What do I mean a 'simple user account'?
Summed up, an
e-mail address and a
password. Almost all web applications these days require just those two pieces of information to register a new user. The e-mail address is unique, it can be used to receive a forgotten password, as well as be a communication channel with your users. An e-mail account also works as a single place for the user to manage all of their other web accounts (OpenID and cardspace not considered).
DNN doesn't natively support an e-mail address as a username. You have to build all kinds of validation into the browser (accessibility be damned) to get that to work. In addition the DNN user profile is a quirky, difficult to use feature.
However, everything else about the DNN user profiles are awesome. It uses the asp.net Membership provider (extensible) and it is pretty well supported across all of the core modules. It is with that knowledge that I started to consider writing my own DNN mod for user registration. I also looked into some of the 3rd party modules that already existed.
DataSprings Dynamic Registration was the only module that really stood out among the two or three modules available. It appeared to be somewhat customizable and it claimed to support custom registration fields to DNN Core Registration mapping. After much consideration, I bought it to use on my DNN System.
When I first started using it, I was disappointed by what turned out to be a quite serious bug in the module. After I logged it on the support forum, Chad, a developer with DataSprings, churned out a fix in a day or two for me. Great job Chad! Now aside from a small validation bug with passwords, I am very happy with this purchase.
The DataSprings Dynamic Registration module will transform your DNN install into a competitive web application platform. If you want to see an example, check out
http://video.viewmastr.com and go through the registration process.
technorati: dotnetnuke, asp.net, datasprings
Comments:
Created 132 weeks, 5 days ago