It's been a long time since I've blogged here on the DotNetNuke site. So long that I had to look to see when my last one was (7/30/2009). At that time it was to announce the release of the 05.00.02 version of the provider. So, almost two years since I've blogged and just that long since a release of the provider. I could say that the provider is just that good that there's been no need for a release but, as I'm sure the users of the provider can attest, that's just not the case.
Why hasn't anything been happening with the provider in all that time? Well a number of things. The primary reason is that my life has gotten extremely busy in the last two years. At the time of the last release I was spending all my free time prepping for my black-belt test in Taekwondo and once I passed the test (November of 2009) I started teaching the beginner classes at the dojang three nights a week (prior to that I was assisting the regular instructors in their classes). Add in family commitments and working on the provider just kept getting pushed to the back-burner. Every month I'd plan to spend at least an hour a night on the provider getting bug fixes done and enhancements added but it just wasn't happening. Now, that's not to say that the code sat there dormant without being looked at all this time. I would open the solution now and then and fix a bug or look at a problem but it never got down to the point where I was ready for a release.
That's changed for a couple of reasons. One was prompted by the future release of DotNetNuke 6. While I'm confident the provider will work fine under DotNetNuke 6 I've always tried to be prepared for the worse and want to make sure as many bug fixes are completed just in case I need to make an emergency fix to the provider.
The second reason was because I've now got a new team member on the provider project. His name is Ashish Prasad. Ashish is a senior developer with DotNetNuke Corporation and has extensive experience deploying the provider from his previous employment. He also gets to talk to provider users first hand through more avenues than email or the forums. Working on the provider will be something that Ashish does on his own time just like I do.
I'd like to welcome Ashish and thank him for approaching me about joining the project. It was the impetus I needed to get my bug fixes checked into Codeplex and to get a new release out.
Enough about the project team and on to the provider. If you visit project's
Codplex site and look under the Issue Tracker you'll see a number of items that are listed as Fixed. One of the biggest fixes is the ability to run the provider on IIS 7 under the Integrated pipeline. This fix does require the server administrator to make a change to the applicatonHost.config file but getting the provider to run under the Integrated pipeline has been a major stumbling block since the release of IIS 7. I hope to have a beta released by the middle of April so if there are bugs in the provider that you don't see fixed or listed in Codeplex please make sure you get them in there so that Ash and I can get them fixed up.