By Lee Sykes
May 2008
In this tutorial we demonstrate how to use shadow / copied modules. This is an essential and powerful administration task that can enhance your DotNetNuke portals and reduce administration time.
Shadow or Copied modules can be used to update the same content on several pages from one central area. We demonstrate how to setup a shadow page which contains modules that are displayed on several pages across our DotNetNuke portal. From this one central shadow page we can administer several modules content at once.
We demonstrate the ‘Add Existing Module’ and ‘Display Module on All Pages’ features and how to make best use of those administration tools.
Following this we then demonstrate how you can use SQL queries to easily maintain these copied modules. This includes re-ordering the modules in a content pane across all pages in a DotNetNuke portal, updating the container of a module copied across several pages and how to update the container of a module based on the name of the current container the module is using.
The SQL techniques outlined in this tutorial are very powerful techniques for easily and quickly manipulating multiple copied modules across thousands of pages in a DotNetNuke portal. These SQL techniques are particularly useful if you are re-skinning an already established site. If you were to try and manually update copied modules across a large DotNetNuke portal, it would literally take weeks of work; this technique can apply the updates in seconds.
The videos contain:
Video 1 - Introduction, Shadow Modules, Add Existing Module
- Introduction
- How shadow modules are used within DNN Creative Magazine
- How to set up a shadow module on a fresh installation
- How to create a shadow page
- How to add a shadow module to a new page, Add Existing Module
- How to change the modules settings on different pages
Time length: 9min 6secs
Video 2 - Copy Module to All Pages and Reordering Modules
- How to use the ‘copy module to all pages’ feature
- How to customise a module that is displaying on all pages
- How to change the container of a module displaying on all pages
- How to edit the content of a module displaying on all pages
- How to add a second module displayed on all pages
- Problems that can occur with module order when several modules are displayed on all pages in the same content pane
- How to reorder modules in the same pane
Time length: 7min 14secs
Video 3 - SQL Queries to Update the Module Order in Content Panes
- How to view the content of the Tabs table
- How to view the settings of pages using SQL Server Management Studio Express
- Viewing the content of the TabModules table
- How to find the ID of a module
- How to create a ‘SELECT’ query to locate modules
- How to reorder a module displaying on all pages using an ‘UPDATE’ query
- How to clear the cache so all pages update correctly
Time length: 9min 18secs
Video 4 - How to Update the Container for All Shadow / Copied Modules in a Portal Using SQL
- How to find the container that a module uses in the TabModules table
- How to view the containers available
- How to construct the ContainerSrc location
- How to create a SELECT query to locate the correct modules for updating
- How to create an UPDATE query to update the Container based on the ModuleID
- How to troubleshoot any errors
Time length: 10min 45secs
Video 5 - Using SQL to Update a Module Container to a New Container Based on the Name of the Old Container
- Using SQL to find copied modules which use the DNN Blue Text Header White Background and update them to use the DNN Grey Text Header White Background
- Using SQL to find copied modules which use the DNN Blue Image Header White Background and update them to use the DNN Grey Image Header White Background
Time length: 5min 22secs
Total Time Length: 41min 45secs