CIS 690 - Implementation Project Proposal
Palaniappan Ramanathan
Department of Computing & Information Sciences
Kansas State University
Aim:
The objective of this project is to extend a content management system by
developing and integrating custom modules into the content management system. I plan
to use ASP.NET 2.0 (with C#) and Oracle 10i.
Portal:
The Content Management System I plan to use in the project is the Microsoft
ASP.NET Portal. The Starter Kit can be downloaded from
http://www.asp.net/starterkits/downloadportal.aspx .
The documentation of the portal can be found at
http://home2k.izum.si/Docs/Docs.htm (or)
http://www.cis.ksu.edu/~rpalani/CIS690/Docs/Docs.htm
The Portal Starter Kit can be used to build either an intranet or Internet portal application.
The Starter Kit comes with SQL scripts for SQL server. I plan change the SQL scripts so
as to run in oracle and the C# files in the Components folder to use Oracle Providers
instead of SQL Providers. And I plan to use the Visual Studio conversion wizard to
convert the files in the starter kit from ASP.NET 1.0 to ASP.NET 2.0.
Custom Modules:
The custom modules that I plan to develop and integrate into the Portal are:

Image Gallery: A module that will allow the user to view all the images that are
uploaded using the existing module in the Starter Kit like a gallery. User can
enlarge the image and also save the image. If the user has edit privilege to the
module he can delete or edit the image.

Bug Track: This module can used to track bugs in the Portal. It will automatically
send the user to an error report page if there is any error in the application. And
give an option to send emails to the administrators if needed. The Administrators
can view all the bugs that have occurred in the application.

Reservation: A module that can be used for reserving anything like rooms, flights
etc by users in the portal. The Administrator will be able to add the type of items
that a user can reserve.

Library: This Module is used to search and view the availability of items, check
out and check in the items in a Library. The Admin can add, edit and delete the
items in the library. Admin can also add/update categories and subcategories.

Slideshow: This Module is used to rotate a set of images automatically without
refreshing the page after a certain amount of time. The width of the image,
alignment of the image and the time before each rotation can be modified.

Latest News: This Module is used to show the latest news in random. The number
of topics wanted to be shown can be selected. These topics can be given priority
and shown based on the priority. These topics can be edited if logged in as admin.
Technologies:
By the end of this project I hope to strengthen my skills in the following areas:

ASP.NET 1.0 & 2.0: By reviewing the source code to understand how portal
application was architected and built I think I would learn the best practices to
follow when building an ASP.NET web application. Since the starter kit comes
with the source code written in ASP.NET 1.0 and by converting the starter kit
from ASP.NET 1.0 to ASP.NET 2.0, I hope to strengthen my skills ASP.NET 1.0
and 2.0 generally (e.g. user controls, master pages). By building the custom
modules in ASP.NET 2.0 I hope to learn and use the new features available in
ASP.NET 2.0 like grid view, multi view, master page etc. In the modules like
Reservation module which I plan to use the Calendar control, and other modules
which I would use Datagrid or Datalist control, I would have deep understanding
about these controls by the end of the project.

Oracle 10i: In all the custom modules I plan to develop, there will be some sought
of database interaction in which I will have to write procedures, functions,
triggers and a lot of SQL queries. And also since the SQL script that comes with
the starter kit is in SQL Server and by converting it to Oracle, I will know the
database structure of the portal and also the best ways to design a database.

HTML & CSS: The starter kit comes with a style sheet that applies to all pages.
While adding the new user controls into the portal, I intend to create my own
styles and integrate into the existing style sheet which can be later used by other
controls.

JavaScript: In the modules like slideshow module there will be a lot of use for
JavaScript for rotating the images without refreshing the page. Similarly in the
other modules too there will be use for JavaScript.

Browser Compatibility: All 10 portal modules that come with the starter kit can
be used to target all standard html based browsers (Internet Explorer, Netscape,
Opera, etc). So the modules I plan to develop will have to have the same
standards.
Tools Used:
 Microsoft Visual Studio 2005
 Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003
 Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio.NET
Testing:
 ANTS Profiler: ANTS Profiler is a tool for quickly and easily pinpointing
performance bottlenecks in applications written in any of the languages available
on the .NET Framework.
 ANTS Load: ANTS Load is for load testing websites and web services
 NUnit: NUnit is a unit-testing framework for all .Net languages. The test code
contains Assertions, which demonstrate the correct working of the application.
Timeframe:
I plan to complete this project by the end of the spring 2006 semester.
References:
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http://www.asp.net/starterkits/downloadportal.aspx .
http://www.red-gate.com/products/ants_profiler/index.htm
http://www.red-gate.com/products/ants_load/index.htm
http://www.nunit.org/