Developer Environment

Setting Up Your Development Environment

Visual Studio 2022 (any edition)

Install ASP.NET and web development workload, which includes .NET Framework 4.8.x and WebForms

VS Code

Generally, we use Visual Studio but you can now work with the project in VS Code if desired. (requires C# Dev Kit)

Additional Components

We use some JavaScript components that are packaged as npm (Node Package Manager) modules, and we use gulp for building themes, so you need to install node.js in order to build the module. (we currently use 22.21.0 but use whatever recent LTS version)

SQL Server

(any edition; preferably 2012 or higher)

GitHub

You need to create your own fork of DNN Community Forums. Within your own fork, recommend creating a branch for each change you are going to make. This makes it much easier to isolate, test and ultimately merge, your pull requests.

DNN Platform

Always use at least the minimum supported version; see Dependencies. Install a baseline DNN instance; you can use NvQuickSite as a starting point.

Additional References

Dependencies

DNN Community Extensions Development Environment

DNN Community Contributors Guide