Downplay Blog

Clay Tutorial

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:21:54 GMT

Presenting the first of a planned series of tutorials on the Clay library found in Orchard:

2. Clay part 2: Through the Looking Glass

The First Program

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:07:40 GMT

I'm a bit fuzzy on exactly how old I was; my best guess is around 7, which would make this year the quarter-centenary of my marriage to code.

The household computer my siblings and I shared was a 48k ZX Spectrum. In those days even to load a game you had to learn your first keyword from the ZX's programming language: the LOAD command.

Even though I can't accurately remember my age, I still distinctly remember the first computer program proper I wrote. It was simple:

10 PRINT "Hello"
20 GOTO 10

Ah, those were the days, when you could casually write an infinite loop without blowing the whole world up!

Science Project: Latest Release

Thu, 26 May 2011 16:58:21 GMT

I've just released a whole batch of modules on the Orchard Gallery under the name "Science Project". This is an open source project (the website for which is currently at http://scienceproject.codeplex.com) which adds a whole load of new developer-oriented functionality to Orchard CMS.
The modules released so far are:

Mechanics - flexible any-multiplicity relationships between content items, and some other nice features
Origami - a system of shape building and UI composition
Quanta - an advanced security module allowing per-item and group-based permissions
Theory: Cartography - a hierarchical menu using relationships, built as a sample project to demonstrate the flexibility of Mechanics

It's been a lot of work getting things this far, but this set of tools adds some much-asked-for functionality to an already fantastic CMS. Lots more features are planned and in progress, and I'll be posting some screencasts soon to showcase the projects (and show how this can all be used in conjunction with Media Garden to do even more!)

CKEditor 3.5.3 for Orchard

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 12:13:50 GMT

I just updated usagi's CKEditor module for Orchard to the latest version of CKEditor, 3.5.3. There's now a new and module-friendly configuration mechanic which I describe on the new Codeplex project site. Planned for the future are proper integration with Orchard's Media Picker and also a link browser so it's easy to link to other pages on your website.

Media framework for Orchard

Sun, 24 Apr 2011 17:47:12 GMT

Orchard Media Garden is a new open source project I'm getting started over at Codeplex. It extends Orchard with an advanced media pipeline, allowing any kind of media to be embedded and displayed in your Orchard website.

Right now we're in the very early stages, but it already handles WebM, Ogg Theora, and Windows Media, as well as standard web image formats.

Using it is really simple - you just enter a URL to some media (or upload a file), then click "Import All" and the media pipeline takes care of the rest, turning your media into content items and selecting the best available viewer.

We've got a lot of plans for great ways to extend this and add amazing functionality. More updates to come, and in the next few days I'll be posting some Screencast videos to show off its features.

Find out more and get the project at: http://orchardmediagarden.codeplex.com

Website Upgrade

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 05:13:40 GMT

I've now upgraded the website to the latest Orchard 1.1 release (which came out last week). To celebrate this, I also gave the website a whole new look!

Content Notifications Module Released

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 04:26:25 GMT

Today we released the Content Notifications module for Orchard CMS. There are some limitations and side effects but it allows your website administrators to receive an email any time particular types of content are published.

Get it from the Orchard Gallery (or just install from the Dashboard).

Website launched!

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 04:10:13 GMT

Well, I'm very happy to finally get this website online today. I haven't had much time to work on the template, so it's not looking great yet. Plus, it's running on the current dev branch of Orchard with very little HTML modified from the default template; there are a few strange artifacts (like for some reason the body summary gets repeated at the end of an article!) and things could be unstable.

The main reason I rushed to get it live was simply to host documentation for my Layout Selector Orchard Module. I also wrote a tutorial on the process of building the module (it kind of helped me to work through all the stages as well) - it just needs some tidying up before I post it.

Now back to work...