Form and List

Welcome to FormAndList.com

stefan.cullmann@gmail.com — Thu, 2 Apr 2009 04:00:00 GMT

This site and this blog is dedicated to the DotnetNuke module "Form and List". Form and List is the next generation of the former User Defined Table module, and this site is both show case, documentation center and repository of templates. We take dog fooding to a new level: The whole site is build upon one single module: Form and List.

No Links module, no Text/HTML. No need more to ask which module was used!

Welcome to the wonderfull world of Form and List.

New Feedback Form

stefan.cullmann@gmail.com — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 03:04:00 GMT

Today I added a Feedback form to this site.

How To Add A Row To FormAndList or UDT

stefan.cullmann@gmail.com — Sat, 2 May 2009 09:28:00 GMT

The question was raised how to add a new record to a User Defined Table with code. UDT (or meanwhile Form and List) stores the data in a serialized form. Saving and retrieving data is quite different from usual.

The code for saving data was rewritten for Form and List, this blogs compares both ways.

How to Retrieve Data from Form and List/ UDT by code

stefan.cullmann@gmail.com — Sat, 2 May 2009 01:33:00 GMT

Retrieving data from Form and List or a UDT is simple:

Dim udt As UserDefinedTableController
Dim ds As DataSet

'Only way in UDT3.x
udt = New UserDefinedTableController()
ds = udt.GetDataSet(ModuleID)

'Preferred way in Form and List 
udt = New UserDefinedTableController(Me.ModuleContext)
ds = udt.GetDataSet()

DotNetNuke 5.1 enhances usage of mirrored modules

stefan.cullmann@gmail.com — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 09:00:00 GMT

DNN5.1 lists up all pages witch mirror the current instance of an module inside its settings.

Adding new data types: A working example

stefan.cullmann@gmail.com — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 09:42:00 GMT

Did you know?

You can add new data types to Form and List without changing code of the module. This blog shows how to add a new data type "Attachment".

Form and List 05.00.03 released

stefan.cullmann@gmail.com — Sat, 3 Oct 2009 12:43:00 GMT

Form and List 5.0.3 was released some days ago, and the new package is now also part of the latest DotNetNuke packages 5.1.3/5.1.4. It is mainly a stabilization release, covering some fixes and a few enhancements and performance tweaks. Continue to

Form and List 5.1.2. released

stefan.cullmann@gmail.com — Fri, 9 Apr 2010 11:53:00 GMT

This is the second release for this year for Form and List, and it mostly a stabilization release. The import/ export of CSV files feature, which had been introduced in 5.1.1,, was not really ready for production and required an update. Also the new ability to set a CSS style to input boxes had been missed for the main data type text, which in. As requested by the Community, I also added reply-to and from fields for email notifications.

For your privacy, the content of Form and List modules are now excluded by default from search, and even the cleanup of existing entries inside the search index will happen immediately.

I am very pleased that due to the efforts of our team member Brett Conlan, Form and List has also got a new User Guide. Brett was always convinced that a module like Form and List requires a solid documentation and spend a lot of time and energy in it.

You can download the latest package and the user guide from Codeplex. The new package will be also included in the next DotNetNuke release, 5.4.0.

Btw, I was asked inside the forums about the update path of the UserDefinedTable (UDT) module, the successor of the Form and List module. The answer is simple: Installation of Form and List will simply update UDT too.

Templates in Form and List - Introduction

stefan.cullmann@gmail.com — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 09:24:00 GMT

Form and List is a generic tool which allows you to setup different kind of lists or forms. It sometimes results into small, basic mini applications. Examples could be news announcements, page comments, guest books, event registration forms, etc.

Often users would like to reuse configurations. Form and List can help; it allows administrators to create module templates. Form and List module templates are quite similar to module exports; it extends that approach further. Usually module exports, which are technically created through the DotNetNuke interface IPortable, can only include module settings and content. Settings that belong to the instance of the module in the current page are ignored by design of the IPortable interface. Now Form and List stores most settings which control appearance and functionality in the page related settings. Form and List can also be rendered using XSLT stylesheets.

The module template integrates module settings, page settings, XSLT stylesheets and the security configuration into one single XML file. This template file is usually stored in the /Templates folder of your current portal. It can be even spread over all portals if the system account uploads the template file to the /Templates folder of the default portal.

If a new Form and List module is placed inside a page, users can either choose to setup a new configuration, or they can simply apply one of the templates out of the template catalog.

Templates are part of Form and List since 5.0.0, and even DotNetNuke got better over time – Page templates, which usually had been a collection of Module exports, include also the page related module settings since DNN5.2.0.

New Features and Enhancements in Form and List 05.01.03

stefan.cullmann@gmail.com — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 11:40:00 GMT

I am pleased that only three weeks after the last public Form and List release, a new package has been uploaded to the release tracker..

The following features will be part of that release: