DotNetNuke Modules – Finding The Page a Module is On

September 15, 2008 By: Dave

land-0127 Last week we talked a bit about Inter Module Communication, the ability of one module to notify another module on the page that something needs to happen without requiring a post back. The other need you may have is something I refer to as Cross Page Communication. This is not a DotNetNuke term, I just made it up today.

Here’s the problem. In some cases, you may have a module that you’ve placed on a page that should only ever be on one page. In my case, this was the checkout module. I needed some way of retrieving the page that that module was on so that I could create a hyperlink to that page from my modules that displayed my products and my “mini cart” module that displayed a summary of items in the shopping cart.

Here’s how I did it:

// Find the tab the module specified by
//friendlyName, is on.

// ModuleController is in:
// DotNetNuke.Entities.Modules namespace
ModuleController moduleController =
    new ModuleController();

// User the friendlyName to find the moduleID
int myModuleDefId =
    Globals.GetDesktopModuleByName(friendlyName)
        .DesktopModuleID;

// Get all the tabs available for this portal.
ArrayList tabs = (new TabController())
    .GetTabs(portalId);
foreach (TabInfo ti in tabs)
{
    // For each page, find all the modules on the page
    Dictionary<int,ModuleInfo> modules =
        moduleController.GetTabModules( ti.TabID);
    foreach (ModuleInfo mi in modules.Values)
    {
        // If the module on the page is the module we
        // are looking for, return it.
        if (mi.DesktopModuleID == myModuleDefId)
        {
            return ti.TabID;
        }
    }
}

Other post in DotNetNuke - Module Development

Creating DotNetNuke Modules - May 20th, 2008
Creating DNN Modules - The Tools - May 22nd, 2008
DotNetNuke Modules - Foundational Concepts - May 26th, 2008
DotNetNuke Modules - Install DNN into VS 2008 - May 27th, 2008
DotNetNuke Modules - Creating Base Modules - May 28th, 2008
DotNetNuke Modules - Registering Your Module - May 29th, 2008
DotNetNuke Modules - Where Stuff Shows Up - June 3rd, 2008
DotNetNuke Modules - Benefits of Architecture - June 4th, 2008
DotNetNuke Modules - Anatomy of the View - June 9th, 2008
DotNetNuke Modules - Adding Actions - June 11th, 2008
DotNetNuke Modules - DNN Controls - Label - June 18th, 2008
DotNetNuke - Internationalization - June 25th, 2008
DotNetNuke Modules - Internationalization (part 2) - June 30th, 2008
DotNetNuke Modules - Labels w/ no Help - July 9th, 2008
DotNetNuke Modules - LinkButtons - July 14th, 2008
DotNetNuke Modules - Collapsible Panels - July 16th, 2008
DotNetNuke - The Data Layer - Installing CodeSmith - July 22nd, 2008
DotNetNuke - Modules - Creating The Tables - July 24th, 2008
DotNetNuke - Modules - Creating Stored Procs - July 29th, 2008
DotNetNuke - Modules - Portal Specific Modules - July 31st, 2008
DotNetNuke Modules - Data Access Layer - August 5th, 2008
DotNetNuke Modules - Data Access Layer - August 7th, 2008
DotNetNuke - Data Access Layer Alternative - August 12th, 2008
DotNetNuke - Modules - Linking within the module - August 14th, 2008
DotNetNuke - Make Your Module Searchable - August 19th, 2008
DotNetNuke Modules - Making Content Portable - August 25th, 2008
DotNetNuke Modules - Exceptions the DNN Way - September 2nd, 2008
DotNetNuke Modules - PortalModuleBase - September 4th, 2008
DotNetNuke Modules - Inter Module Communication - September 9th, 2008
DotNetNuke Modules - Finding The Page a Module is On - September 15th, 2008
DotNetNuke Modules - Caching - September 17th, 2008
DotNetNuke Modules - Module Settings - September 22nd, 2008
DotNetNuke Modules - Retrieving Settings - September 24th, 2008
DotNetNuke Modules - Advanced Architecture - October 20th, 2008
DotNetNuke Modules - Creating the PA - October 30th, 2008
DotNetNuke Modules - Automating the PA - November 5th, 2008
DotNetNuke - FileUploadControl Danger! - February 26th, 2009

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Tags: asp.net, cross page, csharp, dotnetnuke, modules

5 Responses to “ DotNetNuke Modules – Finding The Page a Module is On ”

# 1 Néstor Sánchez Says:
September 16th, 2008 at 11:29 am
The tab iteration on a portal with thousands of pages will be quite expensive. A better solution from an architectural point is that the Checkout module saves its location to the DB, either by way of a module setting or a specific field in a module configuration table. In that manner, your other modules can retrieve this directly.
# 2 Dave Says:
September 16th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Yes, it is (was).

As is common with most of my post I only gave you the specifics on how to retrieve the information. I did not tell you what to do with it.

IF you need to find out where a module is, this is how you do it. And even if you use this method, you wouldn’t retrieve it every time you hit the page because even on a relatively small site, you’d get killed on performance.
# 3 Ant Says:
September 16th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Will it be better if we do this?

Dim objModuleController As DotNetNuke.Entities.Modules.ModuleController = New ModuleController()
Dim moduleList As ArrayList = objModuleController.GetModulesByDefinition(PortalId, moduleName)
For Each modInfo As ModuleInfo In moduleList
‘Return modInfo.TabID
Next
# 4 Ant Says:
September 16th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Private Function GetFirstModuleTabId(ByVal PortalId As Integer, ByVal moduleName As String) As Integer
Dim objModuleController As DotNetNuke.Entities.Modules.ModuleController = New ModuleController()
Dim moduleList As ArrayList = objModuleController.GetModulesByDefinition(PortalId, moduleName)

For Each modInfo As ModuleInfo In moduleList
Return modInfo.TabID
Next
Return 0
End Function
# 5 Dave Says:
September 16th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Without running I’d have to say no only because it looks like really old syntax if it worked at all.

.NET Answers