DotNetNuke 7.0 Release Promises Elegant and User-Friendly Redesign

The latest release of DotNetNuke 7.0, which was announced this morning, promises an easier experience creating and managing content right websites, social intranets and online communities. Complete with a newly redesigned interface, DNN 7.0 is designed to be usable by the most non-technical of staff. A new control panel allows those using the system to bookmark frequently used controls as well as to drag and drop modules onto a page. Add to this a streamlined installer makes it easier to get started while providing easy access to advanced configuration features.

“The new interface will make it much easier for our more than 300 content contributors to update their web pages and sites on over 100 city and county web portals. We especially like DNN 7.0’s ability to easily share modules between sites, which should make our job of building and maintaining content much easier,” said Brad Laing, manager of custom application support, City and County of Denver.  “The new support for Microsoft’s latest and most advanced ASP.Net technologies will also enable us to more easily build custom applications that our users want and need.”

DNN 7.0’s features enable a broad range of users to be more productive:

Web content editors: A rich text editor with a new auto-save and recover feature prevents editors from losing their work. It also enables them to easily track content changes and compare versions of both rich text and HTML content. DNN 7.0 allows modules to be shared between multiple DotNetNuke websites for greater consistency and ease of maintenance.

Enterprises:  DNN 7.0 makes it easier for enterprise users to log in to their DotNetNuke sites with new support for Active Directory authentication. It also now enables bi-directional support for popular Microsoft SharePoint Lists, which are used widely by businesses to improve operations, promote team project collaborations, keep employees up to date on current business projects and tasks, manage employees more effectively, and improve business productivity.

Developers:  Web developers can build and expose secure web services through the DNN Services Framework, which is now based on Microsoft’s web API. Data access has been simplified through the introduction of a micro-ORM, allowing simpler and more elegant database interactions with less code. ASP.NET Razor is now optimized for developing dynamic extensions, combining code and content in a fluid and expressive manner. The included jQuery, jQueryUI and Knockout.js libraries make it even easier for developers to consume Web services and create modern, interactive client-side applications. The newest release has graduated to ASP.NET 4.0 as its baseline platform requirement but is also fully compatible with latest-generation Microsoft technology including Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, IIS8, ASP.NET 4.5, Visual Studio 2012 and SQL Server 2012.

Designers: An overhauled Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) foundation makes it easier for designers to create beautiful and engaging websites, enabling improved cross-browser compatibility, extending standards compliance and increasing site performance.  Additionally, DNN 7.0 includes standard form patterns that designers can reuse or extend to build frequently used user-interface elements.

“We are extremely pleased with the strong market reception to our latest major release, as we have worked hard to deliver a product that provides enormous value to our community and commercial customers,” said Shaun Walker, co-founder and CTO of DotNetNuke. “With DNN 7.0, we are providing a user interface and user experience that we believe will make using DotNetNuke more intuitive and approachable. At the same time, we have upgraded the platform to provide site designers and application developers with our most modern and advanced development platform to date.”

Learn more about DNN 7.0 or Click here to watch Shaun Walker’s DNN 7.0 Webinar