Dotnetnuke 5.0 skin packaging

Hey, Welcome back!
I'm learning Dotnetnuke 5.0 skinning, and I think I must share some of the beautiful things I like about dotnetnuke 5.0 skinning and packaging.
When I come to know that dotnetnuke 5.0 skinning introduces a new packaging for skin install and that includes xml file with .dnn extension. It contains license, release notes and version text. Another thing was, each file you want to include in package should have an entry in .dnn xml file. So that is really a boaring task. Creating node and adding and tags for each of the package file.
So I thought we can just write a console application that generates the .dnn file for us. And thinking about using System.IO and System.Xml namespaces of .net framework to do so. But you know, I then come across a feature. If you login to host and go to Host > Skin and if you are in edit mode, it will show you an option 'Create Skin package'. That will help you create a skin package for your existing skin.
So here is how I develop a new skin:

• Create a folder for skin, copy version.txt, releasenotes.txt, license.txt and a single .ascx control with
• Copy .dnn file from existing skin, and rename it by your skin name.
• Remove all file entries in the skin section and add your 5 entries.
• zip and install skin.
• start developing skin, add images and css.
• use create package wizard to regenerate the dnn file again with all your files.

Hope this helps

Recaptcha.net control in UpdatePanel

Hey,
If you are looking for good free advanced captcha tool, just use Recaptcha. Its a nice free to use pluging available as asp.net plugin dll. There are code plugins available for various programming languages, ajax and non-javascript environment. So i like it. I just find it from some place and started integrating it to my demo project.
Everything goest well with it, accept when I place the control between UpdatePanel control, it was causing problem. It was disapearing when the page postbacks. The work arround to fix this is to make the ChildrenAsTrigger=false. This will fix the problem.
Have fun with this ready made feature and use it without worry in your asp.net projects.

I'm back

Hey friends,
There is long time since we posting an entry to a blog, it was like a vacation mode for my blog. But don't worry, I'm back with more tips, tricks, free stuff and more, keep in touch.

Thanks

New version of Cash released

Hey all,
New version of skin Cash is released. Here is a quick update:

• Cash0.2 released
• New containes (left, special, default, default-notitle)
• fixed submenu styling issues
• dotnetnuke logo is added
• login, user and break crumb controls are moved above content pane
• preview images are added

Here is a screenshot:

Modal popup and flash

Adding a modal popup in a document which is having a flash's object tag may make you in trouble. Because I was having a same kind of problem. To fix it just add another parameter to your object tag (and also to embed tag if any) wmode="opaque". This will allow your popup to show above the flash file.
For those who are using swfobject.js for displaying the flash swf file, just go to shource of the the js file and find this.addParam("quality",q); line. Add another like before or after it,
this.addParam("wmode","opaque"); This will fix your problem.
Hope this will help to you also.

Keep it up

I would like to thank all my visitors and will keep the good work going. March was a very good month as a technical blog for me. I would look forward for more and more technical source code, tutorials, articles etc. Please keep in touch and post your feedbacks.

Here is a quick statistics of the march month:

All my free skins are now opensource under New BSD License

I have just created an open source project on codeplex.com for Open Source DotNetNuke Skins. This is an open source initiative to provide good quality dotnetnuke skins for free. Downloads of all my free skins are available there under New BSD Licence. I would like to here from you guys which open source template you would like to get as dotnetnuke skin. I'm also looking for developers who can actively participate into it. Please visit project page for more information.