I'm working with a client that wants a rather robust ASP.NET application created that will leverage community server to manage their online community. I began searching for resources on best practices for integrating community server with an ASP.NET application to achieve my clients goals.Here are some of the resouces I found and the directions (or mis-directions) that I took.

• From Telligent's Knowledge Base Article : Can I add blogs to an existing web application or site? it was clear that this was possible for blogs, and if it possible for blogs, it must be possible for the rest of the Community Server application.While the KBA states it can be done, I could not find any technical documenation on Telligent's website the coved the steps required to accomplish this.

• Tutorial: Running ASP.NET applications under Community Server by Tod Birdsall - This was a great start. I went ahead and followed the tutorial, however, when I attempted to broswe to my virtual directory, things didn't go so well. After following the steps in this article I had to complete the following additional steps to get things up an running:
  
  1. Copy the entire contents of the Community Server Web project's bin directory to my website's bin directory
  2. Copy the entire contents fo the Community Server Web project's themes directory ot the root of my web application
  3. Server Error in '/community/TCOYF' Application.
  4. Due to a namespace conflict I need to make the following change to line 20 in the Themes\default\Common\home.aspx file:
  

• Line 20: SearchQuery query = new SearchQuery();

  Changed to:
  

  Line 20: CommunityServer.Components.SearchQuery query = new CommunityServer.Components.SearchQuery();

  
  5.Copy the entire contents of the Community Server Web project's Language directory to the root of my web application.
  6.Copy the connectionStrings.config  from the Community Server's web directory root to the root of my web application
  7. Copy the following controls section from the Community Server's web project web.config file to my web applications web.config file.
  <controls>

  <add tagPrefix="CSControl" namespace="CommunityServer.Controls" assembly="CommunityServer.Controls" />

  <add tagPrefix="CSBlog" namespace="CommunityServer.Blogs.Controls" assembly="CommunityServer.Blogs" />

  <add tagPrefix="CSForum" namespace="CommunityServer.Discussions.Controls" assembly="CommunityServer.Discussions" />

  <add tagPrefix="CSMail" namespace="CommunityServer.MailGateway.MailRoom.Controls" assembly="CommunityServer.MailGateway"/>

  <add tagPrefix="CSFile" namespace="CommunityServer.Files.Controls" assembly="CommunityServer.Files" />

  <add tagPrefix="CSGallery" namespace="CommunityServer.Galleries.Controls" assembly="CommunityServer.Galleries"/>

  <add tagPrefix="CSReader" namespace="CommunityServer.Reader.Controls" assembly="CommunityServer.Reader"/>

  <add tagPrefix="CSDynConfig" namespace="Telligent.DynamicConfiguration.Controls" assembly="Telligent.DynamicConfiguration"/>

  <add tagPrefix="TWC" namespace="Telligent.Glow" assembly="Telligent.Glow" />

  <add tagPrefix="CA" namespace="ComponentArt.Web.UI" assembly="ComponentArt.Web.UI"/> <add tagPrefix="CP" namespace="CommunityServer.ControlPanel.Controls" assembly="CommunityServer.Web"/>

  </controls>

•  Custom Apps within Community Server  by Adonis BItar has another approach to running an application under the community server web application that simply restoring the settings for the virtual directoy back to the default settings for ASP.NET websites. He has a web.config file available for download from his website. I also have a similar web.config file available for download which includes the necessary elements to use ASP.NET AJAX (including the required updates to use the May 2007 Futures release).

1. Use the forums on CommunityServer.org
2. Read the blogs of their MVPs.
3. Access Community Server's online documentation
4. Visit the developer Wiki.
5. Direclty review the code in the SDK

Well, anyone that believes the way to master an architecture and API is to scavenge around forums and blog posts is off their rocker. Not that some of the resources and not helpful (and greatly appreciated!). There are some great using Community Server and they constantly post valuable information on the forums and on their personal blogs. However, there is not a complete, concise, and up date collection of material regarding community server available.

While I understand that providing documentation would require resources (time and money) on their part, I believe this lack of documentation is really holding them back. I had the product downloaded, installed, and was able to administer it with ease, however, when I came time to customize it, I almost walked away from Community Server completely because of the lack of documentation. With some appropriate documentation the resources I and other developers have to spend getting up to speed with community server could be minimized to a fraction of what it requires today.

I've been contracting with a client that is using Community Server to manage their online community. As this work has made me become quit familair with Community Server, I figured I would update my personal website to run on Community Server and play with some of the features.