I really could go on and on about this, but just a few notes.
1. Forced Registration to Download their Software
When you go to DNN’s web site and sister sites, like the new DNN Events site, the first thing you have to do before you can download anything is register an account. Now, it’s not all bad because it’s free and I guess they just want to track popularity (ever heard of Google Analytics?), but the registration process takes too long. I registered an account to download the new Events Module beta about 10 minutes ago and still haven’t received my “verify your account” email. Sorry, DNN team, I’ve now lost all interest in your beta.
Not only that, but it’s not clearly obvious you have to register. They bury the instruction to register in their rather long and boring content. If I go to wordpress or drupal’s site, I see big freakin links to download (no registration required of course). It wouldn’t be so bad if they had a big link that said “Register and Download” but no, of course they don’t.
Which leads to my next point,
2. They really don’t support or discuss usability and accessibility
DNN modules and the DNN platform itself are so hard to use. Their website is hard to navigate, most of the icons don’t make sense, and the forums are cluttered and don’t work in all browsers. You can’t make a post in their forums in Safari. Sorry, Safari users, outta luck. Get firefox, I guess. No one seriously talks about how to make the admin screens and layouts of their modules more functional, faster, and easier to understand.
Most of the modules we have to buy (another point) are riddled with awful and outdated front-end code, and have the absolute worst Admin screens.
3. You have to pay for most of the modules
Now this isn’t that bad. I mean, a software developer’s gotta make money, and some people run their business solely off of DNN modules, right? Ok, but step up your game and make a module worth paying for. Refer to point #2.
More later, I have to get back to work.
Cathal
June 3, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Hi Joe,i thought I’d post a few quick answers for you
1. you never have to register on any other site except dotnetnuke.com to get core or project releases. A few of the project teams have chosen to set up other sites where they let users play with pre-release/beta versions of the modules, but production versions should always be downloaded from dotnetnuke.com
2. i have to mostly agree with you on the look & feel of many dotnetnuke sites and modules – it still feels like code designed by developers. We are making changes all the time to address this e.g. all project modules now get audited for xhtml compliance, the core will automatically support html, xhtml transitional or xhtml strict doctypes etc, and in dnn 5.x “admin” modules will now be treated just like ordinary modules so can be swapped out/updated just as per any module
3.theres plenty of free modules out there (i used to keep lists @ http://www.cathal.co.uk/Default.aspx?tabid=80 but haven’t had the time to keep it up to date). The forge @ http://www.dotnetnuke.com/tabid/824/default.aspx is growing steadily with lots of opensource modules, and the announcements forum @ http://www.dotnetnuke.com/Community/Forums/tabid/795/forumid/112/scope/threads/Default.aspx is a good place to watch out for freebies.
Tony Arnold
September 21, 2008 at 7:59 am
+1
I completely agree with the points you make here. I’ve just started using DNN 4.9 for a project, and I am completely flummoxed by how bad the web standards and user experience are in this “award winning” CMS. It’s like someone stopped the HTML/CSS/JS clock sometime in 2003 and just didn’t bother tracking emerging standards and methods of easing development and design.
My guess is that this is the result of the standard MS developer war cry of backwards compatibility, but in this day and age (with the browsers we now have access to) I find the backwards compatibility argument tends to smell a little of “we just haven’t got back to it” (or haven’t bothered to look at what the rest of the web has been doing for the past four years).
Joe Sak
September 21, 2008 at 9:19 am
Not to mention now WordPress 2.6 is WAY ahead. I can upgrade all my plugins (aka modules) and even the entire CMS by just clicking a link.
Upgrading DNN is the biggest pain in the ass. Trying to find upgrades on snowcovered sucks, too. Since they keep every version, sometimes you can end up buying old/outdated versions of modules and not even know it because the search blows.
Also, you never know when there’s new hotfixes and patches. You usually end up finding out about them when you email module vendor support.
Rob
March 5, 2010 at 12:07 am
DotNetNuke is a marketing success, but a total technical disaster, it’s the worse CMS in existence, only non developers tend to actually like it.
Gustavo
April 13, 2010 at 9:30 am
Totally agree… I was so frustrated (still am) of being working for almost a year with this monument to complication and ugliness… I really don’t mind I have I have to work a little bit of code sometimes, (I’m a graphic designer, not developer) as long as I can have a decent, aesthetic and at least acceptable result… However with DNN it seems harder than finding water in the sahara… My boss, which is in love with DNN, since according to her she can show the final user how to update their website by themselves “easily”, just loves to go around snowcovered.. another ugly website with awful, hard-to-customize modules.. Not mentioning the skins… I have nothing against DNN developers, but it’s like tony said, time stopped for them… they’d be happy to still be working on DOS if they could, WordPress is 1000 times more flexible, more accesible and a whole lot more visually attractive…
Mike Palmer
April 26, 2010 at 6:49 am
You guys are like a bunch of whining girls! DNN is THE CMS to use for any application, and it’s freakin easy to set up and use, and maintain, and upgrade, and it’s xhtml compliant! (Granted, it has not always been, but cummon – this is the iternet – things are changing every 5 minutes!)
I have been using DNN since it was the IBS Portal, and have designed, built and tested more than 120 sites using it. IMHO, it’s the dogs bahoolies!
Why DotNetNuke Sucks « Dnnsucks's Blog
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