Hi all,

I'm in the process of building a module to display the most recent 5 forums posts and was wondering if there was an article or video on how to do something similar to this.

What I'm specificially looking for is how to build the code to link to the forum post. I have the module designed, the query is returning the list of posts and I am binding them to a gridview but I don't know how to link to the posts. Since the location of the forums may be different on each install of DNN, I don't want to hardcode the path.

Is there an existing article that shows to link to items in the DNN website like this?


Thanks,
Mark

Which version of the Forum module are you using?

If you are not aware of it, the existing Forums module is being phased out and will be replaced by Active Forums as a free module. Using AF may require moving up to DotNetNuke 6.2. AF does include a "Recent Posts" module.

But, to answer your question ... when viewing a forum post, you can look a the URL that appears in the browser window to see how it's done. Then, you can build that URL into your gridview, using data extracted from the query. I would also recommend (If you haven't already done so) to use the methods in the Forums module to do the database access, rather than your own SQL query. Doing that may simplify the process, and also let you upgrade easier if/when you move to AF.

Joe,

This is a fresh install running DNN Pro 6.2 and the forum version shows 5.0.3, so I assume it's the older forum module. How would I go about getting the AF modules?

Thanks,
Mark

Mark,

http://activeforums.codeplex.com/

Even though it is "beta" this might be a safe bet, especially as you are starting with a new site. I expect that the release version will be out fairly soon. And, it should certainly be easier than migrating from the old forums to AF. You might want to drop Will Morgenweck a note at DotNetNuke Corp. and just double check my incomplete information. Also, check Will's blog.

But do remember that is is a beta release ...

Got it, thanks Joe!

Mark