Adding Google +1 and Twitter Social Networking Links to Orchard CMS

While we were performing the upgrade to Orchard 1.2 we made a few simple changes to the website. One of the more notable changes is the addition of the Google +1 and Twitter Badges. While one can certainly build Orchard Modules, Widgets, and Parts to display social networking links in Orchard, often it can be so much easier to just override a shape!

You can add various social networking badges and links in any number of ways to your Orchard Website. While perhaps the most common method is to install an Orchard Module that includes a Part or Widget for Google +1, Twitter, or Facebook, we went ahead and just customized the metadata for a blog post to include Google +1 and Twitter Badges. Quite frankly, it is often so much easier to customize and override the shapes in Orchard CMS than go through the effort of creating parts, drivers, views, and other items that make up an Orchard Widget and/or Part. This isn't to say creating Orchard Parts and Widgets is complicated. It's just that there are numerous ways to solve a challenge in Orchard CMS and we found it so much simpler to just override a shape and have Google +1 and Twitter Badges in less than 5 minutes!

If you are an Orchard Website Developer or Web Designer, we encourage you to look at the Shape Tracing and URL Alternates that are part of the Orchard Designer Tools. Using those tools, one can identify the various shapes that compose a blog post or web page and then override those shapes to include custom HTML, etc. That is exactly what we did to create the Google + 1 and Twitter Links on our blog posts.

Of course, we have also created Orchard Widgets and Parts to display social networking links in Orchard CMS, but that is another story!

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