The future of KevinHarder.com and introducing Dot Net Library
I have two big projects that I'm working on that will use the newly released Community Server 1.0:
KevinHarder.com
This site is currently made up of .TEXT v0.95, nGallery v1.6.1, and some custom ASP.NET pages I wrote. The only thing that integrates them is a common skin/design. They are all running as different sites on my host server with different subdomains (www.kevinharder.com, blogs.kevinharder.com, and gallery.kevinharder.com).
The people behind Community Server are the same people who created the .Text, nGallery, and ASP.NET Forums applications. Community Server is basically the next generation of those apps integrated together with some extra magic server pixie dust thrown in. So naturally I am going to upgrade this site to use CS 1.0. I'll disable the forums part of it since I don't need them, and just use the blogs and gallery features. This is the first project I want to do with CS to get more familiar with the configuration and design, and it shouldn't be too hard since I won't be customizing the CS code much if at all. Just have to redo my skin in the CS format, and at the same time hopefully make it use CSS a little more and rely on tables a little less for layout. Depending upon the availability of .Text/nGallery upgrade scripts (which haven't been published yet) I would like to get this done this weekend.
Dot Net Library
After I finish upgrading this site, my next project is to continue working on a new .NET community site I am creating called Dot Net Library (DotNetLibrary.org). This is the first time I've mentioned it on my blog. My vision for this site is for it to be a free repository (library) of .NET code-related content that is accessible via many methods. By content I don't mean articles or tutorials or anything like that. This is all about the code: code snippets, visual studio project and item templates, etc... I want to have the content accessible by www, rss, and web services. I plan on creating a WinForm GUI and/or VS.NET AddIn to search and contribute content.
The Dot Net Library is something I've been wanting to do for a long time. In a past life I used ColdFusion to build web apps and I loved the CFLib.Org site. When .NET was born and I switched over from the dark side I wanted to implement something similar. When I heard that VS 2005 would include built-in snippet support I knew I had better get started soon so I would have it ready to use by the time 2005 goes RTM. Then Josh Ledgard wrote about sharing snippets via RSS which I think is a great idea and added to what I wanted to do. I finally started planning and coding the pieces (slowly) in my spare time over the past two months.
So anyways, I'll be writing allot more about the Dot Net Library project as it gets closer to completion. But I wanted to mention my belief that Community Server will make a great platform to extend and build community sites on. I had been creating the web portion of Dot Net Library from scratch as a new site, using Microsoft's new Enterprise Library components for some of the basic plumbing. But a couple weeks ago I had a change of heart and decided to build the Dot Net Library web on top of CS 1.0. That way I will be able to integrate the blog and forums capabilities of CS, and rely on it for user authentication and management. As I add additional components, controls, and plugins to CS 1.0 for this project I plan on posting them on my blog as well for everyone to use.
