This, my friends, is the ultimate open source portal framework. "What do you mean by that, Van?" Basically, DotNetNuke (DNN) is a highly interactive, customizable, content-driven, free web site in a box!
Do you have a static website? Are you interested "kickin' it up a notch" by adding blogs, forums, calendars, etc. Have you gotten sticker shock from quotes from web development firms? Are you frustrated trying to keep your current site up to date because of having to use some complex web design program like Cold Fusion or Dreamweaver? Well, look no further...DNN is the solution.
The Community Foundation of Sarasota County (CFSC) wanted to drastically enhance the interactive capabilities of its web site. They wanted forums, blogs, online calendars with event registration, etc. They got quotes from a couple of different companies, and it was going to cost us between $40K and $60K to do what we wanted. Their board didn't approve the expense, so they chose to try DNN instead. It's not perfect, but it gave them most of what they wanted for free including an online project management module. They hired a professional graphics designer that specialized in DNN (http://www.arrowdesigns.com/) to come up with the "skin" or user interface. That cost CFSC about $3K. By the time they purchased an SSL Certificate and a couple of small commercial modules, this site cost ended up costing about $3500.
With DNN, you don't have a pay for someone to design the complex database back end because it's already built. If you aren't comfortable with graphics design work, you can do what CFSC did and simply hire a graphics designer to design the user interface. This saves a boatload of money.
I've learned a lot about DNN along the way, and am continuing to do so. I have a list of DNN resources further down on this page that we discovered while setting up the DNN site. By the way, this site is a DNN site, too.
DNN has a registered user base of over 325K. That's massive for an open source project. In fact, this may be the most popular windows-based open source project in the world. The community is thriving, and updates and enhancements are being released regularly.
We found about DNN from Stan Schultes back in early 2005. Stan is a Microsoft MVP in Visual Basic, and an evangelist for DotNetNuke. If you've watched any of the webinars about DotNetNuke provided by Microsoft, there's a 50/50 chance Stan was one of the presenters. And no, Stan doesn't work for Microsoft. He just really likes the DNN and the .NET development platform. He graciously helped us get the initial DNN installation up and running at CFSC, and has provided a lot of support and valuable input during our journey. If it wasn't for Stan, CFSC wouldn't have its new web site, nor would you be looking at this web site today. That's a fact! So thank you, Stan! By the way, Stan has a great web site with a lot of DNN resources at http://www.vbnetexpert.com/.
One of the hardest things about DNN is getting started. The setup process can appear to be daunting for a first time user. To help with this process, I put together a play-by-play "recipe" from when I installed and configured DNN 4.3.4 on my web server at my house. This should help with getting over the initial installation hump.
DotNetNuke Installation Recipe.doc
"But Van, content-managed sites always have a "canned" look! I mean, they usually all look the same!" Well, this has been true in the past to some degree, especially for other other portal frameworks. However, recent versions of DNN have made the user interface or "skin" independent of the internal mechanics underneath the framework. This lets web "designers" do what they do best (i.e. make the site pretty!) without worrying about the programming underneath. This also lets the web "developers" build highly functional modules without worrying about how it will effect the look of the site. The isolation of form from function allows a wide diversity sites, each with a different "look and feel". To see some different examples, check out any of these sites:
Or you can go to the following link to see a long list of DNN "showcase" sites:
To find out more about DNN or to obtain a copy, go to the following link: http://www.dotnetnuke.com/.