There are many of us out there who could be considered DotNetNuke (DNN) enthusiasts.  We are constantly looking through the forums and blogs for new information about various components and modules, and we may even lose a lot of sleep doing it....

I just found something that will help you save some of those precious seconds and minutes that we as developers cherish so much!  It is a DotNetNuke Toolbar for Internet Explorer (IE) that is specific to the DotNetNuke entusiast, developer, or anyone else that wants DotNetNuke information at their finger tips.

At first glance, it is awesome!  You have an integrated search which uses a third party search vendor that uses Google to search DotNetNuke (read: site search parameter).  However, I find the search mechanism to be clunky and confusing.  This is especially true if you happen to also have another search toolbar (I like Google's). 

Even more confusing is that there are two toolbar buttons at the end for "Inbox" and "E-mail Notifier".  It sure would be nice to know exactly what those are for.  I would be even nicer to have intergrated help with this toolbar so I do not have to think about what these buttons are for, I would know.

There are quicklink buttons on the toolbar to various DNN-related places on the DNN web site and other commonly accessed DNN web sites.  I have already found it incredibly convenient. 

Probably the worst non-feature is that none of this appears to be configurable.  When I go to the options, it shows me some kind of search box.  That is horrible. 

The Bottom Line...

This toolbar is a huge time-save if you are frequently looking for information about DNN.  However, nothing appears to be open to user preference.  If there were options to add and remove buttons/features as we wanted, and integrated help, this toolbar would be close to perfect!

If I were using a star rating system, I would give this toolbar 3.5 out of 5 stars. 

Happy DNNing!