SunBlogNuke - DotNetNuke Blog Module

In our previous posts on Ultimate DNN Blog Module – SunBlogNuke hacks, we discussed the incredible flexibility of  SunBlogNuke, which is one of the biggest reasons for its popularity among bloggers worldwide. In particular, from v4.0 we introduced the custom fields feature, which let users create variables and add custom values to them, are  one of the reasons for SunBlogNuke’ flexibility and endless possibilities.

In this tutorial, we will compile a list of useful things that you can do with custom fields in SunBlogNuke (if you are not heard of custom fields feature please refer to the initial guideline firstly - Extend DNN Blog With Custom Fields). Among them are re-defining the <title> tag of every post and linking to external resources instead of the blog post.

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.

As you know, the Ultimate DNN Blog Module - SunBlogNuke v4.0 will be available to download for free upgrade. In this building we took more attentions on "Refactor". With refactor you will be able to extend more features easily. However, if you would like to upgrade it and also you ever developed any customized theme or did some customizations, you MUST modify all view files lightly, including BasicView.ascx, DetailView.ascx, CommentView.ascx, TagsView.ascx, SearchView.ascx, and PrintView.ascx. Otherwise the "Event Viewer" of your dnn website will be filled with lots of errors, like "Could not load type 'SunBlogNuke.Framework.PostViewBase'.". Actually that task will be so easy that just follow some simple following steps.

As you know, we recently released Ultimate DNN Blog Module – SunBlogNuke v3.7.x with some enhancements and small fixes, including code refactoring. When you would like to upgrade this version, please note that if you had developed any customized theme ever you MUST modify all view files lightly, including BasicView.ascx, DetailView.ascx, CommentView.ascx, TagsView.ascx, SearchView.ascx, and PrintView.ascx. Just follow the two steps below:

1. Find out your customized theme folder which should be placed in the $YourRoot/DesktopModules/SunBlog/Themes/YourCustimizedTheme/.
2. Open up the BasicView.ascx, find the first line declaration and modify it like that:

   Original:

   <%@ Control Language="vb" AutoEventWireup="false" EnableViewState="false" Inherits="DnnSun.SunBlogNuke.Framework.PostViewBase" %>

   Modified:(yes, it is so easy and just modify "Framework" into "UI".)

   <%@ Control Language="vb" AutoEventWireup="false" EnableViewState="false" Inherits="DnnSun.SunBlogNuke.UI.PostViewBase" %>

3. Like the step 2), check out whether there is declaration about Toolkit. If exists, modify it like that:

   Original:

   <%@ Register TagPrefix="toolkit" Namespace="DnnSun.WebControls.Toolkit" Assembly="DnnSun.Modules.SunBlogNuke" %>

   Modified:(You should notice that just modify "DnnSun.Modules.SunBlogNuke" into "SunBlogNuke.Core".)

   <%@ Register TagPrefix="toolkit" Namespace="DnnSun.WebControls.Toolkit" Assembly="SunBlogNuke.Core" %>

The same process for the other view files.

In the end, make sure you MUST follow the tutorial if you had developed any customized theme ever, otherwise you will encounter the error like "Could not load type 'DnnSun.SunBlogNuke.Framework.PostViewBase'.". When you visit your good main blog page in your dnn website. If not just skip it :) Hope it makes sense for you.

Refer to the last tutorial about how to implement a customized calendar date in the Content Slider Widget of Ultimate DNN Blog Module – SunBlogNuke v3.6.x or later version, today we continue to share a more awesome code sample for you and it indeed works well in our home page. As you go ahead do some customizations basing on SunBlogNuke, like the must-have widget module – Content Slider Widget, you will understand what the cool extendibility and flexibility our blogging modules supply for your dnn website. Firstly take a look at the screenshot below:

We’ve received a feature request from our client Tyler. He hoped that we can provide a handy way to deal with the datestamp of their dnn posts, including format and style, for example, he want to be able to pull out the day (27) and convert the month to abbreviated form, e.g., Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec.

I also agree his point and indeed blog calendar date icons, which show the publication date next to each entry, provide a simple way to spice up your blog design. Using just a single image, a bit of CSS and some simple configurations this tutorial will show you how to implement something similar in the Content Slider Widget (& your own themes, which will be supported in next building). Plus we share some resources for you to use. Note that you should apply those customizations with Ultimate DNN Blog Module – SunBlogNuke v3.6.x or later version which had been integrated with DNN Core Token APIs and provides you more extendibility and flexibility.

Active Social has some powerful extensibility capabilities which you can leverage with your SunBlogNuke installation. For example, you can add an additional tab to the Active Social user profile page, and load the SunBlogNuke "Content Slider" widget within it - giving you a "My Blogs" tab.The cool thing about this is that then you can apply the same learning to integrate other modules that can use a custom user key. Today this tutorial will cover how to integrate SunBlogNuke to Active Social User Profile Tabs and show you the flexible capability it owns.

Active Social and SunBlogNuke can play very nicely together, thanks to some good design choices in Active Social, and the extensive skinning capabilities of SunBlogNuke. It's possible to use Active Social avatars within the SunBlogNuke comments and author images, starting from v3.6.1 of SunBlogNuke. I have done this successfully with Active Social 1.6 and 1.7. Today this tutorial will cover how to integrate Active Social avatars with SunBlogNuke and show you how easy and simple it is.

With more clients paying more attention to our Ultimate DNN Blog Module – SunBlogNuke, this blogging engine for DotNetNuke platform have been used by more and more excellent websites, like db4 developer website. In the agile process of SunBlogNuke development, we embraced changes and focused more attentions on clients’ feedback or feature request. If you have more questions or any suggestions for our blog module, please feel free to let us know or begin a new post in our forum. We are there for you and will try our best to help you. Here I also would like to thank some clients for your awesome contributions in our community, like Eric and Matt.

Today I would like to cover a tip shared by Eric in our support forum. You will learn how to retrieve feed in DotNetNuke with jQuery. Please visit the demo link and db4 developer website to see how it action firstly.