Sarasota Web Design and Sarasota Web Development

Blog Tags
Developing Custom Orchard Modules and Orchard Themes

  • David Hayden - Orchard Web Developer

orchard

07
May
Download Orchard 1.4.1

Download Orchard 1.4.1

The Orchard Developer Team released Orchard 1.4.1 on May 4, 2012. Orchard 1.4.1 is a maintenance release and fixes/closes at least 57 bugs/work items and has all the new features from Orchard 1.4, including: Autoroute and Alias, Projector Module, and numerous new field types. In addition to those main features in Orchard 1.4, there are numerous other changes like Custom 404 Error and Not Found Pages in Orchard, displaying edit and content links in Orchard, Orchard datamigration classes automatically being updated, new Journalist Orchard Theme, and more.

read more


Tags: orchard
Author: David Hayden

21
Apr
Orchard CMS Inspired by Drupal

Orchard CMS Inspired by Drupal

I've been reading the book, Using Drupal, which recently was released for Drupal 7, in order to better understand alternatives to Orchard CMS. I also hear mentions of how similar Orchard CMS is to drupal, so I wanted to get some understanding of how Drupal and Orchard compare. And last, I offer Orchard CMS training and I get a lot of developers who are already familiar with another CMS like Drupal, Joomla, Umbraco, or Wordpress, so I like to have a better understanding of other content management systems in order to help my students relate to Orchard CMS. What I have learned from reading Using Drupal is that Orchard CMS is quite similar to Drupal in terms of concepts.

read more


Tags: orchard
Author: David Hayden

02
Mar
What's New in Orchard 1.4

What's New in Orchard 1.4

Orchard 1.4 was released the other day and has some very important features as well as a lot of bug fixes and performance enhancements. It also comes with some breaking changes that will make upgrading to Orchard 1.4 a bit more effort. Since the Orchard 1.4 release notes just don't capture the coolness of this release, I thought I would play Orchard Developer Evangelist for a day and provide much more detail and context around the new features in Orchard 1.4 and why now is a great time to learn more about this ASP.NET MVC Content Management System ( CMS ).

read more


Tags: orchard orchard tutorials orchard websites projector module
Author: David Hayden

25
Mar
Manually Installing Orchard Modules and Themes from Orchard Gallery

Manually Installing Orchard Modules and Themes from Orchard Gallery

Late Thanksgiving evening I was developing an Orchard Website when I noticed the Orchard Gallery Package Feed from within the Orchard Dashboard was not working. I kept getting HTTP 404 Not Found errors when attempting to download any custom modules and themes from the Orchard Gallery. I didn't have time to post a question in the Orchard Discussion Forums and wait for an answer to this problem. I had a deadline and this deadline was not going to wait for an answer over the holidays. Therefore, I did what any resourceful Orchard Web Developer would do, I downloaded and installed the custom Orchard Modules and Themes manually. Here is how you do it!

read more


Tags: orchard orchard tutorials
Author: David Hayden

10
Nov
Rules Tokens and Forms API in Orchard 1.3

Rules Tokens and Forms API in Orchard 1.3

To recap, I have presented the following Orchard Tutorials with the release of Orchard 1.3: Markdown support for authoring new content items like Pages and Blog Posts in Orchard, a new Preview Feature for viewing unpublished and draft blog posts in Orchard, the ability to Delete Content Types, and the new ITitleAspect and Title Part for helping Orchard Web Developers. Now it is time to introduce a set of additional features in Orchard 1.3 that go hand-in-hand and provide amazing extensibility for your Orchard Websites: Rules, Tokens, and the new Forms API. These three features will change the way you look at adding functionality to Orchard, and I can't wait to see what Orchard Web Developers will dream up to exploit this new functionality.

read more


Tags: orchard orchard tutorials
Author: David Hayden

26
Oct
Content Types with Title Part and ITitleAspect in Orchard 1.3

Content Types with Title Part and ITitleAspect in Orchard 1.3

I've been having fun discovering and using the new features in Orchard 1.3. Three features presented so far include: Markdown Support for Pages, Blog Posts, and other Content Items in Orchard, Delete Content Types in Orchard 1.3  as well as the ability to Preview Blog Posts, Pages, and other Content Types in Orchard. Another new feature in Orchard 1.3 that will be appreciated by Orchard Developers is the new Title Part and ITitleAspect Interface to help add titles to Content Type Items when displayed in the Orchard Dashboard, etc. This new feature is subtle, but if you've been developing numerous Custom Orchard Modules with Custom Types that did not use the Route Part in Orchard, you have no doubt stumble upon the fact that your Content Type Items were displayed by the name of the Content Type in the Admin Summary ( as an example ) as opposed to something more useful. Let's dive into these subtle, but very useful, Title Part and ITitleAspect in Orchard 1.3. Don't forget to also view my other Orchard Tutorials.

read more


Tags: orchard orchard tutorials
Author: David Hayden

19
Oct
Delete Content Types in Orchard 1.3

Delete Content Types in Orchard 1.3

I've been writing a number of Orchard Tutorials documenting new features in Orchard 1.3. The first tutorial described how to author blog posts and pages using the new Markdown Support in Orchard 1.3. The second tutorial demonstrated the new preview feature in Orchard 1.3 for previewing draft and unpublished blog posts and pages before publishing them to the world. Now I want to talk about a new feature in Orchard 1.3 that allows Orchard web developers, Orchard web designers, and Orchard administrators to delete content types from Orchard. As you begin to develop and install content types in Orchard either through the Administrative UI or via custom Orchard Modules you may want to delete these content types when no longer in use. In Orchard 1.3 you can now do this just as you are able to create and modify content types within Orchard.

read more


Tags: orchard orchard tutorials
Author: David Hayden

05
Oct
Previewing Unpublished Blog Posts and Pages in Orchard 1.3

Previewing Unpublished Blog Posts and Pages in Orchard 1.3

As I mentioned earlier, Orchard 1.3 was released the other day and it has some incredibly useful features for a minor release! I have already mentioned the Markdown support in Orchard 1.3 in my Orchard Tutorials, which allows content authors to create content items, like Orchard Blog Posts and Orchard Pages, using the popular Markdown Syntax. Along those same content authoring lines, we now also have the ability to preview unpublished blog posts, pages, and other content items before publishing them! This is a huge benefit as all Orchard Website Contributors would prefer to preview their content before making the changes live. With the Preview option in Orchard 1.3, you can now take a sneak peek at the content to make sure it is perfect before publishing it for others to see!

read more


Tags: orchard orchard tutorials
Author: David Hayden

05
Oct
Orchard 1.3 Features - Markdown Support for Pages Blog Posts and Content Authoring

Orchard 1.3 Features - Markdown Support for Pages Blog Posts and Content Authoring

The Orchard Developer Team released Orchard 1.3 yesterday. You can download Orchard 1.3 from CodePlex and soon you will be able to download Orchard 1.3 via the WebMatrix Web Gallery. Orchard 1.3 has a number of really cool features for Orchard Developers and Orchard Website Owners. One feature I would like to discuss is the new Markdown support in Orchard 1.3 for Content Authoring, such as creating Orchard Website Pages and Orchard Blog Posts. Markdown support in Orchard 1.3 is supported out-of-the-box, but you will need to enable the Markdown Feature and modify a few settings to get it working when authoring Pages and Blog Posts. In this Orchard Tutorial, I will help you get started into the wonderful world of Markdown in Orchard!

read more


Tags: orchard orchard tutorials
Author: David Hayden