Take a minute, right now, and go look at the rotating banner at the top of the homepage here. That is an instance of Engage: Rotator 2.0, the latest module released from Engage Software.
Engage: Rotator is our content rotation module for DotNetNuke. The 2.0 update is a major release, where the main change is the addition of fully templateablity to the module's display (just like Engage: Events). In fact, we made so many updates and enhancements to the templating engine that Events uses, we had to release a new version of that module, too.
Now, in Rotator, you'll find a friendly template picker that will give you access to a number of our professionally designed templates, which are great for featuring articles, products, or other content on your DNN website. But, even better than the access to those templates, in my opinion, is the ability to design your own templates, which work exactly how you need them to work for your site. We use an intuitive system of tags to give you access to everything you need to make a compelling and personalized statement on your website.
In addition to the templates, we've also changed the rotating mechanism used in the module. That, in itself, isn't terribly exciting, but it provides our users with an overflowing handful of other benefits. To start, Rotator 1.x used the AJAX Control Toolkit to provide animation. And, as those who already own the module know, it is not a simple proposition to get the Toolkit setup on your site. Now, there is only one step: install the module. Everything is included, and you don't need to worry about downloading or adding the Toolkit files, or about whether some other module is already using those files.
The new rotating mechanism also opens up a number of great animation options. We could only easily provide fading animation when using the Toolkit, but now there are 25 different animations available, and you can even use more than one at a time. Furthermore, there are numerous additional options to configure the animations and the rotation just how you like it for your website. We think you'll find these new options really open up a world of new opportunities for your usage of the module on your site.
As I mentioned above, Engage: Events also has a new release with the same enhancements to the templating engine as in Rotator. For those writing templates, the experience is much more intuitive, straightforward, and flexible. For those managing the module, the experience of setting up the display of the module is drastically simpler and easier.
We really feel that these updates are compelling, and will greatly enhance your experience within your DNN website and with these modules. If you don't already own a copy, make sure and check them out at our demo site, where you can try out and play around with every aspect of the modules.