Smart-Thinker Home Page Module Configuration Guide

Version 04.03.01

Thank you for trying the Smart-Thinker HomePage module. We hope you find it useful!

Overview

Please ensure you have read and adhered to these instructions before contacting support.

If you wish to request a new feature, please you Feature Requests.

If you have found a bug, please raise a support issue by following these steps.

Key Information

• Works on DotNetNuke 4.3.3+ only. This version will not work on DotNetNuke 3.x – you can read more about it here.
• Do not edit/delete/assign/unassign the “STHomePageEdit” role – leave this to the module
• Be careful what modules you give your user’s access to. Do you really want to let all users be able to run adhoc SQL queries using the DNN core Reports module? Think careful and ask on the Forums if unsure.
• If unsure, create a page and a new role and put a user in this role and give them edit rights over the page. This is almost exactly what this module does behind the scenes (but with a scaled-down/restricted Control Panel)
• You can try a free trial on a test DNN installation, but please adhere to our Licensing Agreement.

Background

Firstly, please bear in mind that this module was designed to bypass some of the limitations in the current DotNetNuke architecture. It uses the existing architecture and layout as much as possible to create a consistent, standard interface for users. It is assumed that a user is familiar with basic DotNetNuke concepts such as pages and modules.

It should be stressed that as of version 01.00.01 this module does NOT create one role per user, which is how you would achieve the same effect manually - it creates one role only called "STHomePageEdit" which must not be edited or deleted. We highly recommend that you do not assign View or Edit rights to this role or add/remove it from a user’s roles (the module will do this dynamically).

Licensing

As of version 04.03.01, this module now has a Parent/Child portal limit check depending on the License you have. Please see our Licensing Agreement for more information if unsure.

Set up

Add the Smart-Thinker HomePage module to your website, and set up the Role rights on who can see the button - you can decide who is eligible for a HomePage by assigning the View Role. Only those users who can see this module can create a HomePage. It should not be viewable by non-registered users as they cannot create pages. Do not use caching on this module as it can have unwanted effects.

As an administrator, select which modules will be available for selection by the user. You can do this by editing the module settings. Bear in mind that some modules expose sensitive information or have access to Portal-wide information. Think about each module careful before you allow the user to select it. The majority of the DotNetNuke core modules should all be ok, with the one new exception being the Reports module. We have defaulted the list to blank so that you can decide what your users can do. This means that when a user goes to their HomePage for the first time they will have no modules to add unless you have done the above step.

For example, you will probably want to give them at least the HTML module, Announcement module, Image module and Links module so they can publish their own favourite links or text. You could also give them a Gallery module or Blog, although be sure to check with the module developer on the functionality if it is a 3rd party module. We are not responsible for the functionality for any 3rd party module, but if you want your users to be able to use the module in question then add it to the list. An example of where you need to be careful is if you had a SQL module on your site - you probably do not want your

average user running SQL statements against your database, so don't give them access to a module like this. If in doubt, do not give it to them; you can always add it later. You can even test your module selection by creating your own page and see what is available. We also recommend that you assign the Smart-Thinker HomePage module to your available module selection. When placed on a page and viewed by a normal user, this doubles as a Control Panel operator, so the user can hide the Panel when it is not in use. In fact, it is critical that this module is always on a user's HomePage so that they can edit their page. If they erase it then an Administrator will have to add it back to their page (it may be worth mentioning this fact to your users) and their page will be rendered useless.

You can also choose where new pages are placed. You will probably just want to select the Home or first page in the module settings so that all new pages are placed under there. As an administrator, you can also decide if new pages are visible on the menu or not (of course, a person will only see it if they have the necessary rights). Please note the difference between visible and accessible (this works the same as the standard DNN functionality of having a Hidden page). Pages by default start off by being visible to all users, including unauthenticated users. It is up to the HomePage owner to change what they want to show on a page. For example, you may want to make your Links module private on your own page, so you would set the rights on that module to be visible by the STHomePageEdit role only. Or you may be holding a meeting and want all members of a certain role to have access to a particular discussion module, so you would assign the View right to this role on that module.

The "visibility" module setting determines whether or not new pages are visible on the menu or not. It is only recommended that you make them visible if you are allowing a small group to have their own pages. This is limited because of the standard UI - if you imagine you create a new menu item called "Members HomePages" and you have 1000 members who create a page, this menu item will soon be very tricky to navigate with 1000 visible entries. You may instead want to make the page invisible, and then it is up to the user to give out the URL of their personal page. Even if a page is invisible, it can still be navigated to by pasting the URL into the address window (An enhancement is planned for a future version to allow user's to change the accessibility of their page, but for now it is all users and module rights need to be edited to show or hide information).

We suggest that you create an average test user and test the process to ensure your understand the functionality.

Bear in mind that this module uses standard DotNetNuke functionality, so as an administrator you can still move pages, delete them or change them as you see fit. The only difference is that each user can also change their page. Bear in mind that for each user that creates a page, that is one more page in your database, with all it's associated modules and permissions. There is no imposed limit to the number of pages within a portal, but obviously core DNN functionality may slow down if you had 10 000's of pages. As mentioned before, please note that caching should not be used on this module as it will cause unwanted effects.

Customizations

Feel free to customize the .ascx file to suit your requirements. You may want to change the text on the button or add some blurb around it to explain to the user what to expect. You could always add another HTML module next to it or modify the footer or header for an easier result. Most of the language strings can be edited in the normal fashion using the core localization tools (Language Editor). Our aim is to make the module 100% localizable in the next version.

Check the Tips and Tricks section for more integration and customization ideas.

Technical Architecture

The limitation of 1 role per user no longer exists, and has been replaced by 1 role in total called "STHomePageEdit".

Do NOT edit or delete this role, or do any manual assignment with it as an administrator. Also - do NOT change the Description of a user's HomePage - we did not want to modify the core so we used these fields to mark a page as belonging to a certain user. If you fiddle with Page attributes then unwanted functionality may occur. Please let us know on the Forum if you require a change and we can help you. For module version 01.00.00 the description is STH-<UserID>, and for modle version 01.00.01+ this has been amended to STH-<RoleVersion>-<UserID> to mark the page as upgraded (the visibility between pages is different in the new version.) Note that this naming convention (<Role Version> is loosely related to the Module Version.

This module uses a scaled-down custom Control Panel for normal users called the SMARTTHINKERHPBAR. It will change your Host Setting to point to this Control Panel, and it will load the default Control Panel if you are an administrator (ie. you will notice no difference from before). This does mean that if you were using a different or custom Control Panel before installing this module then you will need to specify it in the Smart-Thinker HomePage Module Settings so it can be loaded for Administrators.

Upgrading

As of version 01.00.01 this module requires only one Role. The previous version created one Role per User, but this is no longer necessary. The upgrade will erase any old Roles created by the first version of the module when the limitation was in place (i.e. You should not see any Smart-Thinker created roles names "STH-x" (where X is a UserID) after this install). The upgrade process also moves any HomePages without associated users (e.g if they unregistered themselves) to the Recylce Bin. You may want to review the Bin after your upgrade.

Please note that due to an error in the IUpgradeable core interface, the upgrade process is done by setting a module setting to the new version number. This process will run once only and create the required "STHomePageEdit" role. New Smart-Thinker HomePages are visible by all users (including anonymous users) and are editable by the owner and administrators. Each existing HomePage will be upgraded to match these settings the first time the Owner browses to it. It was found that a mass page upgrade caused a timeout due to the amount of database traffic when saving multiple tabs in a loop.

The page name has also been updated from "My <PortalName>" to "<DisplayName> - HomePage" - if you are upgrading than an administrator will need to change the PageNames if required.

Removing unused pages

One of the features planned for a later version is a scheduled task to remove unused HomePages - for example, if a user has not added any modules to a page after 1 week then it will be removed (they could always re-create it when they were ready).

Once a HomePage is created, it behaves as a normal page, so you can safely erase it with no problems (if a user clicks on “My HomePage” then a new page will be created.

Uninstallation

We did not want to take a chance with erasing hundreds of user pages, so we decided to leave the user HomePages after uninstallation. We can help you erase them manually using a SQL script - please contact us if this is required.

If you were using a Control Panel other than the default one then you will need to update your Host Settings after Uninstallation to reflect this. The role used in this module will be erased (hence only Admin will have Edit rights on the remaining pages).

Source

The source for this module is in C# and was created in Visual Studio 2005 using the WAP project model. Please see our licensing options for information on how to obtain it.

If you have any queries then please see the top of this document for more information.