DNNHangout - December 2014 - Page Templates & How to Streamline Content Setup

As one of the more prominent producers of DNN video content, it seemed only logical that we should invite Aderson Oliveira of DNNHero to come and speak to us.  He instantly suggested that we speak about templates in DNN and how they can be used to streamline content creation.  As a huge fan of templates myself, I was excited about his presentation immediately.  Not only did he not disappoint, but he covered nearly every aspect on this topic.  So much so, that Joe and I really didn’t have any questions – and neither did our audience!

In short, templates in DNN allow you to create reusable content to help create new content on the same or other sites.  This feature is quite useful.  Probably the only scenario we didn’t talk about was one that I ran into recently with a website.  I was given a site backup to put onto a production server.  Unfortunately, the production server was SQL Server version 2008, and I had a 2012 backup.  You may already know this yourself, but for those that don’t, you can’t do anything with this.  You are stuck unless you have the ability to upgrade the production server.  So, what I did instead was this…

1. Restored the site backup locally on my computer. 
2. Created a site template.
3. Created a fresh installation on the production server.
4. Ensured that the production server had all of the same extensions (and versions).
5. Used the Admin > Site Wizard feature to apply the original site.

You see… I used the site template feature as a tool to migrate a brand new website! 

We got to know Aderson pretty well.  We began the interview with a tutorial on how to say his name, and found out how he found DNN.  From there, we went into DNNHero and got the low-down on what the future holds for this great resource.  See for yourself, with the show notes below.

• DNN 7.3.4 released
• Central California .Net User Group
• DNN Database Tips & Tricks Session (QCDUG)
• DNNCon presentation materials being announced on the DNN Software Community Blog
• DNN Connect 2015
• Armand Datema teases us with a built-in theme builder in his latest theme!
• Redis Caching Providerfor for Azure announcement by David Rodriguez
• HammerFlex theme release by Chris Hammond
• Open URL Rewriter release by Sacha Trauwaen
• DNN Blog Release by Peter Donker
• OnyakTech announced at least 3 new extension releases
• Microsoft open sources .Net and announced Visual Studio Community Edition
• Site of the Month:  Mecanoo

This blog post is cross-posted from my personal blog site.