Professional DotNetNuke® Module Programming

Appendix D. Additional .DNN Manifest Options

Several discussions throughout this book have taken a look at the DotNetNuke manifest file in regard to specific scenarios — that is, what does it look like for a module, for a skin object, or for an authentication provider? This appendix dives deeper into the manifest file, and describes the available options, elements, and items that can be included at each level. You will also find direction as to when each option might be of benefit.

Manifest Opening

Listing D-1 shows an example of the manifest opening.

Example D.1. DotNetNuke Manifest Opening

<dotnetnuke type="Package" version="4.0">
  <packages>

The beginning parts of a manifest file are always exactly the same: a root dotnetnuke element that defines a type of package, and a version of 4.0. This version information is the version of the manifest type; it is not related to the version of any modules or content. For DotNetNuke version 5.x manifests, this value will always be 4.0.

The next element is an opening packages tag. Beginning with the new manifest system, it is now possible to install multiple items of different types in a single manifest. Each element is considered a package. Therefore, you can have a module package, a skin package, and so on. By using a parent packages node, it is possible to bundle these into a single installation.

package Node

As mentioned earlier, the packages node holds one or more package nodes containing specific packages that are to be installed. The format ...