It is here! DNN3 has gone final and is fast finding its way to a server near
you! It is by far the most impressive piece of web programming I’ve ever
seen. We are all greatly indebted to Shaun Walker and his Core Team for their
work. The ball is now in our court, the module developers. Because DNN 2
modules are incompatible with DNN 3, all modules will need to be checked,
adjusted, and recompiled. Document Exchange is one of those modules.
Document Exchange 3 Professional
Since October last year a new version has been drafted and implemented on
top of DNN 3 using various beta versions. The response to the first versionof
DMX has been overwhelming and very encouraging. There now is a large client
base and we receive daily valuable feedback from ‘the trenches’.
The changes have increased the functionality be several orders of magnitude(as
well as the number of lines of code). Unfortunately we will be saying goodbye to the Access data provider. It is no
longer included with the DNN core, and we estimate that there the only clients
running DMX on Access are for demo/testing purposes. We have to move on, and
MSDE/MSSQL is way more robust a solution.
The new version has, in part, been developed (and benefits from) DotNetNuke 3. This means that there is no version for
DNN2.1.2. Although we realize that many customers will not be ready to moveto
DNN3, we feel that they will inevitably want to do so in the near future. Given
enough demand/time we might consider backporting this
version to DNN2.
So this is what it might look like on your PC soon. You will notice the
following new features:
- Breadcrumbs
At the top-left you will see breadcrumbs appear in the style
root/folder/folder
- Categories
The administrator can define any number of
(hierarchically stacked) categories. An entry can refer to any number of
those.
- Search
Meta-data search is included and will return only those documents thatwe
have a right to see. An advanced search mode allows a maximum of 4 search
criteria to be combined.
- Subscriptions
A user can ‘subscribe’ to an entry.
For certain actions (edit/delete) this user will be notified.
Other new features include:
- Localized static texts
The various headings and explanations can now be
easily translated to suit implementations outside the English speaking
world.
- File list now configurable
Using localization, the columns of the file list can now be configured.
This means one can create custom file lists per portal.
- Custom attributes
An administrator may add custom attributes to the
Document Exchange. An example could be the use to link documents to a
patient through an attribute ‘Patient Number’.
- Flexibility
The administrator can now configure many features (such as document types,
logging and notification behavior) from the options panel
- Extensibility
The module facilitates the extension of its functionality. By registering
new ‘types’ the module can be made to branch to ‘add-on’
modules. Examples are an addon that displays a
thumbnail page of images, an addon that allows
editing of the file itself, an addon that
displays the contents in a different fashion, an addon
that facilitates (batch) printing or conversion to pdf,
etc etc.
- The ability to select a
number of documents for batch processing
Purchasing Document Exchange
The new version of Document Exchange has gone on sale on Snowcovered. You can get a DNN 3 version or a DNN 4 version.