Hello mojoPortal community,

I would like to gather your feedback about something I am contemplating. Not long ago I implemented a new data layer for Sql Azure. I could have just made changes in the MS SQL data layer to make it compatible. The biggest change would be that ntext fields must be changed to nvarchar(max). There are a few other changes needed to support Sql Azure but that is the main issue as we are currently using ntext all over the place. The problem is that nvarchar(max) was introduced in SQL 2005, so doing this would be explicitly dropping support for SQL 2000 in mojoPortal. Doing this would be very beneficial to me because I could consolidate into 1 data layer that supports SQL 2005, 2008, and Azure and this would reduce maintenance by eliminating the need for an extra data layer for Sql Azure. 

So, what I'm trying to guage is how many of you are using SQL 2000?

It is 10 year old technology after all and at some point it seems like we should be able to drop support for it. If I were to drop support for it sometime soon how many of you would be chasing me with pitch forks?

Thanks,

Joe

Just a quick post to let people know about new training videos available. I am making it my focus for this month to produce a lot more tutorials to answer common questions and especially to help developers get started with custom development. I still have a ways to go with the developer tutorials, but thought I would go ahead an post links to videos I've completed so far.

Installation and Configuration

• Installing mojoPrtal in IIS 7.5 with MS SQL
• Hosting Multiple Sites Based on Host Names - with a primer on DNS resolution

Developer Series

I've begun a series of clips where I plan to implement a simple Guestbook feature as a way to cover important concepts. 

1. Getting the code from svn trunk
2. Introduction to the Source Code Part 1
3. Introduction to the Source Code Part 2
4. Creating a Custom Solution and Project
5. Hello Web Part 1
6. Hello Web Part 2
7. Guestbook first steps
8. Concepts Part 1
9. Concepts Part 2
10. Debugging in IIS
11. Create a Table in the db using the setup system
12. Create stored procedures with an upgrade script using the setup system
13. Generating a data access class
14. Generate the business layer
15. First Guestbook submission achieved
16. Form Layout 
17. Form Layout Part 2 and data binding

Just getting started so far, lots more clips to produce to complete the Guestbook tutorial. I'm planning to cover development of business and data access classes and how to add supporting pages to your feature as well as how to make your feature searchable. I'm working only from an outline not a script, so the videos are mostly improvised and I stumble on a few things here and there, but rather than edit them out, I think it is helpful since you may also stumble a little bit, so learning to work through the stumbles is part of the process.

Each clip will be less than 10 minutes in order to fit them on YouTube, but they are in high definition so the video quality should be pretty decent.

UPDATE 2010-03-08 -added items 8 - 17 to the list above.

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I'm happy to announce the release of mojoPortal 2.3.3.9, available now on our download page.

Feature Improvements

• Image Gallery now uses friendlier file names and you can optionally move existing Galleries below the /Data/Sites/[SiteID]/media folder to make it easy to browse gallery images from the editor. Just add this setting to your user.config file: <add key="ImageGalleryUseMediaFolder" value="true" />
• People often don't notice that the forums are integrated into site search, so we added a search box in the forums that redirects to site search and filters for forum content.
• Added a search feature in the Url Manager to make it easier to find a URL when you have lots of them.
• Upgraded FCKeditor from 2.6.5 to 2.6.6
• Updated config setting to use new jQuery 1.4.2
• Updated Russian resources files from Alexander aka SkySandy
• Updated Portuguese resources from Leonard Pedrini

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where re-sorting root pages in a multi-site installation caused root level pages in all sites to be re-sorted and with lots of sites and pages, this could result in it becoming impossible to sort pages in some cases.
• Fixed a bug where if you tabbed out of the page name in page settings or out of the blog title when updating a blog post, a new URL was being suggested when the name or title did not change which could lead to unintended URL changes.
• Fixed sitemap so that it uses https URLs if the page requires SSL to avoid an extra redirect
• Fixed bug in Image Gallery where portrait images were not creating correctly sized thumbnails or web images.
• Fixed issue where the content rating control did not work well in some cases

Thanks to all community members for providing bug reports and feedback, especially Alexander aka SkySandy for his work in diagnosing bugs and suggesting fixes.

Related Product Updates

Just as we had to make changes in mojoPortal to support Artisteer templates, we also made corresponding changes in our add-on products Event Calendar Pro and Form Wizard Pro. If you are an existing customer who already purchased these products, you should upgrade them at the same time as you upgrade mojoPortal. You can download the latest version by signing into this site as the same user who made the purchase, then visit the "My Account" link at the top of the page and look under the Order History tab where you will see links for your products

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I'm happy to announce the first major upgrade for my Form Wizard Pro product. 

New Features:

• Support for multi page forms aka surveys
• You can import and export complete form definitions
• You can import and export individual questions, so if you make a state list dropdown you don't have to type it again, just export it and then you can import it in a different form to re-use it.
• Support for additional instruction blocks arranged by drag and drop among the questions
• Support for regular expression validation
• and more

This release is a free upgrade for existing customers who bought Form Wizard Pro previously and starts at $99 for new customers. 

Note: This new release requires mojoPortal 2.3.3.6 which was just released a few days ago.

See how easy it is to create custom forms and surveys using mojoPortal and Form Wizard Pro

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I'm happy to announce the release of mojoPortal 2.3.3.6, available now on our download page.

This release fixes a few bugs reported in our forums since the last release, adds a few minor improvements to some features and lots of minor fit and finish improvements based on feedback from our community.

In the previous release I added a hideable toolbar for administration links in most of the included skins, this release I took a queue from Joe Davis and added icons to the toolbar. Also based on community feedback, I made it remember your preference for open/closed across pages. Previously if you closed it and went to a different page it would open again on the new page, now it remembers your preference.

Contact Form - added a setting for BCC email, added a setting in case you don't want to store messages in the database, added a setting allowing you to use the email address entered by the user as the from address in the form notification.

Shared Files - added a setting for the Default Sort, when shared files are returned as search results in the search page, the download link now opens a new window.

Upgrade to NeatUpload 1.3.21

Updated Translations

• Italian - thanks Diego Mora
• Greek - thanks Yioryos Moschovakis
• Russian - thanks Alexander (aka SkySandy)
• Turkish - thanks to Cenk Kumas
• Swedish - thanks to Par Rohlin
• Spanish - thanks to Matias Molleja

Your Opinion Requested

I am currently using CKeditor as my main editor and it is also now the default for new installations of mojoPortal. The only thing I like better about TinyMCE at the moment is the spell checker which works much nicer than the one in CKeditor or FCKeditor. Since CKeditor is the successor to FCKeditor and no new development is being done on FCKeditor, I'm considering not including FCKeditor in mojoPortal going forward to reduce our footprint on disk a little as each editor is a lot of javascript. We could reduce 3 or 4 MB of disk footprint leaving it out. I could still make it available as a separate download for anyone who wants to continue using it. So, if you have a strong opinion about whether we should or should not continue to package FCKeditor with mojoPortal, please post in the comments.

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