Hello,

A couple of DNN "concept" questions.

I'm planning to rebuild a current asp site in DNN hoping to add many of the available built-in features for my client.  The current site is set up similar to a traditional print magazine that changes monthly. 

Question 1:

The layout remains the same every month but I edit specific portions of the CSS files to make each issue appear differently (for example, December has a Christmas theme).  Having read up a bit on skinning I'm confident I'll be able to do the same with DNN.  Can anyone give me a few concepts ideas on how I would go about doing this?  I don't need a step by step just the basic idea to get me started in the right direction.

Question 2:

The content for the site changes each month as well.  I want to be able to isolate each issue so that archive issues can be viewed in whole and with it’s own design.  Additionally I want to be able to re-use an article from an archived issue in a new issue without dragging along its' original design.  I'm sure I can simply copy the content portion and plop it into a new page but I would rather be able to pull just the story from the original location and re-use it in a new issue that would be skinned differently.  As in question 1 above, I'm not looking for a step by step set of instructions but just some ideas on how I could set it up.

The current site is set up simply with the basic directories: CSS, JavaScript, Images, and issues with sub-directories for each specific issue (001, 001, 003 etc.).  I handle the monthly design by editing a specific style sheet for each month and saving it in that issue’s directory.

The site is currently located at:  www.spirituality.org

Any thoughts or help would be greatly appreciated.

Also, if anyone can suggest one of the many DNN books that would help with my specific implementation please let me know.  There are many to choose from and would like to start with a couple that are geared more for a designer and skinning preferably with table-less design.

Thank you,

Bob

Hello Sebastian,

Thank you for your reply.

Question 1: Each issue contains 10-20 pages each depending on the time of year and it is only produced as a Web site, not in print- sorry for the confusion. 

Question 2: The request for a related book was for setting up DNN more than just for skinning specifically.  Fortunately I have +/- 10 years of CSS experience so I'm totally comfortable with that aspect.  I was just wondering if my current concept was something that I could easily transfer over to the DNN environment or if there was a better way to handle it.

I'm picking up this book today, Beginning DOTNETNUKE Skinning and Design to get me started with the visual aspect.

If you have any suggestions for setting up the placement of files and how I can best re-use an article in a new issue that would be great.  My thought is if I could isolate just the article text itself then I could bring it into a new page in a new issue.  Most of the articles include at least one image, sometimes more but I want to be able to re-use only the text and not the images so I can add new images when I re-use the article in a new issue.  My thought is to visually connect the images to the articles but without actually inserting the image tags in with the content.  That way I can re-use the content without dragging the old images along with it.  Make sense?  So, from what little I know about DNN thus far would it be best to set up the images as a module that I can add and/or edit along separately from the content?  And, what's the best way to place the content into the database and assign it an ID or something so I can easily pull it out and drop it into a new issue?

Bob