Removing Roadblocks to Upgrading By Reviving the Old Core Modules

In the recent months I have noticed a increase in the number of clients that want to upgrade Dnn, they are often faced with modules that break due to breaking changes in the platform. And the older the module, the more chances it has of being affected. Unfortunately, we cannot do much for third party modules, but I feel nobody should be blocked from upgrading because of a module that was formerly included with Dnn. After thinking about it, I decided to take initiative and made it my goal to make all the old “core” modules work on DNN v9.2. As you would imagine this is not a task that is achieved overnight, but I’ve made good progress. Several modules are already current and in doing so, I think it fired up a new wave of motivation within the Dnn Community Developers!

Let’s start by looking at the modules that I’m targeting to get current...

Current Status

If you haven’t been around too long you may not know which core modules I’m referring to. In the early days of DNN these modules shipped with the platform and were “owned” by various core teams and individuals. Now days these modules don’t ship already installed, but they can be installed if desired. Though, a lot of older sites still have them and are using them in their sites, which is why it’s important for them to be current.

I’m going to list these modules out along with their status below:

• Active Directory

  • https://github.com/DNNCommunity/DNN.ActiveDirectory

  • Status:Unknown, need help testing in Dnn 9.2 from someone who has the proper environment

  • Contributors: Ernst Peter Tamminga

• Announcements

  • https://github.com/DNNCommunity/DNN.Announcements

  • Status: Dnn 9.2 compatible since May 20th 2018

  • Contributors: Daniel Valadas, Ernst Peter Tamminga

• Blog

  • https://github.com/DNN-Connect/DNN-Blog

  • Status: Dnn 9.2 compatible

  • Contributors: Peter Donker, Luis Cabrera, Oliver Hine, Brian Dukes, Philipp Becker, Mitchel Sellers

• Documents

  • https://github.com/mitchelsellers/dnnDocuments

  • Status: Dnn 9.2 compatible since May 4th 2018

  • Contributors: Mitchel Sellers, Daniel Valadas

• Events

  • https://github.com/DNNCommunity/DNN.Events

  • Status: Dnn 9.2 compatible since June 7th 2018

  • Contributors: Ernst Peter Tamminga, femkevanderzalm, nvisionative

• FAQ

  • https://github.com/DNNCommunity/DNN.Faq

  • Status: Dnn 9.2 compatible

  • Contributors: Ernst Peter Tamminga, George Alatrash, TopCat6, Erik van Ballegoij, joriscools, swkuhn, Mark McAvoy

• Feedback

  • https://github.com/DNNCommunity/DNN.Feedback

  • Status: Dnn 9.2 compatible

  • Contributors: Erns Peter Tamminga, Oliver Hine, Roman M. Yagodin

• Form and List (Formerly User Defined Tables)

  • https://github.com/DNNCommunity/DNN.FormAndList

  • Status: Dnn 9.2 compatible since June 22nd 2018

  • Contributors: Daniel Valadas, Stefan Cullmann, Ernst Peter Tamminga, Ben Zyhfish, George Alatrash

• Forum

  • https://github.com/ActiveForums/ActiveForums

  • Status: At some point Dnn acquired Active Modules which included Active Forums, so the older Forums module is not longer actively maintained, but Active Forums is Dnn 9.2 compatible. We need to find and document the migration process from Dnn Forum to Active Forum module.

  • Contributors: Jason Brunkens, Seth Folickman, Joakim Andersson, laralmix, Ravi Gupta, Mitchel Sellers, Philipp Becker, T cnvo, Vincent Parret, Chandan Ray, Sebastian Leupold, benjironelson, johnhenly, Peter Donker, Chris Hammond, James Jothay.

• Gallery

  • xxxxx

  • Status: Was never moved from codeplex, this modules needs to be moved to github, converted to c#, made Dnn 9.2 compatible and have at least one basic responsive template.

  • Contributors: ??? But I plan on tackling this one in a week or two.

• Help

  • xxxxx

  • Status: Was never moved from codeplex, this modules needs to be moved to github, converted to c#, made Dnn 9.2 compatible and have at least one basic responsive template.

  • Contributors: ???

• Iframe

  • https://github.com/DNNCommunity/DNN.IFrame

  • Status: Dnn 9.2 compatible

  • Contributors: Michael Tobisch, nvisionative, Ernst Peter Tamminga, Erik van Ballegoij, Geoge Alatrash

• Links

  • https://github.com/DNNCommunity/DNN.Links

  • Status: I am currently working on it, we should have a new release shortly

  • Contributors: Daniel Valadas, Ernst Peter Tamminga

• Map

  • xxxxx

  • Status: Was never moved from codeplex, this modules needs to be moved to github, converted to c#, made Dnn 9.2 compatible and have at least one basic responsive template.

  • Contributors: ?????

• Media

  • xxxxx

  • Status: Was never moved from codeplex, this modules needs to be moved to github, converted to c#, made Dnn 9.2 compatible and have at least one basic responsive template.

  • Contributors: ?????

• News Feed (RSS)

  • https://github.com/DNNCommunity/DNN.NewsFeeds

  • Status: Dnn 9.2 compatible

  • Contributors: Ernst Peter Tamminga

• Newsletter

  • https://github.com/DNNCommunity/Dnn.Newsletter

  • Status: Dnn 9.2 compatible

  • Contributors: Ernst Peter Tamminga, Ben Zyhfish

• Reports

  • https://github.com/DNNCommunity/DNN.Reports

  • Status: Dnn 9.2 compatible

  • Contributors: Ernst Peter Tamminga

• Repository

  • Was never moved from codeplex, this modules needs to be moved to github, converted to c#, made Dnn 9.2 compatible and have at least one basic responsive template.

  • Contributors: ?????

• Store

  • https://github.com/lepigocher/DNNStore

  • Status: Unkown, need testers

  • Contributors: Gilles Le Pigocher

• Survey

  • xxxxx

  • Status: Was never moved from codeplex, this modules needs to be moved to github, converted to c#, made Dnn 9.2 compatible and have at least one basic responsive template.

  • Contributors: ?????

• Users Online

  • xxxxx

  • Status: Was never moved from codeplex, this modules needs to be moved to github, converted to c#, made Dnn 9.2 compatible and have at least one basic responsive template.

  • Contributors: ?????

• Wiki

  • https://github.com/DNNCommunity/DNN.Wiki

  • Status: Dnn 9.2 compatible

  • Contributors: Ernst Peter Tamminga

• XML

  • https://github.com/DNNCommunity/DNN.XML

  • Status: Dnn 9.2 compatible

  • Contributors: Tonci Tvatavuk, Ernst Peter Tamminga

How You Can Help

It would be awesome if you could assist, but you may be wondering how. There are several ways you can help us get everything current. The obvious option is to write code to update these modules, fork them on GitHub and submit a Pull Request with your updates. If you can’t write code then you can help with documentation or testing. Perhaps you are a front-end developer or UI expert… you can contribute updated styling and design concepts. There are always different ways to help.

I am also looking to start a sub-group of the Developer’s group to focus on this task. I imagine we will have a few meetings while we work to bring these current (see my next blog post).

Our Ultimate Goal: Seeing DNN Thrive!
As a community our ultimate goal is to see DNN thrive. If our users aren’t upgrading because of stagnated modules then that is not good for me, my business, you, your business, and for the community overall. The good news is that with a little effort we can remove these roadblocks and make it easy for people to upgrade and get current.

First meeting

Stay tuned for another blog post shortly if you would like to join the effort and have our first meeting where we can agree on a roadmap, and collaborate on this project.