Professional DotNetNuke® Module Programming

Chapter 3. Under the DotNetNuke Hood

The first two chapters of this book provided a history of DotNetNuke, explained DotNetNuke packages, and established a development environment. The discussion in this chapter starts to peek into the inner workings of the DotNetNuke system, exploring the different elements, their common names, and why they are important to developers using the DotNetNuke framework. The chapter specifically looks at the terminology, the data elements, andthe potential integration points to build the needed foundation for the examples provided in the rest of the book.

This chapter begins with explanations of tabs, modules, skins, and users as they relate to the DotNetNuke system, and custom-developed modules. The chapter continues the investigation of core DotNetNuke functionalityby investigating portals and how they can affect development effort, and provides a brief summary of differences between parent and child portals. Although you will find a brief discussion about DotNetNuke localization, this topic is covered in more detail in Chapter 8.This chapter concludes with a discussion of common administration elements, including scheduled tasks and settings. By the end of this chapter, common DotNetNuke lingo should be more familiar to you, and the foundation established here will enable you to follow subsequent chapters without difficulty.

Tabs

The tab is a very important item when it comes to DotNetNuke architecture. A tab inside of DotNetNuke is what many people ...