Another nice read for DotNetNuke enthusiasts!
I recently had the pleasure of reading a copy of the new [PACKT] publication Building Websites with DotNetNuke 5 by Washington and Lackey. This book covers a variety of topics related to DotNetNuke. You first read about the essentials of working with the portal. Topics such as installation, configuration, and portal administration are covered. This book also goes on to covers several advanced topics. You will read about how the DotNetNuke framework functions from an ASP.NET perspective. From there this book teaches you the essential concepts you need to know in order to apply your ASP.NET programming knowledge to create custom DotNetNuke modules.
For the DotNetNuke portal administrator
If you are not a programmer, then don't worry. There is still a lot of good information for you in this book. This book includes a fresh new tutorial on installing and configuring DotNetNuke. I was delighted to see that these instructions show you how to install the latest version of DNN on the latest and greatest version of the Microsoft stack (DNN 5, IIS 7.5, SQL Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008). If you're not exactly the most tech-savvy portal administrator, then this information might in and of itself justify the purchase of this book.
For those of you that are completely new to DotNetNuke, you will find a very quick informative overview of most of the standard modules that DotNetNuke ships with. At the very least, this book will give you a good understanding of what your portal is capable of. After reading the book, you should be feel comfortable enough to immediately begin using the standard modules.
For the DotNetNuke programmer
As I said in the intro, this book covers a lot of material that a DotNetNuke module programmer will find useful. If you are a programmer, you will want to dive into chapter 6 right away. You're going to learn about how pages get stored in the database, how they get identified with a URI, and finally how they are constructed dynamically. Within chapter 7 you will read all about the key classes included in the DotNetNuke framework which are essential for programming modules as well as leveraging the built-in power of the DotnetNuke core architecture.
Overall, I think this book does a good job identifying the topics that are import for an ASP.NET programmer to be aware of. Any programmer worth their weight in salt should be able to take chapters 6,7, and 8, and be on their way and programming their first custom module.
Overall Thoughts
As I've said over and over again: The world needs more DotNetNuke documentation. I personally have learned something new from every single DotNetNuke book that I've read. And this book is no exception. For instance, this is probably the first book that demonstrates how a Silverlight app can interact with your DotNetNuke site. And as I alluded to earlier, this book has updated information regarding installing and configuring DotNetNuke on the latest Microsoft software.
You should definitely add this book to you library. I also would highly recommend adding all of the other DotNetNuke books to your library as well. Because the information is hard to come by.
Buy this book now from Amazon.com
You can also order the book from [PACT]