SunBlogNuke - DotNetNuke Blog Module

I hope everyone is having a good weekend!  Today we are glad that the refactored release v4.1 for for Ultimate DotNetNuke blog module –  SunBlogNuke is available for free upgrade. This release contains  some requested features, such as extending new fields [PublishedDate] & [LastModifiedBy] in the post entity so now it totally supported the necessary fields - CreatedOn, CreatedBy, LastModifiedOn, LastModifiedBy and PublishedOn, which you can access in the theme view template as well as tokens in the Content Slider Widget. Also it enhanced custom field feature in the Content Slider Widget with extending new tokens {block:customfield:xxx} and {else}, with which you will can configure default value for some specific custom fields if they are null or empty (Please refer to the updated tutorial - Extend DNN Blog With Custom Fields). In the last we would like to thank our client Guido A LOT because their team contributed the Italian language resource package, which will make our  module easily friendly. As usual, the complete details for all of the changes can be found in the Release Notes.

Major Highlights in v4.4:

• ENH - Supported new fields [PublishedDate] & [LastModifiedBy] in the post entity.
• ENH - Supported new tokens {block:customfield:xxx} and {else} in the Content Slider Widget.
• ENH - Enhanced the Disqus integration.
• ENH - Enhanced search result view.
• ENH - Released the additional language resource packages - Spanish & Italian.
• Lots of other fixes & enhancements.

NOTE: As with any release, we recommend you perform a complete file and database backup before performing any upgrade on a production website and that you first conduct a trial upgrade on a staging version of the site. Following these guidelines will ensure that you are able to recover should any unforeseen problems arise during the upgrade process.

Note that some issues may occur if your original version of SunBlogNuke is lower version, like 3.x, and you've developed your customized theme. Please refer to the tutorial - Must-Read Note for SunBlogNuke v4.x and follow the instructions. Hope it makes sense.

You can get it here. Blog your way and enjoy life. :)

The SunBlogNuke Team

From DNN 5.x, our website also began to use RadEditor as html provider for rich text editor, such as writing a post for our Ultimate DNN Blog Module – SunBlogNuke. Recently our clients noticed the issue that when typing characters in the Greek language it converts them to their html entities but not insert the actual unicode characters. For example, the sentence "Για να δουμε πως πα?ζει Ελληνικ?" will render "<p>&Gamma;&iota;&alpha; &nu;&alpha; &delta;&omicron;&upsilon;&mu;&epsilon; &pi;&omega;&sigmaf; &pi;&alpha;?&zeta;&epsilon;&iota; &Epsilon;&lambda;&lambda;&eta;&nu;&iota;&kappa;?</p>" in the HTML mode. With looking into the issue and request help in Telerik forum, we finally know that it is because the latest version of RadEditor included a new content filter named ConvertCharactersToEntities, which converts the special characters to entities, such as converts the Greek symbols to entities. In order to fix it, please open the configuration file and remove the ConvertCharactersToEntities string from the ContentFilters enum values, like that below:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
  <property name="Skin">Default</property>
  <property name="AutoResizeHeight">True</property>
  <property name="ContentFilters">RemoveScripts,EncodeScripts,FixUlBoldItalic,FixEnclosingP,IECleanAnchors,MozEmStrong,
  ConvertFontToSpan,OptimizeSpans,ConvertToXhtml,IndentHTMLContent</property>
  ....
</configuration>

Hope it helps for somebody who encountered the same issue. :) Thanks again for Rumen and the Telerik team.

Refer to the original post mentioned the issue originally: RadEditor converting Greek characters to their html entities!

Today we would like to release an enhanced version 4.3 for Ultimate DNN Blog Module – SunBlogNuke. Please feel free to get it for upgrade. In this building we enhanced theme mechanism with providing more ways to customizations, in the mean time it began to support EditArea (the code editor in a textarea) to highlight the theme view files and now you can easily deal with those customizations. For example, from the v4.3 you are able to take control of the layout or UI of your customized theme, such as bookmark, vote and related posts  section. The awesome sample is the tutorial - Integrate SexyBookmarks into DNN Blog.  As usual, the complete details for all of the changes can be found in the Release Notes.

Major Highlights in v4.3:

• ENH – Supported EditArea (the code editor in a textarea) to highlight the theme view files and now you can easily deal with those customizations.
• ENH - Refactored styles for all themes.
• ENH - Enhanced theme mechanism with providing more ways to customizations.
• ENH - Supported imageurl/icon for Categories Widget.
• FIX - Fail to fall back '_default/commentview.ascx' when the comment view file of the current theme does not exists.
• FIX - The 'Print' link opens a blank page in the browser and the resource cannot be found.
• FIX - Enhanced digg feature and made it work again.
• Lots of other fixes & enhancements.

NOTE: As with any release, we recommend you perform a complete file and database backup before performing any upgrade on a production website and that you first conduct a trial upgrade on a staging version of the site. Following these guidelines will ensure that you are able to recover should any unforeseen problems arise during the upgrade process.

Note that some issues may occur if your original version of SunBlogNuke is lower version, like 3.x, and you've developed your customized theme. Please refer to the tutorial - Must-Read Note for SunBlogNuke v4.x and follow the instructions. Hope it makes sense.

You can get it here. Blog your way and enjoy life. :)

The SunBlogNuke Team

The Ultimate DNN Blog Module – SunBlogNuke supports the social bookmark feature from the beginning, with which your readers easily share your blog post on the famous social bookmark services around the world. But you may heard of sexy bookmark plugin of Wordpress and really like the way it pop up the icons on hover so that you want to use the popular and cool SexyBoomarks plugin in your dnn blog post. Actually that was the request raised by some our customers. Now I would like to teach you how to convert the original bookmark into SexyBoomarks like effect with beautiful design & icons (If you still don’t know about SexyBoomarks or you want to learn more, please go to its homepage). The extend way is super easy and is a pure css version with css sprites technique, which inspired by the great post [Sexy bookmark like effect using pure css : re-cleaned].

From v4.2.0 , the Ultimate DNN Blog Module – SunBlogNuke includes custom fields features and the Content Slider Widget supports to include external scripts and styles easily. Now we have the ability to set up your content widget as a list and apply some cool jQuery slider scripts to it without any additional steps. Today we would like to show you how to integrate it with Coin Slider Plugin. First take a look at how the navigable content slideshow actions – demo link. Then let’s go ahead the great journey for building an awesome content slider in your home page.

Today we would like to release an fixed version 4.2.5 for Ultimate DNN Blog Module – SunBlogNuke, which includes some urgent  fixes introduced from v4.0, such as tag cumulus flash may disappear when clicking 'View all tags' and it will pop up a prompt error if guest posts a comment with checking option "Remember my details'. Also we enhanced Content Slider Widget with ability to filter the last 7/30 days of post. Importantly we rolled back the rich text editor for excerpt field in regards of the issue mentioned in this post - Radeditor missing from Excerpt field. Hope it makes sense.

As usual, the complete details for all of the changes can be found in the Release Notes.

BTW, if you would like to upgrade it from older version, such as 3.x and you've developed your customized theme. Please BACK UP YOUR CHANGES BEFORE PROCEEDING and refer to the tutorial - Must-Read Note for SunBlogNuke v4.x and follow the instructions.

You can get it here. Blog your way and enjoy life. :)

The SunBlogNuke Team

Today our team released a new optional widget (named 'Photo Viewer Widget') for Ultimate DNN Blog Module – SunBlogNuke. If you are the client of our module and finding some similar stuffs, that is yours and feel free to get it from widget page (Required Login). It is free, customizable image gallery. It allows you to display your images of the post on any dnn website in a professional and intuitive way.  Take a look at the screenshot below:

The customizable image viewing widget is based on popular and awesome component – SimpleViewer. Initially the widget was inspired by our showcase gallery and we would like to provide the alternative way to present  those excellent websites with their thumbnails. Then we made some searches in Google and finally got that SimpleViewer is what we want. It is so lightweight and easy to use, it features smart preloading, a resizable interface, thumbnail menu and optional description text. The only thing is that we need to load gallery xml data from our showcase gallery. That should be so easy. Then I took 2 hours to program it with retrieving all the target posts with their thumbnails and provide some basic options for customizing the personation of flash component . All look great. Please visit the page to see how it actions.

Note that its minimal required environment is DNN v5.x and SunBlogNuke v4.2.5 and  it is not core widget so we may not support  all the possible issues. You can extend it as you want due to the available source code, such as category select support. Also feel free to leave your thoughts and suggestions here if you indeed would like to let us make it more awesome and we may enhance it for you. In the latest version we will integrated it with Flickr Gallery. That will be more awesome.

BTW, we will release fixed version - SunBlogNuke v4.2.5 with some urgent fixes. Please stay tune. :) Now it is available here - Fixed Version 4.2.5 for SunBlogNuke.

Updated: Please upgrade to v4.2.5 (Fixed Version 4.2.5 for SunBlogNuke Available Now) with fixing the issue mentioned below.

If you are focusing on our Ultimate DNN Blog Module – SunBlogNuke, you should know that some release v4.x (the latest version is 4.2 until now) are available with LOTS of awesome features, such as threaded comment and custom fields. If you have missed those so cool things please visit our website for more details.  Today we would like to release a quick patch for fix issue where the Flashy Rotating 3D Tag Cloud Widget disappear and you should find the issue when you click to “View All Tag” from the TagCloud Widget. Please follow up some simple steps below:

1. Download the patch from here, unzip it in the local machine and you should find the fixed script file blog.common.js.
2. Find out the JavaScript folder - $YourRoot/DesktopModules/SunBlog/js.
3. Replace the original one with the patch file – blog.common.js.

Note that you need to backup the original one at first. Hope it makes sense.

Blog your way and enjoy life. :)

The SunBlogNuke Team

Happy new year for everyone!

We hope you have been enjoying a happy, healthy holiday season and are looking forward to a prosperous year in 2011!

Today we are glad that the release v4.2 of Ultimate DNN blog module –  SunBlogNuke  is available for free upgrade. This release contains  a new awesome features with the high priority – Custom Fields (please refer to the post for more details and some guidelines to get started - Extend DNN Blog With Custom Fields), as well as some great enhancements, such as enhanced tag url with SEO and enhanced Content Slider Widget with external utility scripts and styles, like NivoSlider or bxSlider, with which to build your awesome content slider. In the mean time, we converted "Category Widget" into an optional module, which you can add into any page at any time and point it to any blog on the portal.  Soon the enhanced widget framework will be done and you will also easily develop your extended widget into your DotNetNuke blog. Please stay tuned :).

As usual, the complete details for all of the changes can be found in the Release Notes.

Major Highlights in v4.2:

• ENH - Enhanced Content Slider Widget with external utility scripts and styles, like NivoSlider or bxSlider, with which to build your awesome content slider.
• ENH - Supported custom fields and removed the thumbnail field in entry table.
• ENH - Combined 'Edit Blog' panel into 'General' settings.
• ENH - Supported ability to moderate comments in the post view.
• ENH - Enhanced tag url with SEO, like http://yourdomain.com/blog/tag/yourtagslug.aspx.
• ENH - Excluded the 'eNews' theme to make the install package smaller size.
• ENH - Converted "Category Widget" into an optional module.
• Lots of other fixes & enhancements.

NOTE: As with any release, we recommend you perform a complete file and database backup before performing any upgrade on a production website and that you first conduct a trial upgrade on a staging version of the site. Following these guidelines will ensure that you are able to recover should any unforeseen problems arise during the upgrade process.

Note that some issues may occur if your original version of SunBlogNuke is lower version, like 3.x, and you've developed your customized theme. Please BACK UP YOUR CHANGES BEFORE PROCEEDING and refer to the tutorial - Must-Read Note for SunBlogNuke v4.x and follow the instructions. Hope it makes sense.

You can get it here. Blog your way and enjoy life. :)

The SunBlogNuke Team

Finally our development team implemented the custom fields feature for Ultimate DNN Blog Module – SunBlogNuke in the upcoming version 4.2, which will be available soon.  The use of custom fields will be one of the keys to SunBlogNuke’s flexibility and endless possibilities. Essentially, all a Custom Field does is allow you to add extra pieces of data to individual DNN Blog posts that otherwise aren’t there by default. We hope that it  will change the way people look at SunBlogNuke and rise in popularity of SunBlogNuke, too.  We’ll look at how to put custom fields into practice and continues to show you some potential uses of custom fields later. Hope it makes you easier or more productive to use custom fields.