Adeptris.com feed back please ..

[RFH Customer: DavidCox]

Hi Guys

I have a site hosted with red fox, I only started using DNN4 since April 2006, I have now created my own MSN style skins and containers and sold one set, any feedback, new ideas, or advise would be great.

I work with a package called MBS Dynamics NAV, formally know as Navision, and there are tutorials on my site about that as well ..........

As I am active on the Navision user forums, I have been getting about 1,000 visits a month is that good bad or indifferent?

David

Adeptris

[RFH Reseller: Sol]

Hi David,

Had a very quick look at your site and it does look clean. However, it looks like most other DotNetNuke sites in the way it is laid out. I know it's not easy to get a clean yet unusual look using any Portal type package since they rely on templated layouts that allow elements to be positioned within code (in DNN this is basically a user using the drag & drop features to position modules).

Having used DNN myself I am particularly interested to see the ACExpress product, if you need any beta testers drop me a line.

Sol

[RFH Reseller: nick]

I agree with Sol on the looks, it's clean and clear which is a good thing, but it does lack the x-factor that could set it apart from the rest. A few things though, and I'll just list them off:

• Being a sad lonely individual I have the tendancy to check how sites validate with their markup. Yours fails on CSS and HTML.
• Again, I will always pick people out for the use of tables for layout. You haven't dissapinted me
• Site navigation & search is javascript reliant, That would probably be number one on my list if I were you.
• It's actually not bad in a text-only browser. But again, I tried viewing the site with lynx and I can't use the menu, it sayeth "Unsupported Url Scheme". This will be fixed by providing an alternative to javascript navigation I think.
• Speaking of the search, I'm assuming it is not finished yet, it doesn't return anything, and I get

  A critical error has occurred.
  Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

  If I feed it any dangerous input.
• I will stop after this. You appear only to have one form element that covers the whole page, so god knows what action it would expect to do when you hit enter when focused on an input field. Certainly when the search box is in focus, it is not trying to search when I hit return on my keyboard.

Erm, anyway. nice one and good luck. I don't have the foggiest about DNN, but I that info hope that helps.

[RFH Customer: DavidCox]

Thanks for the prompt feedback, but some of this is beyond me, the menu and search are DNN4 standard token functions, you just reference them in the skin and DNN does the rest, so it must be site specific, I have no real control over them only the look and feel, but I will check the DNN website to see if there is a version fix, and any other posts about Lynx browsers.

The ACExpress product is a work in progress, and it's progress is suffering at the moment, due the work commitments.

Regards

David

B.T.W how do you validate the Markup?, it would be interesing to see if DNN's own site passes!

[RFH Reseller: nick]

http://validator.w3.org/check?verbos...netnuke.com%2F - Of course it doesn't validate, it's M$ we are talking about here

http://validator.w3.org/ is the (x)html validation servie from W3c.
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/ is their CSS validator.

Get yourself Firefox and a copy of the web developer toolbar extension, it will come in really handy.

I unfortunately think DNN is the problem with much of this accessibility/validation stuff, but like I said before, I have not a clue about it.

Lynx is just a text-only browser, there are many different ones about.

Right, I've got a busy evening ahead, so I best be off.

[RFH Customer: DavidCox]

Thanks for that, I have fixed the search, DNN is a modular plug in system, and the search token is in the skin, but I had to add a search results module in the top pane of one of the pages, like a redirect!

The construction of the skin is a DNN standard format ascx, so some of the html validation may not be relevent!

The CSS I will correct the errors it found in my flies, the default ones are for the DNN Default skins which the site doesn't use, so i can live with that!

Once again thanks for the links and the advise!

David

[RFH Reseller: Sol]

Just thought I'd add that it is well known that DNN and most other major ASP.Net sites do not validate. Even ASP.Net v2 sites tend to fail validation although you can create Control Adaptors to correct any invalid outputs.

With regards to the single form tag on a page, this is a draw back of ASP.Net as it will only allow one form tag to be present on a page. however, you can use Javascript to focus form elements and hence control what happens when the 'enter' key is pressed.

Sol

[RFH Reseller: JohnnyW]

If you're writing .NET 2.0 applications checkout DefaultButton for setting which button will recieve the postback event when an enter button is hit.

And you can now set the focus in your by using formItem.focus() which will set the focus to whatever form item you want when the page loads without having to write any JS yourself.

For more info checkout http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archi...04/421647.aspx