In late 2006 I used ListX, the predecessor to OWS, to create several modules for www.AgingSafely.com. The one that is most visible to the public is on our Listed Homes tab.

When they stopped developing ListX and switched to OWS I watched and waited to see how many users would migrate, how well OWS which is now Open Source would be supported, and what the level of documentation would be. I was very pleased when Paul created the huge number of DnnCreative videos. DnnCreative has far more OWS videos than R2i has.

For many reasons I neglected to upgrade to OWS, but now feel that I must as sooner or later changes to IIS, SQL Server, DNN or something else may break my ListX application and I would have to rush to make the changes.

With ListX there was an active user forum, which Paul was the most active customer. The R2i OWS forum doesn't seem near as active and I don't see Paul's name anywhere.

This week I re-watched the of Paul's DnnCreative videos. I then searched the DnnCreative forums for any OWS entries and found none.

This got me wondering:
1. How many subscribers have adopted OWS for any application?
2. For those that watched some or all of the videos; why didn't they use OWS?
3. What, if any, experiences have the DnnCreative subscribers had with OWS?
4. Have Lee and the DnnCreative contributors used OWS for anything meaningful?

David,

I always seem to get interested in these sorts of products, but I almost never get around to actually using them. I think that the "inventory" of things that can be used to build DotNetNuke modules is:

Xmod Pro
OWS
RAD
Razor

Of these, I've played around a little with OWS. I also played with RAD, even to the point of putting together a talk about it and delivering a talk about it to the Orlando DotNetNuke User Group. My presentation there ended with a rather lively discussion of the role of "rapid application development" products. There, many of the developers in attendance said that they would prefer to just develop modules using traditional tools, while casual users felt that there was a rather large learning curve.

Last fall I attended the Day of DotNetNuke in Chicago. I attended Phil Wegrzyn's talk about "Understanding the Various Ways to Implement Custom Functionality in DNN." He compared Xmod Pro and OWS with standard .NET development. He prefers OWS and claimed quite impressive development time improvements using OWS compared to .NET development. My memory is that he said that they retrain developers experienced in .NET to use OWS.

Finally, there is Razor, a new scripting language from Microsoft. A Razor Host Module is included with the most recent versions of DotNetNuke, and it comes with about a dozen examples. I have played just a little with it. One advantage is that you can use the entire DotNetNuke framework in Razor scripts.

I was excited when OWS was released. So much so that I purchased the DNN Creative subscription just for the OWS tutorials. I then took that knowledge and built an application that has had many many uses, and reuses on our intranet site. Being able to reuse code so effortlessly, and backup an entire application to a flat file is very cool. I fall right in the middle of the demographic. I am an enthusiast, but I have no prior development experience. The DNN Creative videos explained things in terms I could understand.

Rumors have been flying since DNN Connections 2010 of a new version of OWS but the last anyone has heard any news was in April :-( I hope it happens but I am concerned. I am thoroughly testing my apps and have noticed that recent upgrades of certain DNN modules have broken OWS.

From looking at their website, it appears that they have been releasing updated versions regularly. The most recent was released in May.

And, I saw a post (dated January) that referred to Version 3.

Finally, I know that R2i uses OWS heavily in their work. So, I would assume that they will stay current and that, eventually, you'll see that new version.

For more, though, I think you'll have to ask them directly.