Bitkraft, DotNetNuke, Flesk and others..

{#TIGGR} - In response to the number of questions i have had in relation to using the Bitkraft framework with DotNetNuke, Flesk and other "Page Template" basesd solutions, i offer the following emails that have been forwarded to specific users.

In Short, YES Bitkraft can work with other frameworks such as DotNetNuke and Flesk.Accelerator - it is just a matter of chaining together the appropriate inheritances in the Bitkraft Framework. So, as a starting point, tonight (28th August - Aus Eastern Standard Time) I will be releasing another version of Bitkraft (100% backwards compatible as always) that will include a NEW PageTemplate Class (Bitkraft.Web.DNNPageTemplate) that is designed to allow you to create DotNetNuke content for your portal that uses the Bitkraft Framework - WOW!....

If you have any queries regarding this process, success stories of using Bitkraft with other frameworks or suggestions for other frameworks that could be catered for by the Bitkraft Framework (eg Flesk.Accelerator) please contact Mr.Tiggr@gmail.com or post comments here!

Cheers - TIGGR.

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Hi There [UserName Clipped},

Thankyou for your interest in the Bitkraft Framework, i am always very interested to hear new techniques and ideas on how it may be used - your query regarding it's compatibility with DNN is an interesting one.

In short, as it stands currently, the Bitkraft Framework will not operate with DNN as it uses the same technique of Inheritance by inheriting from the DotNetNuke equivalent of the Bitkraft.Web.PageTemplate and it is not possible to inherit from multiple classes in this manner (that is to say you cannot inherit from Entities.Modules.PortalModuleBase and Bitkraft.Web.PageTemplate at the same time).

This is not to say that the two cannot work together though! - as i am in control of the source for the Bitkraft Framework, i can indeed inherit from Entities.Modules.PortalModuleBase instead of System.Web.UI.Page (which is already inherited by Entities.Modules.PortalModuleBase) soooo, what i am in the process of doing right now is downloading the source for DotNetNuke (v3.1.1) and recompiling the Bitkraft Framework with a NEW PageTemplate Class for DotNetNuke Users.

The short end of the story is that i have taken your query and the queries of others on-board and will be making a new set of Source and Binaries available this evening (AUS. Eastern Standard Time). I will be sure to email you with details of where they are availble from but the end result will be that, instead of inheriting from either Entities.Modules.PortalModuleBase OR Bitkraft.Web.Ui.PageTemplate, you will simply need to inherit from the NEW! - Bitkraft.Web.UI.DNNPageTemplate in order to get all of the features of DNN AND all of the power of Bitkraft at the same time.

I hope this is a timely and acceptable solution to your query and i will be in touch as soon as i have completed the final compilation with details of availability - i do ask that you report back to me with any information you have on how it goes - i am not running DNN on any of my production servers so am unable to test the full features if "Bitkraft in DNN" in a "Live" environment.

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Hi there [UserName Clipped],

Thankyou for you enquiry regarding the Bitkraft, i welcome any and all comments and queries and try to address them all as promptly as i can.

In regards to using Bitkraft with the Flesk libraries, i can only offer the same advice to you as i have to users of other products such as DotNetNuke. Bitkraft and Flesk, use the same technique for implementing their functionality - Inheriting from the Web.UI.Page class. In Fesk, the base class appears to be Flesk.Accelerator.Page , in DotNetNuke it is Entities.Modules.PortalModuleBa

se and in Bitkraft it is Bitkraft.Web.PageTemplate. It is not possible to inherit from more than one of these classes at a time, thus precluding the use of Flesk and Bitkraft (or DotNetNuke and Bitkraft) at the same time......

I saying this however, the advantage of Bitkraft being an Open-Source solution means that we can actually CHAIN these inheritances, thus making Bitkraft compatible with almost any other framework including, i assume, Flesk... This would simply involve obtaining a copy of the Flesk assembly (dll) that you are using, obtaining a copy of the Bitkraft Source and creating a modified version of the PageTemplate class that inherits from Flesk.Accelerator.Page rather than System.Web.UI.Page and recompiling.

The end result of this would be a new Template class (perhaps called Bitkraft.Web.FleskPageTemplate) to inherit from. To use the new template and get both the power of Flesk and Bitkraft in your Web Applications, all you have to do is to inherit from Bitkraft.Web.FleskPageTemplate instead of Flesk.Accelerator.Page!!!

If you would like to attempt this yourself, please feel free to obtain the source code for the bitkraft framework from: http://www.tiggrbitz.com/dlAug05/BitkraftBeta1.1_src.zip - if you are ofay with C# it should be a simple task to perform - if, however you would like to attempt this method but do not know how to modify and compile a C# assembly, please simply forward a copy of the Flesk Assembly (dll) that you are using and i shall compile a new version of Bitkraft with appropriate references to the DLL you provide and make it publicly available for download (with source) for you to use and evaluate - i would be very interested in doing this and receiving any feedback you may have as to how it operates, i am not currently using the Flesk library and do not have a production server setup to test this process on so testing wil be entirely reliant upon the user base - YOU!.

Should you wish me to undertake this task, please forward any relevant information (particularly a copy of the Flesk assembly which i will obviously destroy after i have compiled the new Bitkraft assembly so as not to violate any of the Flesk licensing agreements) - I aim to make a new public release of the Bitkraft Framework with DotNetNuke compatibility built in Tonight (Aus. Eastern Standard Time); forwarding this information ASAP will ensure that the new release of Bitkraft contains a new page template (Bitkraft.Web.FleskPageTemaplate) for you to work with!