Basic Thunder Custom Module doesn't work

I've just installed the latest Sitefinity Thunder Add-in and then attempted to create a custom module in a class library. After building:

1. The module shows up in the admin list of modules
2. It's not installed so I clicked Actions > Install. The screen does nothing for a few seconds, then there's some brief page flicker before the list of modules is shown again. The new module is not still not installed and there's no feedback on the screen what-so-ever to explain what happened. There's no log file explaining what happened and the event viewer shows nothing either.
3. I tried actions > delete. The page does nothing again for a couple of seconds, followed by a reload and would you know: Nothing's changed again. The module is still there. Is still listed in SystemConfig. There's no onscreen feedback to say what happened. At least this time a log file is created saying that there was a null reference exception in the Uninstall method.

So here's my questions:
1. Why would Telerik publish a tool that is supposed to make life a little easier, but that the basic module doesn't really work or is there more to be done before it will work?
2. Why is there no feedback on the Sitefinity Modules page to say what's going on? Whether it's successful or a failure occurs the feedback to an administrator is important is it not?
3. Why does the install 'fail/not work', without giving a reason?
4. Why does the uninstall fail out of the box?
5. PS. I noticed during the Custom Module wizard it asks where you would like to install the Custom Module page. It provides a TreeView of pages so I tried to click the Design page to have the new page installed under Design. It doesn't allow that. You can only click the child pages???

 :)

Where am I going wrong here? I just don't seem to have any luck when it comes to Sitefinity custom modules!

Hello Jacques,

I tried to reproduce this issue. I used Sitefinity 5.4.4010.0, made a C# and VB class libraries, created custom modules in each of those, built the SitefinityWebApp project and opened the back-end. Both modules were installed and active.

However, I was able to reproduce the behaviour which you described when I created another class library, added a module inside it and opened the back-end without building the SitefinityWebApp project. Please make sure that you have built your SitefinityWebApp project (or the whole solution) before opening the back-end.

1. Why would Telerik publish a tool that is supposed to make life a little easier, but that the basic module doesn't really work or is there more to be done before it will work?
The tool should work and all you need to do after using it is to build your SitefinityWebApp project. Thunder automatically adds a reference from the SitefinityWebApp project to your class library.

2. Why is there no feedback on the Sitefinity Modules page to say what's going on? Whether it's successful or a failure occurs the feedback to an administrator is important is it not?
I will talk with the team about making a user-friendly message when the installation of a module fails. If you add the new module manually using the Install a module button, you will get an error message. However, the module is already added to the configuration by Thunder when you created the module in Visual Studio.

3. Why does the install 'fail/not work', without giving a reason?
After trying to install a module, the page is being reloaded instead of showing a message when an error occurs. I will talk to the team about making a user-friendly message for this case.

4. Why does the uninstall fail out of the box?
The most probable cause would be if Sitefinity is unable to resolve the module's class to call its Uninstall method. Please make sure that the ~/bin folder contains the class library's assemblies.

5. PS. I noticed during the Custom Module wizard it asks where you would like to install the Custom Module page. It provides a TreeView of pages so I tried to click the Design page to have the new page installed under Design. It doesn't allow that. You can only click the child pages???
You can only click on the child group pages. For example, you cannot click on the Content back-end page, you can select Types of Content and Classification of Content. This is the approach which we usually take with our own module pages. However, you can change where you want to install the module page by going to the module's Install method and change .PlaceUnder(new Guid("...")) to .PlaceUnder(CommonNode.Design). To set if you wish the page to be shown at the top or bottom of its parent, you should change .SetOrdinal(1) to the desired value.

We have plans to greatly improve Thunder's custom module story but it will be after Sitefinity 6.0 release. I cannot give you an exact time frame.

Kind regards,
Marin Atanasov
the Telerik team