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Friday, February 19, 2010 Some Questions about DotNetNuke: By goodedesign @ 9:38 AM :: 881 Views :: 0 Comments 1. Does DotNetNuke work with mac? Yes... it works with mac as it is actually installed on the server. I can give you a tour of the Goode Design site. I work almost soley on a mac for design purposes and extensively within DNN from my mac in Safari, Firefox & Chrome. DNN 4.9 - 5.x are very mac friendly, however... there are some components which are more suited to being accessed via Firefox or Chrome... and a rare component (module) which limits itself to IE on a PC. But those are not highly favored among developers. 2. Open Source With a broad market place of developers, DNN is an open source CMS that comes in 2 main versions: Pro (i.e. you pay to have it set up and installed) - just came out in 2009! Community (i.e. free & open source) We have been using the Community free version for years (as the pro version is a new roll out) and love it. In fact, we have not yet seen any reason to upgrade to the pro version. 3. Integrating the design: Much like any CMS, the design of the site is a skin. With Content Managed systems the site has 3 main divisions. A. The content (stored in a database) B. The Design (skins can be updated, redesigned & swapped out easily) C. Components (in DNN & Joomla, we call them modules) which are bits of code that add functionality to the site. As for the site design, It is quite easy to update, refresh or redesign a site within DNN. A. Simply create the site design in Photoshop. B. Submit the .PSD design to someone who can cut up and create dnn skins (or joomla, or wordpress) C. The skin is uploaded (frequently into a testing environment first) to see if the skin works or is missing anything D. The skin is uploaded to the live site to replace the current live site (after backing up the old site design just in case). I have also added new skin layouts to my site to supplement and add different site layouts. E. The skin design (if used as a replacement under the same file name) will automatically put all the content of the site into the new design flowed without having to re-input your content into individual HTML pages. F. The skin can contain multiple templated page layouts to accommodate different page needs. It then becomes the basis template for the entire site and can be edited and supplemented with a little effort on the part of the developers. There is even a market place for skin designs as templates 4. Expandability, Functions & Modules: The DNN system is open source which allows 3rd party developers to create modules (components which deliver added functionality to the site). the market place is teeming with components at a wide range of prices. DNN also comes with a wide variety of highly useful & free modules. Modules which deliver everything from simple text delivery to flash & image display and even form building, maps with geolocation, store finders, etc... if you can dream it, it's likely already there... if it's not.. it can be developed. 5. User-friendly: We frequently train our clients how to add, delete & modify content on their own sites. Generally, we work to train our clients how to add, delete & modify pages and work within the text areas of their site as 90+% of the content in most sites is usually text. From there, we work to train the client how to manage images, permissions & site organization. As we continue our training, we begin to introduce more specialized modules and work out the requests & needs of the client and assist them in creating a process by which they are able to manage further content of their site. In most cases, we work with our clients to share the load of managing site content. By sharing the load, we are able to keep abreast of updates & clean up as well as identify & solve impending issues more readily. 6. Search Engine Friendly: DNN allows for Search Engine friendly sites from the ground up! By implementing some of the core DNN modules and a few purchased modules, sites are ready to gather vast amounts of content quickly. Depending on the client's ability to produce usable content, we've seen some clients grow their businesses quickly with targeted keyword search engine optimization. We really try to work with the client to demystify the search engine optimization and scale the tasks to a level that meets their needs and abilities. We have written a series of articles on Do-it-yourself SEO on our site: 10 Ways to Increase Search Engine Traffic By utilizing a good content management system, sites are able to scale to a client's needs easily.

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