Since early spring, the DNN Platform team and the DNN community have been hard at work on DNN 8. In this major platform release we are looking to dramatically reshape how DNN is delivered and to provide great new capabilities that make it easier for site owners to build and maintain websites and applications. We are also providing new capabilities to make it easier for developers to leverage modern technologies to create DNN extensions.
I am happy to announce the release of DNN 8.0 CTP 3. This release is focused on delivering the new Dynamic Content Type Manager and incremental update support.
The Dynamic Content Type Manager is part of the Dynamic Content Creator (DCC) which is a new set of modules and APIs for DNN 8. The manager will allow you to create rich content types which you can expose using the upcoming DCC editor/viewer. The DCC will bring native content management to DNN and provides a framework that others can build on for more advanced content management scenarios. This feature is nearing completion and we would love to get your feedback. We still have some UI changes to make which will show up in a later CTP. We’ll also be adding support for Content Field Validators and Code Snippets for your Content Templates.
Incremental upgrade support now allows DNN to seamlessly upgrade from one build to another. This CTP supports Incremental SqlDataProvider and Config merge files, but we expect to also include Cleanup files and UpgradeApplication support by the final release. This feature means that from CTP 3 on, we'll be able to support upgrading users from pre-release builds to the final release version. So moving from CTP 3 to beta to final release will be a fully supported scenario.
Finally, this release includes the first of several expected breaking changes. In CTP 3 we have removed the SiteLog functionality and will make that available as a separate module available in the DNN Forge. In order to prevent the loss of log data for people who may be using the feature, DNN 8 leaves the SiteLog table intact on upgrades.
We have many more features currently being worked on by the community and by DNN Corp emplyees which we’ll be releasing in an upcoming CTP. The good news is that you’ll be able to take you existing CTP 3 deployment and upgrade to the next CTP when it is released in August. Until then, give this release a try and let us know what you think. If you haven’t already checked out CTP 1 or CTP 2, take a look at those features as well.
Finally. We really want to hear your thoughts on now DNN 8 is progressing. Is DCC a feature you would use? Would you do more beta testing if you had an upgrade path to the final release? Have you tried creating a module using MVC or the SPA features?What bugs were you able to find? As an Open Source project your involvement in really giving this a good review will help us ensure that we deliver a release that is fast, feature rich and stable.