How About The Ability To Select A Connection String?
The current method of accessing the database only provides for 3 solutions.

1. Access by Adding a connection string to the text box
2. Do nothing and it will use the dotnetnuke database
3. Put your database name in the sql statement.


It seems that if we can get the ability to select a connection that is stored in the web.config file added it would provide more flexibility particularly with deployment or commercial distribution of an LP. I could be wrong but in my mind if i add a connection string by using the text box sure i get plenty of flexibility to have 1 Listx accessing a MSSQL and 1 access a Oracle data store. Good Deal. No problems here. Now if i just use the dnn data store well, thats not what users may want to do. in some cases one may choose to have 1 database but most will not.

I would be nice to be able to have the connection strings predefined in the web config that could be select from a drop drown control. That is to make the listx parse all present connection strings defined in the web config. this would allow maximum flexibility, exclude the actual name of the database from having to be used in the query, which is in my opinion a very bad ideal because it is kinda like hardcoding and will seal the name of the database in stone. Those wishing to change it would have to edit the queries in all listx modules in a site. That is not good practice. In a distribution model the end user should have the flexibility to customize the name of their database without having to edit a bunch of queries. Same with the text box method any connection string will have the name of the database hardcoded so now instead of editing queries we must edit connection strings.

Now, if we could just select a connection string from a dropdown list we could define multiple data stores and access them by selecting SiteSQLServer, etc. The database name is not in the mix at all and where it is listed will only need one change in one place to change the name of the database the web config file. Real simple thing to do since it is already capable of accessing the default connection string. and reading from the text box just change that so it can be self aware of all connection strings available. better way to do this otherwise when LP's start hitting snowcovered and users go to try and brand the application they are gonna be upset and depending on the size of the application and amount of listx modules used could make for a customer relations nightmare. end users typically pay $$$ for products they expect to get up and running in no time the current method makes true database independence not true in the current version of listx. This also could increase support calls because end users have fluffed up the queries or connection strings. Not all users will be savvy some may truly expect minimal out the box running apps that are easy to setup. The only time a user would need to change the setting on the listx module would be if they changed providers for that listx and when they do it is nothing but a selection. what do ya think. sorry for the long post just trying to state my case.

So can we get a version that will parse the web config file for all connection strings present?

Actually - this is something we are already working on for our future versions. The system will allow for the connection string entry directly, or named entry of a specific connection from the configuration file. This concept will be supported in two ways: A drop-down selection of values from a specific web.config section meant for connection strings for ListX, or the standard textbox we currently use. Additionally, in 1.9 you can facilitate the same behaviour through the [name,Configuration] (or [Name,AppSettings]) tag to get the value of a specific App Settings entry. We will be releasing 1.9 as soon as the MATH library QA testing has completed.

Hello

I was wondering if the ability to use [name,Configuration] or [Name,AppSettings] to retrive a connection string from the web config made it into the 1.9 release i cannot locate any info on this in the documents.

Hi,

This feature is not there yet.

Thanks,