Current Multi-blog enabling LINQ to SQL BlogEngine.NET Provider. (Updated 3/12/10)

I have been asked for this code so that we can share the multi-blog solution that has been working for me for almost a year now.  This is the time to check it out and help make it work for yourself and others.  I’m going to continue to “dog food” this here.  Current version of BlogEngine.NET supported by this provider, as of this post, is 1.6.0.3.  Although I need to update my own site(s) from 1.6.0.1.

How will I update?

Mine is easy.  Drop in the new DLLs.

If I do a code “diff” and find the Web code to have changed recently (which I’m sure it did) I will copy those specific files to the Web folder.

How do you update from a clean BlogEngine.NET 1.6.0.3 code base?

1. You should download the latest BE.NET code from codeplex and create a folder for the solution. 
2. Extract the code from the zip into your solution folder. (…and follow the directions for setting up a stand-alone SQL Server Blog)
3. Copy and unzip the BlogEngine.Linq2SQL.3-12-10.zip folder into the solution folder with the Core and Web projects.
4. Add an existing Project to the solution, select the BlogEngine.Linq2Sql project.
5. Verify the References (to project “BlogEngine.Core”)
6. Add a reference to “BlogEngine.Linq2SQL” from the “BlogEngine.NET” Web site.
7. Change Target Framework on BlogEngine.NET Web site to “.NET Framework 3.5”
8. Execute the SQL build script “Linq2SqlUpdate.sql” to add schema to support Multi-Blogs.
   • Make sure to run against the Database you created in Step 2.
9. Assuming you are using the correct connection string, modify the Web.Config
   • blogProvider, membership, roleManager
   • See: Web.Config.xml

This is what you see when attempting to rate a new post. Click on a Star to rate the post.  Notice the infinitesimally small rating that is generally added when creating a first post.  This may be something I did myself while trying to “fix” the Add a new Blog script.

These are the symptoms I could find so far, but I cannot isolate the DateTime property that is causing the Exception.More...

Update (10/17/2009)

BlogEngine.NET appears to be closer than ever to a Multi-Blog implementation thanks to work done by Jacob Proffitt found here: Multi-blog Obsession.  The SQLBlogProvider allows multiple blogs to be supported by a single SQL Server database.  Imaging the maintenance and resource requirements, compared with “n” blogs and “n” databases, or “n” folders with “n-times-x” xml files for all those posts.  Currently, this provides for a single folder and any number of application instances, all pointing at the same folder.  There may be a few potential answers to this, but only if someone deems it a problem.  I’m now running about 12 (BlogEngine.NET) blogs in a single location with a single database using the SQLBlogProvider.  A few details were worked out to bring this solution up to the 1.5.x version of BlogEngine.NET.  While looking at this, I’ve learned a lot about some new features and found some useful and straightforward applications of Linq to SQL. More...

DateTime Format for Blog Posts for BlogEngine.NET

...or wherever you want to standardize output formatting.

Here is a rather simple solution to my issue of Date Time formatting on my blog posts.  I noticed that as of a recent version of BlogEngine.NET, the Date looked something like this: "29. June 2008 09:00"  I wanted to change it to something more readable to my target readers, some very local, such as: "Sunday, June 29, 2008 09:00 AM".  Well, I might want to change it sometime, AND I would like to drop it into multiple Themes, so I decided to place the format in Web.Config AppSettings. I looked up my specific Format and added an appSetting.  Then I just replaced the code used in "PostView.ascx" and tested away.

Here's what you can do to implement this yourself.

1. Go to .NET Framework Developer's Guide, Custom Date and Time Format Strings and/or locate your format string.
   • I used "dddd, MMMM dd, yyyy hh:mm tt"
2. Create an appSettings key such as: Custom.DateFormat and assign your format to the value.
   • <add key="Custom.DateFormat" value="dddd, MMMM dd, yyyy hh:mm tt" />
3. Now add the code to use the format string.
   • <%=Post.DateCreated.ToString(ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["Custom.DateFormat"])%>
   • original: <%=Post.DateCreated.ToString("d. MMMM yyyy HH:mm") %>

 More...

From: TVUG President, Griff Townsend:

Sorry for the delay in getting this out: things always seem to get hectic around the time to put announcements out, and this month was no exception. With that said, I've spoken with this month's presenter (in the mirror), and he is ready to go.
Using the Entity Framework in .Net 3.5 SP1

Speaker: Griffith Townsend, MCP.Net, MCSE
When: Tuesday September 8th, 2008 - 6:30-9PM
Where: VersaTrans Solutions, Latham, NY

When developing multi-tiered applications, it’s not uncommon that to encounter code and architectural “noise” where a developer is forced to shift languages between the business logic layer and the data layer. The preference of many developers is the use of tools (typically Object Relational Mapping solutions) to abstract the database-specific aspects of the data layer into objects usable by the upper layers by object-oriented programming languages. More...

TVUG Presentation - May 13th, 2008 

TVUG President wrote in an e-mail to the Tech Valley .NET Users Group membership.  Please join us...

This month, we welcome Chris Bowen, Microsoft's Developer Evangelist for the Northeast, as he dazzles us with GUI bliss. If you're getting started with XAML, WPF, and Silverlight, or just interested in the topic, make your way down to see us on Tuesday, May 13th.

Next-Generation UX Development with Silverlight and WPF

Speaker: Chris Bowen, Developer Evangelist - Northeast, Microsoft
When: Tuesday May 13th, 2008 - 6:30-9PM
Where: VersaTrans Solutions, Latham, NY

In this talk, we'll introduce the concepts behind both WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) and Silverlight. You'll see what they do, how they're related, when you might use them, and how to develop applications using them. You'll see some of the interesting ways customers are using WPF and Silverlight today to improve the user experience of their applications. After covering the concepts, we'll dive into the practical developer story, using Visual Studio 2008 to show how to use these declarative, XAML-based approaches to create high-end effects without the high-end effort.

BIO:
Chris Bowen (http://blogs.msdn.com/cbowen) is Microsoft's Developer Evangelist for the Northeast. A software architect and engineer with over 16 years of experience, Chris joined Microsoft after holding senior architect and developer positions at companies such as Monster, VistaPrint, Staples, and IDX Systems and consulting on web presence and eCommerce projects with others. He is coauthor of "Essential Windows Communication Foundation" [Addison-Wesley] and "Professional Visual Studio 2005 Team System" [WROX]. He specializes in application architecture and building highly-scalable transactional web systems and holds an M.S. in Computer Science and a B.S. in Management Information Systems, both from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.