After I started with developing my first own module on C# I noticed that the DNN_Chat module is brocken when used in any of the DNN versions. I got in contact with its team lead Stefan Kamphuis and noticed that existing team was very small. Accordingly I offered my contribution helping the module to work on DNN5.x.
My first activity on this project was the migrating to a Visual Studio 2010 and turning it from a WSP to a WAP (compiled) project. Next I focused on adding the MSBuild with MSBuild.CommunityTasks for creating module packages. This This task turned out to be bigger then initially considered, because I had to ensure creating different manifest files, all being properly installed with the source package. As a reult, you just need to update the virtual directory for opening the project in VS 2010.
Seubsequently I took a look into the source code.. Module DNN_Chat is written in VB, and only minor chnages had to made of the VB code - mainly some Namespace corrections.
The most time it took me to find out, why the module didn't view the messages being posted in the Chat window. Finally today with the help from Gilles (from the DNN_Shop Team) and Christoph Herold from
www.heroldit.de (I know him from the
German User-Group and
DNN-Europe) we found out a missing childNode in the module's client side JavaScript code. Now we are very close to a new version of the DNN_Chat module for running on DNN 5.5.0 and above.
There are still some tasks left - e.g. we have to verify and fix a reported issue with the Google Chrome and Safari browser, and we need cleaning files according to our switch to compiled project. We don't plan to add any new enhancements to this version, but focus on urgent needed fixes for all major existing issues, making the Chat module available again for the community.
I expect a first Beta being available soon and after successful user tests we will submit it to the release tracker.
Last but not least, I want to say thanks to Gilles and Christoph for their great help in moving this project forward.