I did do some googling and searching on this site but did not find exactly what I was looking for.
I'm hoping that someone can point me in the right direction here. I'm an ASP.NET/SQL Server developer and would like to develop a (intially) basic social networking site (gasp). Before I start from scratch with a blank solution in ASP.NET, I'm wondering if there are any frameworks out there ASP.NET specific that would serve as a good starting point. I'm already thinking of using the Google Maps jquery control for my Google Maps integration, as well as the 'sharethis' control for my social networking website sharing integration. Captcha for human authentication... But other than that I'm not sure what I can leverage... Nothing on Google jumped out at me on my search terms.
I'm also wondering if anyone else has done something similar and could share their post mortem/war stories with me.
I'm also open to learning a new platform/language if it would mean saving time - my experience is mostly in ASP.NET, so that is what I plan on using if it makes the most sense. My initial requirements are basic and realistic - profile setup (images, information, etc.), 'group' creation, Google Map integration, calendar controls shared by groups, SMS support, discussion forums among groups, searching for groups, OpenID integration most likely, etc. I am not going to try to build the entire site and then release it, but take baby steps and release pieces of functionality at a time.
Any advice is greatly appreciated for a broad question such as this. Thanks again.
I've found DotNetOpenAuth which seems to be a nice API for handling OpenID for ASP.NET web forms. They also have an ASP.NET MVC version
I also found MS Web Platform. This looks like some good stuff. Anyone ever use it and think it would do well for this sort of app?
I found a library for DotNetNuke called ActiveSocial. It's priced right ($500) and has more than the features I need but lacks some. I wonder if anyone here has ever used AS before. Is DNN easy to extend so I can add Google Maps functionality and such? It doesn't say anywhere on snowcovered (the vendor that sells AS) if AS comes with the source. If it didn't, then I might be screwed because I wouldn't be able to integrate the functionality I want.
I went through this exercise about 15 months ago when I built a SNS for a client. Hoping to find some basic framework for Friends, Chat, Profiles etc I was pretty disappointed.
That said, in retrospect I wish rather than building one that we would have purchased a solution like Community Server. As with most projects I looked at the problem scope with beer, no strike that, ambitious goggles on and the level of work to cover all the edge cases was more than I imagined.
Tread careful my friend, tread careful.
I think this is what you're looking for. Kigg is an open source ASP.NET MVC app that would be a good starting point for what you want. Here is the url: http://www.codeplex.com/Kigg
You can also find a site that is using this here: http://dotnetshoutout.com/
At the very least you will learn the ASP.NET MVC framework which is fantastic.
While not exactly intended to be used for social networking sites, both of these frameworks can help you so you don't have to start from scratch:
DotNetNuke: http://www.dotnetnuke.com/
Umbraco: http://umbraco.org/
Also, for an out of the box solution (no code involved) you could always try this: http://www.ning.com/
Good luck!
Related
Well, I am developing a virtual classroom i.e. Online classroom, It is a website which provides faculties and students an interactive way of learning. I am almost done just I am stuck with this video conferencing module. I am using ASP.NET C#. I have searched a lot for this. Some information I found is:
1) I got to know about ConferenceXP module. Which is developed by microsoft and enables developers to use it to build their own video-audio conference. I also searched a lot about it, but I am confused on how to implement it in my website. Any suggestion with steps on how to use conferenceXP in website.
2) Though i searched a lot, but yet if some links were left, I am asking this again that Is there any better and easier way( Easier and fast beacuse i need to implement this into my website in 7 days) to implement video-audio chat application in website using C#(Or any other technology working with visual studio).
3) While searching I found something like I can use Skype with my online classroom, Any suggestions related this?
Thanks in advance.
You can use Openmeetings from regardless of your technology. The whole interface is SOAP/REST based.
I've been trying to learn how develop websites with ASP.NET as well as setup a personal website to use as a online porfolio/resume. With my website I've decided to not try to reinvent the wheel and thus decided to use a premade ASP.NET based CMS.
After reading a lot of reviews I settled on Umbraco, but now I'm seeking out alternatives. I like Umbraco a lot but I keep running into problems. Since installing it on my host I haven't made any changes through the file system, or database directly. All changes have been through the admin site. Yet somehow I kept getting it into some state where I could not delete a datatype, and now I'm having problems removing or renaming one of my templates. I've searched for Umbraco forums for solutions and usually find that I have to run some SQL script workaround on the database to clean things up. This kind of thing is really not something I want to fiddle with for my personal site.
Has anyone else had a lot of problems with Umbraco like I have? Are there other free CMS systems out there that are more reliable, yet similar to Umbraco? Specifically I really like how Umbraco gives me total control over the HTML generated by my site. Simple is also better in this case. I'm not trying to create some kind social network/community portal/forum/blog site. There won't be multiple people logging onto this site or anything like that.
I've been reading a bit about N2, which I'm now starting to consider. I like that it's more developer based and that you setup page types through real .NET classes in Visual Studio. Again I don't want to attempt to build my own CMS from scratch, but at the same time I really don't like how hard it is to see what's going on under the hood with most other CMS systems.
I haven't used N2 so I can't comment on that, but alternatives you can consider are Orchard or FunnelWeb, both are on MVC 3 and Razor.
If you're wanting a blog that is mostly just a blog then FunnelWeb is a good option.
I'm currently writing a comparison between Orchard and Umbraco if you're interested as well.
I think you'll be happy you stuck with Umbraco. I was so frustrated with Umbraco when I first started working with it for the exact reasons you stated above. The issue with not being able to delete data types could mean that it's connected to something (IE: document or media type) somewhere and if you force delete it (IE: via the db) you could really mess up your install. <- speaking from experience.
I'm absolutely in love with Umbraco now though. I am completely confident that I can build just about anything I need with it now.
I think that my best piece of advice I can pull from my own experience is make sure that you've got your site architecture planned out thoroughly before starting to build it out in Umbraco. You don't want to be fiddling around in there afterward changing things and that's where you can really get yourself into some hot water.
Have fun!
if you want a minimal .net mvc4 cms with good performance check out puck https://bitbucket.org/yohsii/puck/overview
it adds very few concepts on top of what you need to know for .net mvc but it does require .net4.5 (and therefore VS2012) to work with.
it also uses localdb out of the box but if you don't want to install that just attach the database mdf file to regular sql server and change the connection string
We're looking into implementing an issue tracker for our web agency. The problem is that most issue trackers seem to revolve around the assumption that an issue is a bug, whereas in a web agency environment, a lot of the issues (request, or whatever you want to call them) are about changes and additions to a current web site.
It also seems to me that a lot of issue trackers assume that you're working on one main software project, and uses that project as the focus of the tracker. A good issue tracker for a web agency would be one which puts each separate client and their issues at the heart of the system, making it easy for them to track and report issues.
Does anyone know of a good issue tracker for the web agency workflow? What are other people using?
In my experience, issue trackers are so closely coupled to the workflow of the organisation that what works in one place may be a complete misfit in another. That said, could basecamp work for you?
We are using Gemini very flexible with the ability to have workflow at the project level.
But where Gemini really helps us is the cross project views. You can view your work across all projects with really good fitering.
Have you had a look at fixx at all? Obviously, being the developer of fixx, I will want to plug it but I know from first-hand experience that a lot of our customers are web agencies who work in a service-oriented environment and need to track more than just "software development" projects.
With fixx, you can define custom issue types (for example "change request" or "Copy changes") and track work against that type.
Unfortunately, fixx still does suffer from the "project-centric" view but a lot of our customers work around this by defining a project per client/website. So, if you were doing web/maintenance on stackoverflow.com, you would have a project called "stackoverflow.com maintenance" and would assign all your users from that company to that specific project. From there, using notifications and filters, it would be very easy for clients to keep track of progress on their specific issues.
FogBugz – it's simple by default, but extensible; it's got an integrated wiki, charts, tags, and you can even tie it to your source-control system (and they also offer their own integrated source control system, Kiln, which is pretty amazing with FogBugz).
Are you using other applications to manage the rest of your business' operations?
I ask because WORKetc has great issue tracking software, and this software is combined with other aspects of business management which can simplify the management process. So not only could you manage all support inquiries and responses in one place, but also your projects, finances, and contacts. Most importantly, it would allow you to use one central contact base for your entire company, while allowing you to reference that contact information (as well as lead information) while working on support inquiries, projects, invoices, etc.
WORKetc's support system works around email integration and simple ticket system (as well as prioritizing) and directly integrates with projects, contacts, and other aspects of the system so that you can save time while responding and managing tickets.
I think especially for the use case of a web-agency, where it's not really about bugs, but mostly (visual) feedback and all of it happens on the web, a visual feedback tool might be the thing you're looking for. Most of these tools will create a screenshot of the webpage and include the given feedback on it.
Some of them also have some kind of dashboard where you can discuss further, or have integrations to other tools like Basecamp (and some them do both).
Here's an article from smashing magazine, which describes a lot of them, e.g.: TrackDuck, BugMuncher. Another great tool the article doesn't mention, maybe because the article is a bit dated, is Usersnap – this one even includes browser extensions.
I'm a experienced .NET developer, but I havent done much webdevelopment and particularly not a new site from scratch.
Now am I thinking of building a site for one of my hobbies. I realize that much of the functionality I need has already been bulit and hopefully released as opensource. My wish is to find a skelletton for my site with the basic functionality to bulid upon. That will leave the specific and fun parts to me....
I wishlist:
- One logon for the site.
- User profiles.
- Possibility for users to contribute with articles, pictures, links etc.
- Leave comments for articles.
- Generate feeds.
- Build the site using ASP.NET MVC
Can anyone point me in the right direction? Where do I start?
I hesitated writing this answer because it might come across as flippent or deliberately unhelpful.
However, I cannot recommend highly enough the tutorials and examples on the MVC site; especially the NerdDinner example app and walkthrough (not sure if it's been updated for MVC2 though).
As developer for developers ;) check this http://kigg.codeplex.com/ I think it's exactly what you need. Live sample here dotnetshoutout.com
Enjoy :)
Hi Malcolm what you need has been implemented many times. If you need to start from scratch for the learning experience I would recommend the ASP.Net MVC Membership Starter Kit (http://mvcmembership.codeplex.com/) it would handle user accounts and profiles for you (read up on ASP.Net membership if you are unfamiliar with it).
If you don't need to start from scratch I would recommend looking at a CMS or blogging system depending on your specific requirements as there is no point in reinventing the wheel unless you really have to or want to learn.
Edit
Have a look here:
http://www.microsoft.com/web/gallery/Categories.aspx?category=Blogs
and
http://www.microsoft.com/web/gallery/Categories.aspx?category=ContentMgmt&appid=BlogEngineNET
I am not up to date with MVC blog engines but I know there isn't too many CMS's around that would compete with more mature ASP.Net alternatives.
I hope this is helpful.
Thanks,
B
check out http://www.orchardproject.net/. But you may find some liter alternatives for your specific needs. Or you can possibly combine a couple of codeplex projects to get to where you want to be.
As stated above I would recommend going through the nerd dinner tutorial again. Also the nerd dinner code hosted at codeplex has been updated to Asp.net MVC 2.0, and is a great reference to many of the new features. Burt mentioned the MVC Membership Starter kit (http://mvcmembership.codeplex.com/), I have personally tinkered with this, and it saves hours upon hours of time by automagically implementing authentication and role management built on a standardized db schema easily generated by a tool found in the framework 2.0 files somewhere.
Ok, i have done a bunch of asp as well as asp.net right when it came out. A friend is starting a non profit organization and he wants me to put together a site for him. I figured i would kill 2 birds with one stone and look to freshen up my skills on the latest that the web has to offer in asp.net, web 2.0, etc.
The site requirements are pretty simple:
Organization mission statement
Users ability to register
Photos, content
Blog posts
Ability to donate directly on the site (maybe through paypal)
So my questions is what are the best tools to start here given its going to be hosted on windows ASP.net platform 3.5. Any other frameworks that i should be looking at.
Where is the best place to start?
I could easily build the site just putting a table together and a bunch of static pages but i figured if it made sense to utilize and help freshen my skills, it would be worth the efforts of the learning curve.
Feel free to suggest any other items that i haven't listed.
Have a look at ASP.Net MVC and JQUERY also take a look at S#Arp as a nice platform to build your site upon. It setups ASP.Net MVC, with nHibernate and has really good guidance on a good DDD structure.
In case you've overlooked it, The AJAX Control Toolkit -
addresses three needs. First it gives website developers a place to get components to make their web applications spring to life, second it gives a set of great examples for those wishing to write client-side code, and third it is a place for the best script developers to get their work highlighted.
For an open source functioning CMS system, look at N2. N2 is a lightweight CMS framework to help you build great web sites that anyone can update. The user interface is intuitive and empowering. The developer story is something quite exquisite.