New in 2sxc 7: #5 Create identical Copies of a DNN-Site

This is a part of my series The New Features of 2sxc 7 and introduces you to Exporting and Importing DNN-Portals to create a Copy of a Site which manages most content with 2sxc.  

Why Copy A DNN Site/Portal?

This was inspired by Tracy Wittenkeller of T-Worx, who told me that Skin-Designers core problem is that they need to supply a full package where the customer gets a working, already-good-looking and content-pre-filled feature-rich site when they install everything. So now 2sxc can export all content-data and Apps in such a way to re-create the identical site elsewhere. This is great for site-migrations and staging-sites. 

So what's the big Deal?

In the background this is a very complex topic because the core way DNN is built assumes that content is mapped to a specific module - while the 2sxc-model is more Content-Item based, assuming there is a Content-Item (say a persons address) which can be re-used in many ways and pages. Thanks to some large refactoring in 2sxc 7, we finally found a way to get this to work.

Common Use Cases for Copying/Moving Sites

1. Move from Test-Environment to live
2. Create staging copy of an existing site
3. Create a clone - do major changes for review - then publish the clone to replace the live system

Common Use Cases for Creating Site-Clones

1. Selling Skins - together with functioning portal-templates containing image-rotators, nice looking content, etc.
2. Selling solutions - like a Jobs-Portal or Real-Estate Portal - pre-filled with everything; just-replace-the-logo
3. Product-Microsites which will look almost the same across a company
4. Simple, special topics like Restaurants, Events, etc. - again with standardized pre-made fully featured sites

How to Clone a DNN/2sxc Site

We've prepared initial instructions here to Copy/Duplicate an entire DNN-Site with 2sxc Content and Apps.

I believe you'll love this - it should make the life of Skin/Theme designers much easier and open up a new industry for Solution-Creators; solutions being a package of skins, pre-filled content and apps all targeted to a specific use case (restaurant, event, dentist-sites etc.)

With love from Switzerland,
Daniel