Have you ever wondered what a shadow module is good for?  I have.  I recall seeing one a year ago and asking myself...so?

Well, the lightbulb just came on the other night!  I was trying to figure out a good way to share navigation among the pages for the DNN Central portion of NetSplore.  Basically, I wanted a list of links of all the relevant pages that would be consistent across all the pages.  I certainly didn't want to create a large number of links modules, add links to all of them, and try to maintain this mess.  I looked at different options.  I found modules that look at the child pages of the current page and created links for them.  I found a module that displays a stack of your most recently visited pages.  All these types of modules have their uses, but none of them were what I really wanted.

Shadow Functionality To The Rescue

I finally got it.  The purpose of shadowing, that is.  Now, maybe I shouldn't say 'the'  purpose of shadowing.  Currently, I only see one good reason...the one I just found.  But then again, I didn't see this one until just now, so maybe there are more I have yet to discover.

What if I created a module with links to the exact pages I wanted and hid this instance of the module and then shadowed it onto every page I wanted it?  Oooh, let me say that again.  I create one list of links to all my relevant pages and shadow that everywhere I want it!  Yeah baby!!!  I think I am onto something here.

So, I added a links module to a hidden page the user cannot navigate to.  I like the Bonosoft Links module for this purpose.  Here is what the module looked like after I configured it:

Then, I used a module with shadow type functionality and added one to every page I wanted this navigation on.  I say the module has 'shadow type functionality'  because that is not the primary purpose of the module I used.  I used the Module Wrapper by ZLDNN.com.  It does way more than shadow, but it provides this functionality as well.

Now, I have a single module to maintain that has all the links for DNN Central, but it is available from every page.  I liked the way it worked so much that I put it at the top and bottom of each page.  Click on one of the DNN Central pages (DNN Modules, DNN Skins, etc.) and notice the row of links across the top and bottom of the page.  Click on one of the links and the page you navigate to has the same list of links at the top.  If I want to add a link, I do it in one module, the original hidden one and it is reflected in all the shadowed copies.  Pretty cool.  Consistent and easy to maintain, just the way I like it.

Now I finally get the value of a shadow type module.

Below is a list of links of shadow type modules I have found.  After reading this article, you have to wonder...are you looking at the real module of links, or is it a shadowed copy?