Professional DotNetNuke® Module Programming

Chapter 6. Investigating DotNetNuke Components

The previous chapters of this book have focused on installing DotNetNuke, introducing common terminology, and creating a default project template. This chapter dives into the actual programming behind DotNetNuke module development. It covers three basic elements that make up the main specifics of DotNetNuke module development:

• First the chapter investigates the DotNetNuke data access layer (DAL), with brief overviews of the auto-generated code files and the dependencies that exist between each file.

• The discussion then examines two key user interface (UI) base classes that will be used to integrate the custom controls created in future chapters with the DotNetNuke system.

• The chapter concludes with an investigation of the DotNetNuke module manifest file. The .dnn file is an XML document that defines the module structure so that integration is possible from inside DotNetNuke.

A fully completed module manifest will be created at the end of the chapter. By then, you should have a basic understanding of the DotNetNuke DAL system, which will provide a much easier transition to Chapter 7.

DotNetNuke Data Access Layer (DAL)

The standard DotNetNuke data access layer (DAL) utilizes a provider model to allow for easy migration to different data storage systems. However, because data providers for other data stores are so few and far between, you might find this process to be a bit of overkill for many implementations. I personally still utilize this ...