Rainbow Portal Community

Hello,

had chance to try to upgrade a long-time running production website from v1.6 to new 2.0. Updating was ok and everything seems to be working fine, including custom modules. That's good news indeed because I think RP 1.6 is still the best CMS available for .NET.

However, had a problem when trying to develop a custom test module against v2.0:

Microsoft AJAX Extensions are not working fine. Creating a new module (control) including all AJAX stuff (UpdatePanel, a scriptmanager proxy and a full scriptmanager inside Design and controls inside UpdatePanel etc.): controls will work but AJAX won't work, meaning click on a button (for example) will cause a standard postback instead of an async AJAX. No errors will be generated: it just doesn't get any AJAX working.

I have yet to get confident with the new release. Developing a custom module against core is a bit difficult because VS 2005 precompilation will output a App_Code.dll by default and that's a problem maybe when developing many modules. Anyway, the biggest problem so far is about AJAX not working in my custom module: anyone has any example of a working module using AJAX?

Glad you got the update to work.  It seems to me that you are missing something in your web.config.  I havent tested Ajax with 2.0 but we have with 2.1 and its working fine with ASP.NET Ajax AND Telerik Ajax. 

Maybe this will help : http://community.rainbowportal.net/blogs/ramseurs_rainbow_portal_20_blog/archive/2007/03/09/asp-net-ajax-final-issue-with-rainbow-beta-1.aspx

Thanks for your reply.

Update was really smooth: just copied specific data for our installation (Designs, Themes, Portals data etc.) and Rainbow asked me to update our database, then it worked since the beginning. I ran the update against a copy of our main database but everything looks ok now. I just noticed that 2.0 installation seem to consume about -20% RAM: that's good but didn't check it in production. I can also say that this upgraded copy is running on IIS7 and Vista.

I thought I was missing something in my web.config but I compared it to a different web application for which AJAX is working and found no differences in relevant sections. Could you please post a sample for your 2.1 configuration? It would be easier to compare my web.config with that knowing that copy is actually working.

Thanks.

First off,  let me congradulate you on the first known rainbow on IIS 7 and Vista.  Could you please go into detail on how you got this configured in IIS 7.  There were users that were having issues migrating from iis6 or installing on vista in general because IIS7 configs will take some getting used to.  Do you have this site online?

A basic web.config : http://rainbow.googlecode.com/svn/NET_2_0/devint/trunk/WebSites/Rainbow/web.config.standard

Please note that this is configured for 2.1 and not 2.0 so I wouldnt trust just a blind copy/paste.  If your web.config is correct then it could be that your update panels are not linked correctly causing a postback.   

Hello,

unfortunately I haven't this website online as it runs on my dev machine. However, when setting up Rainbow 2 on IIS 7 you just need to pay attention to a few things:

• check that you run it in a pool using Classic ASP.NET 2.0 as IIS 7 has a new behaviour about ASP.NET which is usually incompatible with older .NET 2.0 websites and which is installed as default (DefaultAppPool);
• sometimes (don't ask me why, probably something related to hierarchy) you just need to setup which ISAPI DLL to use to run website. Just open website's property for ISAPI, double-click on ISAPI for .NET 2.0 and simply select Ok: that will confirm your choice but will set this choice as local instead of inherited. That solved my initial problems;

I also set permissions to my files to Everyone (Full Control), just not to care about permissions things while developing. This might not be a good idea if you are worried about security and you work in a unsafe LAN.

Had no major problems running Rainbow on IIS 7 and it took like 5 mins to solve those problems. If you have more specific questions, I will be happy to check them.

Take care.

Thanks a bunch for this review for Vista.  Ill be soon testing Rainbow 2.0 on IIS7 and Windows Server 2008 Beta 3.  We need to work on removing the dbo statements in the scripts and running rb in medium trust. 

Out of curiosity, which ASP.NET 2.0 features will v2.1 use? Membership? Themes? Roles? Will these sub-systems replace other subsystems (for example, ZEN and themes engine) ?

Forgot to say I had to remove resources from App_GlobalResources folder in order to run my version.

Can you estimate when v2.1 will be available?

Thank you.

I answer your questions in my blog  :

http://community.rainbowportal.net/blogs/ramseurs_rainbow_portal_20_blog/archive/2007/06/07/rb-2-0-0-1880-release-soon.aspx

We have a framework now in 2.1 instead of a bunch of cs files.  You can work on components of the code in different projects.  So if you want to majorly configure a core section, you can easily apply modification and compile that into your portals own version.    2.1 already supports ASPNETDB, we are just testing it and fixing small bugs [membership,roles,users].   

I will be replacing design with Master pages and will need help on the skin/theme system.  I hope to create standard css files that can run designs from opensourcetemplates.org .  I cover that here :

http://community.rainbowportal.net/blogs/ramseurs_rainbow_portal_20_blog/archive/2007/04/17/masterpages-then-skins-so-shall-it-be-written.aspx

<snip>

Forgot to say I had to remove resources from App_GlobalResources folder in order to run my version.

<snip>

This was a known Microsoft issue that not only affected rainbow but ANY .net 2.0 application that used resource files that didnt conform to MS new standard.  Covered here : http://community.rainbowportal.net/forums/thread/14694.aspx

More and more users are coming back to the project so maybe we will see 2.1 in the fall.  We really arent that far off, its just that people have real lives and the project has changed.  Always looking for help.

HTH 

Hello, 

I checked your post. Your solution to create three zones in a master named same way as controls used in desktopdefault.aspx theme files looks very clever to integrate master pages in a quickly way. Would module chrome (containers) be rendered as usual in that case?

Actually, sometimes I think newer Rainbow versions should get rid of old theme engines as it might be very slow to support all of them. But then I think it will be easier for existing users, including myself, to upgrade if old engines will still be supported or, at least, upgraded.

Last year I was investigating about how to implement an engine similar to Rainbow themes by using all .NET 2.0 features. Master Pages and themes work well in providing the basics and the only thing I was a bit disappointed with was the lack of any support to build a chrome around modules, besides subclassing controls like PortalModuleControl does. Checked WebParts framework which looked very good but that has a more "static" approach and while many hard things are simpler, many simpler things become harder. Were you thinking about changes in how modules are rendered too or that part will just stay as it is now?

Will SiteMapProvider be supported as well?

Is there a website where I can download 2.1 for some testing?

Best regards.

ramseur:

I will be replacing design with Master pages and will need help on the skin/theme system.  I hope to create standard css files that can run designs from opensourcetemplates.org .  I cover that here :

http://community.rainbowportal.net/blogs/ramseurs_rainbow_portal_20_blog/archive/2007/04/17/masterpages-then-skins-so-shall-it-be-written.aspx

More and more users are coming back to the project so maybe we will see 2.1 in the fall.  We really arent that far off, its just that people have real lives and the project has changed.  Always looking for help.

HTH 

<snip>

Checked WebParts framework which looked very good but that has a more "static" approach and while many hard things are simpler, many simpler things become harder. Were you thinking about changes in how modules are rendered too or that part will just stay as it is now?

</snip>

Since I started using rainbow, it has always been my philosophy to improve modules.  In fact that is indeed how I started ( I started on making a module that will go nameless [ uh hemm "blog" uh heemm] and then moved to the future group).  I believe in the Module User control approach and Module application approach.  This approach was taught to me but Rahul.  Basically it says that rainbow should ( or any web app) always have a flat dynamic user control for module functionality.  This is the basis for doing everything you mentioned.  With a user control module I can :  stick a web application into a portal like a module, use web parts either inside the module or outside ( Master pages), use ANY control ( including Telerik Portal Controls which make this a breeze) and still retain plug and play on the portal functionality.  

In conclusion, Rainbow will ALWAYS and continue to support the basic user module way of portal modules.  Of course we will clean this up in 2.0 and take advantage of features that can make module development more dynamic and easier to use.  Bascially if you take an example like yaf...we have yaf working as a module in the 1.1 and 2.0 versions of rainbow.  Yaf is an application and not a module but can be used and deployed like a module in ANY rainbow version.   Using logic, one could then determine that ANY ASP.NET ( lets have a start shall we) can be used to plug into a user control module.

Therefore the user control module stays :).  Bottom line, a user control can do anything in .NET 2.0 and future versions as it houses other controls.

<snip>

Will SiteMapProvider be supported as well?

</snip>

Weve had this for months already in the svn.  And if youd like to take a look, see below.  We have two implementations of the site map.  One uses the standard sitemap as a template and one uses SQL for storage of web site nodes.  We made this so we are using the default version and can easily extract out our code to any system.  The only one you really need concern yourself with is the SQL as its the default.  We also have the sitemap on the new SQL Cache invalidation inside the web.config

SQL Site map : http://rainbow.googlecode.com/svn/NET_2_0/stage/trunk/Projects/Rainbow.Framework.Providers.RainbowSqlSiteMapProvider/

These are all new changes that we are trying to bug test for the new version.

<snip>

Is there a website where I can download 2.1 for some testing?

</snip>

Two words : Google Code  :

If you know how to use svn : http://code.google.com/p/rainbow/source

If you just want the latest beta release :http://code.google.com/p/rainbow/downloads/detail?name=RainbowPortal2.0.Beta1.7z&can=2&q=
 

ramseur:

Since I started using rainbow, it has always been my philosophy to improve modules.  In fact that is indeed how I started ( I started on making a module that will go nameless [ uh hemm "blog" uh heemm] and then moved to the future group).  I believe in the Module User control approach and Module application approach.  This approach was taught to me but Rahul.  Basically it says that rainbow should ( or any web app) always have a flat dynamic user control for module functionality.  This is the basis for doing everything you mentioned.  With a user control module I can :  stick a web application into a portal like a module, use web parts either inside the module or outside ( Master pages), use ANY control ( including Telerik Portal Controls which make this a breeze) and still retain plug and play on the portal functionality.  

I agree on this. My websites always are webapps because of this. My question was about current implementation because master pages and ASP.NET 2.0 themes can replace basics of Rainbow themes except for modules containers. So I wanted to know if you plan to replace themes structure with master pages and ASP.NET themes and stick to PortalModuleControl for module containers. Other than that, I fully agree with you ;-)

I was talking about WebParts because they already support, out of the box, most features of the theming and portal engine. Anyway, after looking into it for a while, I don't think WebParts are "dynamic enough" to be used for projects like Rainbow Portal.

ramseur:

Weve had this for months already in the svn.  And if youd like to take a look, see below.  We have two implementations of the site map.  One uses the standard sitemap as a template and one uses SQL for storage of web site nodes.  We made this so we are using the default version and can easily extract out our code to any system.  The only one you really need concern yourself with is the SQL as its the default.  We also have the sitemap on the new SQL Cache invalidation inside the web.config

SQL Site map : http://rainbow.googlecode.com/svn/NET_2_0/stage/trunk/Projects/Rainbow.Framework.Providers.RainbowSqlSiteMapProvider/

These are all new changes that we are trying to bug test for the new version.

Thank you. I will give it a try.

ramseur:

Two words : Google Code  :

If you know how to use svn : http://code.google.com/p/rainbow/source

If you just want the latest beta release :http://code.google.com/p/rainbow/downloads/detail?name=RainbowPortal2.0.Beta1.7z&can=2&q= 

I will download code to check how things changed (or not). Is it very buggy or almost ready for production?

As a side note, while I was waiting for Rainbow for .NET 2.0, I had the chance to check other CMS (and I still prefer Rainbow for .NET 1.1 over most of newer ones... go figure!). There's expecially one of them which I used for latest web apps which is both simple but provides nice hints and techniques.

There are expecially two things which I would like make some experiments with: a way to provide a common DAL to all modules which go beyond a standard set of services / APIs (meaning to have a layer between SQL Server and module to abstract data access and make it more object oriented) and creating module-agnostic data objects, i.e. letting modules use the same objects type for data access in order to allow any module to virtually access any objects it can recognize. I understand this is a bit difficult to explain and maybe I will have a sample someday ;-) However, module development is the key for CMS success so that's what we'd need to speed up.

Plus I'd like to implement a better way to handle actions for modules: right now they're handled by icons which often make a mess with them to be displayed. I'd like to have something closer to WebParts or DNN where modules can add their own actions. And change localization mechanism because resources files are too dumb to be handled in a highly-dynamic context like Rainbow is.

Well, enough for today. Will give R2.1 a try to check what changed.

Thank you for your reply.

If you would take a look at that blog entry i told you last time you will notice it says " and then skins".  I agree with you completly.  I intend to completly replace the skin engine in rainbow with a css standard based version ( which is leading on skins/themes because of its simplicity to do so).  The only issue is this is not easy and im not a designer.  However, I have learned a lot about design seeing how my last two projects where custom elements and with the help of some devs Id like to produce something based on csszengarden.   Well rainbow users can upload their app_theme directories and they can transform sites complete with standard based css so every site looks like it intends too.  Ive also learned the kinks in the css adapters which btw are already in 2.1 and we intend to push them so they make styling with css even easier.

To answer your question, yes 2.1 is a little buggy.  I suggest you download the beta 1 and not the svn as the svn is latest but very raw and needs a little more advanced knowledge to get it up and running.   The 2.1 beta 1 download only requires you to delete two files that were changed in a microsoft patch which is reviewed on the forum.

As for the DAL.  Yeah Im going to have to chalk the answer to that question up to...'yeah weve though of that'.   Rahul and I have debated ( not to mention many rainbow devs across the world) this for years.  We believe that the dal should at least use a solid framework.  Currently it is just raw asp.net 2.0 ( well 1.1 calls in 2.0) which are in DIRE need of improvement.  I planned to for right now solve this issue with having the core implement the .NET 2.0/3.0 Enterprise Libs 3.1 data class.  In the future rahul would like to see IBATIS control this which would solve your objects issue.  Rainbow kinda has dal objects but I dont like them as IBATIS offers a more abstracted view of Data.  Either way,  FOR NOW, we will release an enterprise database version that will make avail objects that you can take advantage of through object data sources or method calls to have rainbow perform an action.  Jon Minod already spent a year making the new API system that is in 2.1.  

The biggest diff from 2.1 and 2.0 is everything youve stated in this thread.  We have moved the code in a position to have all these features.  We just need to bug fix and architect the code in a standard based way.  I suggest you really look at the 2.1 code.  It contains about 12 new projects ( not 1 like the 2.0 version and ALL previous versions).  These new projects are the new .NET 2.0 framework geared APIS to take advantage of the new framework.  That bugfixed and coupld with new DAL apies PLUS a new design = solid release. 

ramseur:

As for the DAL.  Yeah Im going to have to chalk the answer to that question up to...'yeah weve though of that'.   Rahul and I have debated ( not to mention many rainbow devs across the world) this for years.  We believe that the dal should at least use a solid framework.  Currently it is just raw asp.net 2.0 ( well 1.1 calls in 2.0) which are in DIRE need of improvement.  I planned to for right now solve this issue with having the core implement the .NET 2.0/3.0 Enterprise Libs 3.1 data class.  In the future rahul would like to see IBATIS control this which would solve your objects issue.  Rainbow kinda has dal objects but I dont like them as IBATIS offers a more abstracted view of Data.  Either way,  FOR NOW, we will release an enterprise database version that will make avail objects that you can take advantage of through object data sources or method calls to have rainbow perform an action.  Jon Minod already spent a year making the new API system that is in 2.1.   

This is definitely great news. Before you make final decision, I suggest that you check this project:

CoolStorage.NET
http://www.codeplex.com/CoolStorage

I usually don't like OR/M. I find them VERY limited and not handy to use. All of them, except THAT one. Its extensive set of filtering, sorting and ordering amazed me. It's a very good piece of engineering and I'm using it in a couple of projects, cutting my dev time by 50%. Also don't forget there's LINQ coming to our town in a few months (if you didn't do yet, download and check .NET 3.5 BETA 2: it's fun!)

Also take a look at

MyWebPagesStarterKit
http://www.codeplex.com/MyWebPagesStarterKit

It's a good CMS as well and its way of providing a common DAL (which is actually a mini-DAL because features for classes are very different) also cuts development times and it's very easy to use.

Take care and thanks for this interesting discussion.

ramseur:

Two words : Google Code  :

If you know how to use svn : http://code.google.com/p/rainbow/source

If you just want the latest beta release :http://code.google.com/p/rainbow/downloads/detail?name=RainbowPortal2.0.Beta1.7z&can=2&q=
 

Hello Eric,

which is the latest 2.1 code? There are a lot of folders in that trunk ;-) You have a .NET 2.0 folder but actually didn't understand what to check out (and then compile...)...

Thanks.

P.S. is this latest 2.0 or 2.1 BETA?