So I just wanted to let everyone know that I have just released the newest version of novella. The version number does not signify some massive upgrade or anything like that. This release is just an upgrade from .NET 2.0 to 3.5.

Why upgrade? Well first off, the architecture has now been greatly simplified using LINQ (and you all know that I love LINQ). Furthermore, the app no longer uses the ASP.NET Membership and Role providers so this greatly simplified the database as well.

So all in all, if you are just a user of novella, you won’t really notice much of a difference. However, if you are extending or customizing it in any way, you will quickly find out that just about every thing on the server has been rewritten.

If you want to get the latest, just head on over to codeplex and pickup a copy! And while I did test all the functionality, it is always possible that there are bugs, so if you find some, please email me at david at visionaryonline dot com.

As a final note, I am really pleased to announce that over 500 people have downloaded novella! Its not a ton, but I think it is pretty darn cool.

So novella has been out for a week or so, and so far the reaction has been quite positive (yea!). A few of the people who are getting their hands dirty have been asking me questions about the architecture and how everything works.

So to help them and the others who are too shy to ask, here is a detailed look at the various layers that make novella tick. Before I begin, I should note that if you just want to use novella, you don’t need to know any of this. However, if you are taking things apart or you just like to know what does what, this might help.

Also, if you are a relatively new ASP.Net developer who doesn’t care at all about novella, this architecture is useful for building all sorts of sites, and is a good learning tool. I have used this architecture in one form or another on all the sites and desktop applications (with some tweaking) that I have built in the last year or so.

Lets get started. Read the rest of this entry »

So I found an issue with the steps in the help file for novella. Basically I forgot to mention that you need the ASP.Net Ajax Library 1.0 installed on your computer if you are going to run it locally. Kinda important.

I updated the help file to talk about this little requirement.

You can get the latest version by clicking here or you can visit the download page of the novella home page.

On a related note, novella has been downloaded over 100 times in about 1.5 days. Sweet.

Whew…it has been a long week, but I am proud to announce the first version of novella is out the door and ready for consumption.

You can go check it out at www.devmade.com/novella.

If you get a few minutes, check it out and let me know what you think. There are bound to be some bugs here and there in the sites and in the code so if you find any please let me know. Also, I would love any feedback you have.

As luck would have it…I am an idiot. I prove that little fact over and over (just about daily really), but this was a case of just not paying attention. You see, while I was building my little CMS app I chose the name simpleCMS without paying attention to who else might be using that name because it fit. Big mistake.

As I got closer to completion I did a bit of searching for other apps with that name. What did I find? Apparently simpleCMS is quite a popular name. So is simplyCMS, and just about any other variation of the name. I shouldn’t really be surprised. Its not like the world of CMS applications is a small one or anything.

I was a bit disappointed at first. Partly at my own stupidity, but also because I thought the name summed up my little app perfectly. So I began the gut-wrenching process of finding a new name that summed up what I was trying to build.

After several days of hunting and swearing the word novella popped into my head.
Easy to remember? Check.
Easy to spell? Check.
At least tangentially related? Check.

A novella is a book that is shorter than a novel and longer than a short story. As such they are not a complex as a full sized novel. It works as a nice parallel to my app when it is compared to the big daddies like wordpress and the like. Those apps do more, but are more complex and therefore a bit harder to wrap your head around.

So there you have it…

With that said, I hope to release novella in a couple of weeks. Stay tuned!