Sorry but no, mojoportal doesn't work like other cms's. I think you are used to using cms's that are built with interpreted scripting languages. They have some advantages because you can cobble things together with include files but they have some disadvantages too.

It is possible to create a custom module and put other modules inside it and do layout as you like, but not all module will work well in that case. Specifically modules that have additional supporting pages cannot be used this way easily and module that use friendly urls like th blog cannot be used this way. But for some modules it can be done. See this blog post by Joe Davis for an example where he wanted to include several modules inside tabs, but like I say its not an appropriate technique for all modules so your mileage may vary.

Keep in mind that within the html module you can do layout too, so its not needed to put multiple html modules together like this and its less database hits to just use one, like I have on the home page of this site, it may look like 3 content instances but its just one with 3 columns layout inside it. This video explains about our content templates which include some column layouts.

Hope it helps,

Joe

To paraphrase what Joe Audette said, wrapping modules inside of custom modules to acheive a special layout will be hit and miss. Some modules (like the Feed Manager and HTML Module) will work fine, whereas others (like the Calendar and Contact Form) will not. My blog post needs to be updated as it demonstrates how to use the Contact Form inside of UI widgets, but that really doesn't work. The end result of following my blog post is that the Contact form can not be submitted because each form wants to be filled out for the Submit function to work. I corrected this by using the ASP.NET tab control instead of the UI widgets.

At any rate, to acheive what you want to do:

1. Create a new file named WhatEverYouWant.ascx.
2. Add the following to the file:

<%@ Control Language="C#" ClassName="MultiModuleInTabsModule.ascx" Inherits="mojoPortal.Web.SiteModuleControl" %>
<%@ register assembly="AjaxControlToolkit" namespace="AjaxControlToolkit" tagprefix="portal" %>

<%@ Import Namespace="mojoPortal.Business" %>
<%@ Import Namespace="mojoPortal.Business.WebHelpers" %>
<%@ Import Namespace="mojoPortal.Web.Framework" %>
<%@ Import Namespace="mojoPortal.Web.Controls" %>
<%@ Import Namespace="mojoPortal.Web.Editor" %>
<%@ Import Namespace="mojoPortal.Net" %>
<script runat="server">
  protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
  {
  }
</script>

<div id="eventticker">
  <div class="floatpanel">
    <div class="floatpanel section" style="width: 47%;">
      <portal:ModuleWrapper ID="ModuleWrapper1" runat="server" ConfigureModuleID="100" />
    </div>
    <div class="floatpanel section" style="width: 47%">
      <portal:ModuleWrapper ID="ModuleWrapper2" runat="server" ConfigureModuleID="102" />
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

3. Change the ConfigureModuleID's to match the modules you want to wrap.

4. Upload the file to your site in the /Modules directory.

5. Create a new Feature using the "Administration > Advanced Tools > Feature Installation" tool.

I will post here when I have updated my blog.

Hope this helps,
Joe

Good to know. I don't know that it is a bug necessarily but if you want to adjust the validation group, that would be cool, then one could have multiple instances of the contact form on one page without any problem.

The AjaxControlToolkit Tab control worked out real nice for me. You can check it out here: http://acckc.org/contact-us.aspx.

I am going to re-write my blog post to account for the postback.

Thanks,
Joe

ConfigureModuleID is supposed to be the integer module id of the content instance not that title or name of it. To find the module id put it on a page as normal then visit the settings page and it will be the url parameter mid