integrating with dotnetnuke

Question

I have a simple asp.net program with forms authentication, session management etc. This application is complete in itself with sql server used as backend.

I was contemplating putting this as a module in the dotnetnuke(dnn) framework, I tried to find a good documentation on the web but could not find exactly what I was looking for! I am wondering if anybody could put more light on these:

1. How easy it would be to delegate my login to the dnn login. Currently I use email address and password for my application but it seems dnn uses login name.

2. My application uses master page and iframe. Is that a limitation? I do not mind putting my application in another iframe inside the dnn module.

3. When the session is over, I throw the user back to the login screen. I guess I need to somehow tie my session with the dnn session so that it takes care of this automatically.

Thanks for your time

Answer 1

While not an expert, I can give you some suggestions -

1. You could put your entire app in an IFrame. I have a client that I'm doing this with who has an ASP (not ASP.Net) based shopping cart. DNN5 Iframe module is fairly good at resizing hieght (not width).
2. DNN does not use master pages. It has it's own skinning engine to wrap each module in a formatted "container". What you do inside the container is your concern. Many modules use their own CSS files for formatting. So this could replace the master page.
3. Login - I would let DNN handle it all. Having two difference sets of login credentials will probably confuse your users and be hard to get to work together. Also, letting DNN handle login, means that it also handles all of the security as to who can have access to your module. This is a very handy thing.

In general, what I would do is

1. Go to http://www.dotnetnuke.com/Support/Documentation/DownloadableFiles/tabid/478/Default.aspx. You will find extensive information about DNN including module development.
2. redo your app as a DNN module. http://codeendeavortemplate.codeplex.com/ installs into Visual Studio to create a DNN module project. Using this as a basis would give you an excellent start. You could then use this code to "wrap" your current application. There is another template if you want an AJAX based module. On balance, for a simple app, you will probably find it simpler to wrap your DNN in DNN Module Template than trying to get the two different modules to work together.
3. DNN has an extremely active forum. Use them, they can answer many questions quickly.