN's core running against MySQL, it's still a bad idea because you would lose the key thing that makes DNN special, Modules. You would need to ensure that every module you ever want to use has a MySQL provider and that that provider would continue to be updated throughout the life of the module. Or, you would have to create a MySQL provider for every module that you want to use. The cost of doing this would far exceed the cost of using a hosting company that would provide you a shared SQL Server on which you can run DNN.

Efficion recently completed two internal projects for the Missouri Institute of Mental Health. The first involved the creation of a set of custom modules for DotNetNuke for an intranet project. For the second project we provided assistance in setting up synchronization between laptops that are taken into the field and a central SQL Server database through SQL Server 2008's Web Synch functionality.   

When I first started trying to install DNN on a local Vista installation I had various strange errors that I eventually determined to be due to the fact that I was running my IIS7 App Pool in Integrated Pipeline mode instead of Classic (IIS 6). And so, from that I learned DNN can't run in Integrated Pipeline more.

Today, I discovered that DotNetNuke can run in integrated pipeline mode as long as you're running DNN version 4.8 or greater. Charles Nurse discusses this in this blog.   

We've been working on the 4.1 release of the Articles module for several weeks now. It will include the following:

• Comment Moderation: Admins can now delete Comments (editing and replying coming soon)
• Added the Ability to Sort by Random
• Limiting Editing of Articles to Administrators and Creators
• Improved Permissions - We will be using the DNN permissions grid to provide a much more intuitive and granular control over what roles should be allowed to perform what functions (view, edit, create, approve, delete, ...)
• Detail Display Location: Admins will be able select a specfic module to use for displaying the module details rather than just a page. This will allow a list view and a detail view to existing on the same page.

While version 3.2.6 was available for public download for much longer than I ever anticipated, it is gratifying to note that it had a nice consistent daily download and in the end, was downloaded over 30,000 times when you combine the Install and Source versions. Thanks for all the support and kind words!   

Version 4.1 of Efficion's Articles module for DotNetNuke is now available. Our previous release, 3.2.6 was downloaded over 30,000 times. The Articles module provides a range of features that make it a great tool for many uses including: news, announcements, events, blogs, and much more. Learn More...