Free DNN Skins By Active iNet Services (AIS)

DotNetNuke (DNN) is an open source, ASP.NET, content management system written in VB.NET. DNN is an ideal Internet/Intranet Portal solution. Web Sites are easily created and maintained through your web browsers and no knowledge of HTML or program is required. Modules are the building blocks of the system and are added to a tab/page through the administrator interface. Modules are self-contained blocks of code that provide DNN with additional functionality. An example would be an image module that is used for displaying pictures on the site. DotNetNuke is a database driven system meaning all the web pages that make up a DNN site are dynamically created by merging the content stored in the database when that page is requested.

As web sites have become increasingly more capable and gave rise to web applications so began the struggle between developers and designers. Essentially, a web application is still a web site and can thus encompass a brilliant design. However, like the term suggests it is also an application making code necessary. Often web applications are developed with the code or scripting mixed right in with the HTML. Although, this approach is not technically wrong it can make update a website rather difficult at times. In other words there is no separation of design and code. If a design change is made, the effected pages need to be carefully updated as not to introduce a bug in the code.

With the Code Behind feature available to ASP.NET developers a separation of code and HTML or design can be achieved. However, one problem or challenge still exists. Although the 1.x versions of DotNetNuke allowed for many appearance attributes to be altered through the system at the end of the day a DNN site still had a certain look and feel that could be changed without heavy customization. This challenge is overcome with the introduction of DNN skinning in DNN 2.x.

Skinning is an abstraction of form and function. It is a manageable way to separate content and application logic. Skinning allows for designers to work on the layout of the site and developers to work on the application logic (code) of the site, independently of each other.

Active iNet Services (AIS) will make several DNN skins available for FREE to the DotNetNuke community as part of our continuing effort to share our knowledge and give back to the community.

Note: We only require that you register to download and use our Free DNN Skins.