By Lee Sykes
March 2006 (Updated September 2006)
This video tutorial is a continuation of our series on How to build a DotNetNuke website.
Within the default skins of DotNetNuke®, the Solpart menu is used for the module container settings menu, as well as for the main menu.
The first question you may ask is, why would we want to remove the Solpart menu from the containers?
The main reason we need to remove the Solpart menu is because the Solpart menu is not compatible with a
XHTML Transitional Doc Type. (DNN Versions 3.2.2 / 4.0.3 and below).
We need to set up DotNetNuke to use a XHTML Doc Type so that we can successfully implement features such as:
Using a XHTML transitional Doc Type with DotNetNuke sets the browsers into standards compliance mode. This means that the display across the various browsers will be more consistent, especially when you are implementing the features mentioned above.
The Solpart menu can not currently display correctly (DNN Versions 3.2.2 / 4.0.3 and below) when a browser is using standards compliance mode, so we need to remove Solpart from the containers of our skin and replace the menu with a drop down list.
Drop Down List Module Container Settings Menu
All we have to do is replace the solpart token [ACTIONS] with the drop down list token [DROPDOWNACTIONS]
Removing the Solpart menu from a container can also give the added benefit of less code within the source code of a page and therefore smaller page file sizes.
Video
The video below explains in full how to set up your container to use a drop down list and the benefits it can bring.
Time Length: 4min 13secs
Note: In the latest version of DotNetNuke (3.3.x and 4.3.x) the Solpart menu is now compatible with browsers operating in standard compliance mode. So if you wish, you do not need to switch to the HouseMenu or remove the Solpart menu from the containers. However, removing Solpart menu can improve the performance and reduce the load time of the pages within your website and is especially recommended if you are creating a pure CSS skin.