First, let me start off by introducing myself, I am one of the newest members of the Axosoft Team, my name is David Higgins. I have been working with Axosoft since early 2007.
I have spent the past few weeks working on the Axosoft Community Site, and the conversion from the previously used .Text (DotText) and Instant Forum applications. I started first with the .Text blog site, as the Community Server website had a freely available conversion program that already existed. Problem here was, it only converted .Text V0.95 into Community Server 1.1 -- so I was left with the task of installing CS 1.1, Converting the Blogs and then upgrading to CS 2.1 and converting the forums.
The forums were where I had to put some real work into the site, as no conversion programs existed for Instant Forum at this point. So I wrote one, put it through a few dry tests, and after being satisfied with the results, performed my first 'full' conversion using a backup of the Instant Forum database. This was a success, but did have a few glitches, I remedied these problems and began working on the 'skin' for Community Server so that we could provide an almost seamless transition between all of the Axosoft websites (Axosoft, Axosoft Store, Axosoft Community).
After many trial and error modifications to the default Community Server skin, I made some fairly good progress and became quite accustomed to the oddities that are Community Server Theming. I wish I could say it was easy, but it was not. The process was very time consuming, and I wound up visiting almost every single Skin file that ships with the default skin for Community Server. After working through this, I began working on the Single-Sign-On system that you can see by using the 'Sign In' or 'Register' options in the top header.
The Single-Sign-On system brought Jonas Bush on board in the Community Server development, and required some interesting modifications to our Customer Portal product as well, not to mention some modifications to the way the Axosoft Store worked. We introduced some new elements, such as the ability to load pages within, what we call, 'windows' as well as the ability to have pages redirect after a PostBack. Jonas did a great job with this, and I'm very pleased with the Single-Sign-On and cross-site navigation that was introduced to all three of the Axosoft Sites.
For now, I won't go into too many technical details about how we pulled this off, I'll reserve those for future posts (which may even include example code, or downloads), and I'll just leave you with this ...
When I first approached Community Server, I was a bit weary about whether or not it would be a successful tool and if we could pull off everything we hoped to with it. After working with it for a mere 4-5 weeks, I am extremely pleased with it and would suggest it to anyone who wanted to build a Community Site, or even a corporate Intranet. The power that Community Server provides is outstanding, and once you get past those first few steps in development, you can develop and deploy new tools, controls and components in literally minutes (of course, depending on the complexity requirements).
-- David Higgins
Axosoft, Developer