April 22 SoFri: Chris Hammond - Module Packaging Customization

Written By Moore Creative

2022-04-22

Chris Hammond (Module Packaging Customization)

In this Southern Fried DNN User Group Meeting:

Speaker: Chris Hammond
Topic: Module Packaging Customization

Lots of people use Chris Hammond's templates, but the tutorials around them are all pretty basic and intended to get you started. In this presentation, Chris will provide some more advanced customization and packaging options that you can do within extensions created by his templates.

Community Topics and Updates

We briefly talked about the surprize release of the new DNN corporate store...
DNN Connect is coming up soon June 30-July 3 2020 in Millau France - https://dnn-connect.org/events/2022
2SXC Content has been releasing new blog content on the DNN Community website recently, plenty to read up on!
- DNN Community Blogs - https://dnncommunity.org/blogs
- Easy Anchors in DNN using 2sxc - https://dnncommunity.org/blogs/Post/12331/Easy-Anchors-in-DNN-using-2sxc
- A 2sxc Secret Revealed? - https://dnncommunity.org/blogs/Post/12328/A-2sxc-Secret-Revealed
- DNN Details 004: Using the New Dnn-Elements in a 2sxc View? - https://dnncommunity.org/blogs/Post/12141/DNN-Details-004-Using-the-New-Dnn-Elements-in-a-2sxc-View

Extending the Christoc Module Development Templates

The topic tonight is about how to do more with those templates, how to extend them and add into them to take them beyond the initial training templates. Chris talks about his local environment tools and setup: Hyper V, Visual Studio 2022, and the Templates / New Modules

Recommendations and Presentation Notes:

Chris always recommends working in and developing for the latest version and staying with the highest as it keeps progressing. He targets DNN 9.10 currently.
His local environment includes Hyper V, Windows 11 IIS SQL Server, Visual Studio 2022 (he uses Community edition, but can work in Professionan and Enterprise versions of Visual Studio) and Git for Windows
The Develpment Templates - They're in the marketplace.visualstudio.com search for DNN and the templates are there. You can build Modules and Themes with these templates.
Chris walked through the process of creating a new module starting with a new project and covered topics of Building or Packaging, Install build, Versioning and notes on Including resources.
Chris created these DNN development templates as tutorials and training tools to introduce developers on how to create Modules and develop for DNN. These templates are a very simple example of functionality that can be used to help teach new developers how to get started in DNN.
He went through the steps of loading a new project from the template and getting it started in Visual Studio. It was a quick set up, two minutes flat! Chris quickly moved over to talk about next steps, such as building the installer files for the modules and the quick and easy way to create that install.zip file and install source package.
Chris discussed some of the particulars regarding extending more elements to be included within the build process such as external libraires and dlls, the Packages folder if you're doing nuget, include files and source include files.
Chris and Daniel Valadas talked briefly about being careful with DLLs being put into the bin and lightly talked about ways to make sure that you're doing registration of the DLL and version in the manifest be aware to not overwrite other versions of the same DLL.

Websites Referenced

Christoc.com - Is his site more focused on development and technology
chrishammond.com - is is personal site with blog content, photography and interests
DNN Store's listing for things like HammerFlex the Bootstrap focused responsive Skin Theme for DNN https://store.dnnsoftware.com/hammerflex-responsive-skin-for-dotnetnuke
Visual Studio Marketplace DNN - https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/search?term=DNN&target=VS&category=All%20categories&vsVersion=&sortBy=Relevance
Christoc DNN Project Templates - Visual Studio Marketplace DNN - https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Chris-Hammond.DotNetNukeDNNDevelopmentProjectTemplates
Christoc DNN Project Templates - Github - https://github.com/ChrisHammond/DNNTemplates
Christoc Articles & Tutorials https://christoc.com/Tutorials/All-Tutorials

Watch the Southern Fried DNN User Group April 2022 Meeting:

About the SouthernFried DNN User Group

Even though our DNN user group is nestled in the Carolinas, we are really YOUR DNN User Group regardless of your Southern heritage or lack thereof. Everyone is invited to attend in person or to join us online! We always try to broadcast the meeting so everyone can participate. Register now for the online meeting details for those of you wanting to join online

Published

2022-04-22

Written By

Moore Creative

2019 DNN MVP, Ryan Moore devotes time to the DNN Community by training and supporting at multiple community events such as the SouthernFried DNN User Group, DNN Con, DNN Summit and support within various Module groups such as Hot Cakes and XMod Pro. Moore Creative offers services to help with existing DNN instances such as DotNetNuke performance review and improvement, content optimization for DNN , and more to help clients get the most out of their DNN sites.

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