Professional DotNetNuke®5: Open Source Web Application Framework for ASP.NET

Chapter 15. Developing Modules: The Presentation Layer

In previous chapters, you have learned how to pull data from the database via an abstraction layer, and how to transform the data to a collection of business objects from your Controller classes. Now you're at a point where you can create the presentation layer for your custom module. This chapter provides you with an overview of how to display, modify, and work with the various user controls that make up your custom module in DotNetNuke (DNN).

The examples in this chapter show you how to define the set of user controls that your module's users will interact with while using your module. First, you see how to create the View controls that handle display of suggestion data, then how to create a Settings control to define settings that are specific to the module instance, and finally an Edit control that lets your users enter suggestions items in your module.

From there, the chapter moves on to the various built-in user controls and interfaces that you can use to your advantage in your module development.

Module User Controls

Chapter 12, "Beginning Module Development," introduced you to the structure of a custom module, and explained how to manually create references to user controls to define your module. Each module consists of several user controls that enable the user to interface with your application logic. These user controls provide a means to view and modify the data contained in the database supporting the module. DotNetNuke ...