DotNetNuke Quick Login/Logout

Many a times we face some problems while designing skins, we forget to place the Login control link in skin correctly as a result, we cannot log in or log out from our site. Also this is desirable for informative dotnetnuke site where public login is not required. If we remove the login link the worst possible scenario would be we can never log in as host or admin now, which in fact will be a bigger mess since we cannot manage our own pages.

So, what is the solution how do we bring up our login page in DNN without having clicking on any link. Its very simple, just go to the browser URL and append some keyword after the extension and you will be brought up the login page. So what is the keyword, it is "?ctl=login".

For example, if your site URL is as below

http://www.mydotnetnukesite.com/default.aspx

after appending the above keyword it should look like

http://www.mydotnetnukesite.com/default.aspx?ctl=login

NOTE: If the page is already having any query string we need to use '&' in place of '?'.

Now once we logged in what is the way out, how do I sign out. Again some magical keywords, this time it is "ctl=logoff".

For example, if your site URL is as below

http://www.mydotnetnukesite.com/default.aspx

after appending the above keyword it should look like

http://www.mydotnetnukesite.com/default.aspx?ctl=logoff

and you will sign out eventually. 

These are very handy tips for some of the dotnetnuke developers who creates site only for information purpose but do not want log in link to be displayed to the public but want to display the link to the admin or host. Admin and host can use the above tips to log in and log out from the dotnetnuke site.

Hope the above is clear to all. Happy Dotnetnuke Login and Logout.

Bulk module installation in DotNetNuke (DNN)

Ever tried installing DNN module. If yes, then you will agree the below steps:

1. Login as host or admin.

2. Go to the module definition.

3. Click on Install Module from the menu.

4. Select the zip package.

5. Click on install and you are done.

Now imagine the same set of steps to be repeated for every custom module you have developed say a number around 5-10. This will be cumbersome right! . Let's see if we can make life easy:

1. Copy all the installation package into your DNN installation's "install/module" path. For example if your site is hosted in your local path C:\inetpub\wwwroot\mydnn, then you should copy all the installation package to the location

C:\inetpub\wwwroot\mydnn\\Install\Module

Note: Make sure there are no other .zip files in this folder, which you do not want to installation.

2. Browse the site via URL.

http://[mywebsite.com]/install/install.aspx?mode=installresources

Replace [mywebsite.com] with "localhost" or any other name used for accessing the site.

3. Once you hit "Enter" after entering the above URL in the browser, you will see a installation status message in the browser. Either success or failure, similar to the below screen:

Thanks, and Happy Installation DNN.