Web Development
DotNetNuke Core Team all up in my Grill
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008 | CSS, DotNetNuke, Improving Code, Programming, Skinning, Web Development, XHTML | No Comments
Man, I’ve been getting quite a bit of attention from the DNN Core Team the past couple days.
I just wanted to say I appreciate the feedback and I’m interested in the advancements and improvements being considered in upcoming versions of the platform. Thanks for putting up with my candor and overt angst in these past few bitch posts.
I’d be particularly interested in knowing about any plans to move forward with .Net 3.5 and its ability to allow designers to define all the HTML in the controls. I’d like to see DNN reach the point where all rendered HTML is controlled by the front-end engineer, and we can achieve W3C compliance and simpler control over themes and content generation.
DotNetNuke Default.CSS: Seriously??
Monday, June 2nd, 2008 | Artemis Solutions Group, CSS, DotNetNuke, Improving Code, Programming, Ranting, Skinning, Venting, Web Development, Work Stuff | 14 Comments
Here’s another one of the myriad of reasons that I am displeased with DotNetNuke as a web development platform:
The “default.css” included with all installs of DNN has this (and more CSS for other stuff like it) in it:
H1
{
font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Helvetica;
font-size: 20px;
font-weight: normal;
color: #666644;
}
H2
{
font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Helvetica;
font-size: 20px;
...
(I think you get the point)
Excuse me, DotNetNuke core team, but isn’t stuff like this up to the Designers and Developers? Why are you including a default stylesheet with definitions for HTML elements that would be used by Web developers? I can’t tell you how many times default.css has left me absolutely baffled about the smallest details not being quite right according to our design specs because it has these random “defaults” in it. It’s not up to DNN Core team to define my font families, sizes, and colors. And seriously, stop using pixel font sizing.
It’s becoming clearer to me almost on a daily basis, that DNN is not the right CMS for a professional Web shop to be using. They probably have this default.css for people who don’t make skins or know anything about Web development. And if you remove default.css, it completely hoses all the Admin pages and Control Panel. It takes way too much time and effort to figure out what’s removable and what’s not, and you always end up surprised when some random element isn’t positioned or styled correctly later on down the road.
It’s time for us to move on to a CMS that gives the developer full control over the theme, and not put a bunch of defaults in it that you can’t get rid of.
Why DotNetNuke is Terrible
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 | Design, DotNetNuke, Improving Code, Programming, Ranting, Usability, Venting, Web Development | 1 Comment
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 fucking 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.
Blast from the Past
Saturday, March 29th, 2008 | Apple, Macbook Pro, MySQL, OS X, Programming, Time Machine, Web Development | No Comments
Apple’s Time Machine proves its worth yet again. I deleted my MySQL root user today (I know, total amateur hour) and I was scrambling to figure out how to get it back.
I googled and searched everywhere and couldn’t find a single solution. I couldn’t just reinstall MAMP because I had a client’s database on there that I couldn’t afford to lose.
Then it hit me… TIME MACHINE! I could just restore to yesterday at 4:30 (my last known working copy) and everything would be all set.
In 2 clicks and 3 minutes, I was back in business!
Cheap Web Companies are Ruining the Web
Tuesday, December 4th, 2007 | Clients, Computers, Design, Feedback, Improving Code, Life, Programming, Ranting, Usability, Venting, Web Development, Websites | 1 Comment
This is completely opinion and I didn’t do any research but I’m probably right in most cases. This is really me venting because I’ve been having more than enough run-ins with external companies who under-price our clients for “services” such as consulting or even developing systems that they can’t afford for us to do. › Continue reading
DotNetNuke and Search Usability
Sunday, November 18th, 2007 | DotNetNuke, Improving Code, Programming, Search Engines, Search Modules, Search Results, Usability, Web Development, Websites | No Comments
DotNetNuke recently added what they call a “feature” to their implementation of a search bar: the ability to search the web or search your web site.
This poses a couple problems:
- It can confuse users with unnecessary options
- It’s pretty meaningless.
CFD Smile Goes Live!
Monday, November 12th, 2007 | CSS, Clients, Code, Custom Development, Design, Portfolio, Portfolio - Freelance, Programming, Projects, SEO, Semantic XHTML, Skinning, Web Development, Websites, Work Stuff, XHTML | No Comments
Well, my first side project has finally gone live! After months of hard work, I now unveil www.cfdsmile.com to you. We wanted to bring out the services right up front for best emphasis, and lots of heavy stock photo usage for high impact.
We also worked with a professional web content writer to make the content more effective and search-engine optimized. This, coupled with semantic HTML, CSS, and google web master tools, will help this site rank high in keywords for Texas Dental Services.
So, please visit the site if you get a chance, and enjoy!
Online Chat Support: Provide a Phone Number as well
Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 | Customer Support, Online Chat, Usability, Web Development, Websites | No Comments
I’ve been working on a project for a client this week, trying to get their hosting account set up, and I have experienced a myriad of usability issues with their system. › Continue reading
Three Scripts I wrote for DotNetNuke Skins
Thursday, September 13th, 2007 | DotNetNuke, Open Source, Programming, Usability, Web Development, Websites, Work Stuff, asp.net, vb.net | 2 Comments
I’ve been in email communication with the new Skinning Team Lead at DotNetNuke. I’m really interested in joining the DotNetNuke skinning team. I bring a pretty unique contribution to the scene, and I’d like to share it in the most appropriate outlet. So I’m talking to Timo to see if I can be useful on his team.
Until then, I’m going to share some scripts I wrote for DotNetNuke skins, which I also sent Timo in email.
Driving Directions and the Web: A waste of time and space
Friday, August 10th, 2007 | Usability, Web Development, Websites, directins, directions, driving, google maps, mapquest, routes | No Comments
I’ve been doing a lot of content integration in the past couple years and I’ve noticed that almost every one of our clients loves to type out lengthy pages to give people directions to their location.