Upgraded Website to Orchard 1.3

As I mentioned earlier, Orchard 1.3 was released this past week with a number of really cool features! I've been ugrading client websites and found a little time this past week to upgrade my own Orchard Website. Upgrading from Orchard 1.2 to 1.3 was uneventful, which is the way I like it. While upgrading to Orchard 1.3 I also changed the Orchard Theme. The original Orchard Theme was the first one I created and debated keeping it for sentimental purposes, but in the end I thought this gave me a chance to create an Orchard Theme that was a bit less serious. Hope you like it.

Why Upgrade to Orchard 1.3

Since Orchard 1.3 came out I have also had a chance to dive into some of the new Orchard 1.3 Features. Features like Markdown Support and the ability to Preview Unpublished and Draft Orchard Blog Posts and Pages are really nice. The new Tokens, Forms API, and Rules Engine in Orchard is really amazing for extending Orchard CMS without the need for creating Content Parts, Content Types, and custom Orchard Modules. I have a few blog posts on those new features as well! Having the ability to delete Content Types within Orchard 1.3 is also important and I am happy to see it as part of the Core Orchard Features as opposed to an Orchard Module. And the last feature I have come to appreciate as an Orchard Module Developer is the new ITitleAspect and TitlePart for creating titles for non-routable Content Types. I have a blog post on all these features in my Orchard Blog Queue :)

Conclusion

I am not sure how quickly the Orchard Developer Team will push out Orchard 1.4, but I can definitely say that Orchard 1.3 is worth downloading and using for your Orchard Website. The new Preview Feature is indispensible for previewing blog posts before publishing them, and the Rules Engine ( Rules, Tokens, and Forms API ) makes for some nice developer playtime!

Enjoy!