Using JQuery with DotNetNuke 4.x

I’m currently doing a project using DotNetNuke, and we’re using JQuery plugins to achieve certain content rotation and scroller functionality.  All was ‘amost’ good as I’d found a way to inject the JQuery script to the page header on a per-skin basis, but in ‘edit’ mode the actions button wasn’t showing up at the top of containers in FireFox and was causing JavaScript errors in IE.

I’d already gone through the hoops of declaring jQuery.noConflict(), but it still appeared to be conflicting with the dnn:actions (solpartactions) control.  I’d read somewhere else about Solpart code being incompatible with JQuery.

I tried one last thing, adding the noConflict() call in the JQuery library script file itself – rather than running as a fragment on page load.  This fixed everything, as something else was obviously getting in and hijacking in the meantime.  Apparently with V5 this will all be fixed as JQuery’s more integrated with the framework.  Anyway, for those interested here’s what I had to do to get JQuery (and associated plugins) talking nicely whilst still allowing the actions menu to pop up on my containers…

  1. Amend the JQuery library (jquery.1.x.x.min.js) by adding the following line at the bottom…

    jQuery.noConflict();

  2. Amend the skin you want to load the jquery library (and plugins) in (we’ve got it only in specific skins to avoid the overhead where it’s not required).  You could also do this in the module by checking ‘if loaded’, but here’s the code for a skin (in ascx file)…

    <script runat=”server”>
        Private Sub Page_Init(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Init
            ‘add a script reference for Javascript to the head section
            AddScript(“/js/jquery.scrollable-1.0.2.min.js”)
            AddScript(“/js/jquery.mousewheel.js”)
            AddScript(“/js/jquery-1.3.2.min.js”)
        End Sub
       
        Private Sub AddScript(ByVal fileName As String)
            Dim oLink As New HtmlGenericControl(“script”)
            oLink.Attributes(“language”) = “javascript”
            oLink.Attributes(“type”) = “text/javascript”
            oLink.Attributes(“src”) = fileName
            Dim oCSS As Control = Me.Page.FindControl(“CSS”)
            If Not oCSS Is Nothing Then
                oCSS.Controls.AddAt(0, oLink)
            End If
        End Sub
    </script>

    The order is important, as we’re adding the scripts to the ‘top’ of the scripts each time.  JQuery needs to be the first referenced.

  3. Make sure that anywhere you use jQuery you use the jQuery(xx) syntax, and not $(xx).

That’s it.