Version 1.2 of Orchard is now officially available.

You can find the download and release notes here:

http://orchard.codeplex.com/releases/view/65184

This release is mainly about bug fixes and performance improvements, but it is also introducing a couple of nice features.

Creation date is now the date that we use for everything in the front-end, which should bring more consistency. That date can now be made editable on your content types by modifying the settings of the Common part.

Shapes are now much easier to use from the debugger thanks to our new debugger visualizers (available in full trust only).

For a list of bugs fixes that this release brings, please go to http://orchard.codeplex.com/workitem/list/advanced and leave everything to “All” except for the Release that should be set to “Orchard 1.2”.

Migration instructions can be found on this page: http://orchardproject.net/docs/Upgrading-a-site-to-a-new-version-of-Orchard.ashx. This page will soon be updated with a new set of instructions for Azure and in-place upgrades but the instructions found there should work for most of you.

Localization (available from http://orchardproject.net/localize) is not yet updated for 1.2 but will be soon.

Many thanks for supporting Orchard and for building a great community!

The Orchard Team just  shipped 1.1, and received great coverage in Scott Guthrie’s Mix keynote, Brad M’s talk HERE .

New Orchard release is here:

http://orchard.codeplex.com/releases/view/59918

Upgrade instructions can be found here:

http://orchardproject.net/docs/Upgrading-a-site-to-a-new-version-of-Orchard.ashx

What’s new?

Orchard 1.1 fixes bugs and addresses common feedback from the prior 1.0 release, and also adds the following new features:

• New design for the administration interface, and several usability workflow improvements.
• Setup recipes: at setup, you have a choice between three installation profiles. It is possible to create your own.
• Module recipes: modules can specify a set of recipe actions to optionally perform when installing, such as downloading and installing dependencies.
• Improved module and theme installation workflow.
• Improved widget and layer management.
• Improved list management.
• A new media picker dialog on the rich editor for uploading, inserting, and browsing media items.
• Improved MSDeploy packaging and deployment from Visual Studio.

Available in the Orchard Gallery for 1.1:

· Import/Export: transfer metadata, data, and settings between sites.

· Designer Tools: New “shape tracing” feature allows you to inspect the rendering of your site to customize and override templates and placement. URL-based alternates are now supported for targeting template overrides at specific URLs.

· Warmup: Improves site response times in shared hosting environments.

Are you using Orchard on a public site  ? Post the URL in the comments.

Orchard V1 launched six weeks ago and we are already seeing heightened interest in the project:  the downloads of Orchard.Web.zip from orchard.codeplex.com are over 24k, we’ve got about 100 module and theme extensions submitted to the new orchard gallery, and the discussion forums are buzzing with activity.

However Orchard being the newest CMS out there needs lots more modules to help make it grow and become a viable choice for many. There are tons of cool things that still need to be built and everyone likes to win cool stuff so to that end I’d like to invite you to enter the Orchard Module Challenge –put your MVC 3 skills to work to build modules that tens or even hundreds of thousands of others will come to rely upon to build their websites.

Round 1 ends on March 15, 2011 so now is the time to get in.

About the Orchard Module Challenge

You can find the official rules and entry requirements on the Orchard Module Challenge website.  The contest will be run in two rounds, and is pretty straightforward:

1) In Round 1, you’ll submit an idea for a module (name, description) on the contest site, build your module and submit it to the gallery, and then update your contest entry to point to the ID of the module you’d like to submit for judging (we’ll take the most recent submission at the close of Round 1, on March 15, 2011).  Your module will be evaluated based on usefulness to Orchard community and how well it takes advantage of (or extends) the Orchard platform. 

2) The top modules submitted in Round 1 will advance to Round 2, which extends through April 1, 2011.  In Round 2, you’ll be given a hosting account you can use to build a website that demonstrates your module to its fullest.  When Round 2 closes for judging, the top 3 modules and websites will be selected as winning entries. 

We’ve got some great prizes to give away for this competition, and the winning entries will be announced at the Mix ’11 conference (April 12-14, 2011). 

Let the games begin!

The official “release” of Orchard was a few weeks ago and there have already been about 20,000 downloads from orchard.codeplex.com

About 100 module and theme extensions have been submitted to the orchard gallery, and the discussion forums are very buzy.

Back in October Microsoft announced the “Orchard Challenge” Imagine Cup competition for building Orchard modules, which runs through April 27, 2011.  This contest is aimed at students only, so how about something for the rest of us ?

Enter the Orchard Module Challenge

You can find the official rules and entry requirements on the Orchard Module Challenge website. 

The contest will be run in two rounds, and is pretty straightforward:

1) In Round 1, you’ll submit an idea for a module (name, description) on the contest site, build your module and submit it to the gallery, and then update your contest entry to point to the ID of the module you’d like to submit for judging (we’ll take the most recent submission at the close of Round 1, on March 15, 2011).  Your module will be evaluated based on usefulness to Orchard community and how well it takes advantage of (or extends) the Orchard platform. 

2) The top modules submitted in Round 1 will advance to Round 2, which extends through April 1, 2011.  In Round 2, you’ll be given a hosting account you can use to build a website that demonstrates your module to its fullest.  When Round 2 closes for judging, the top 3 modules and websites will be selected as winning entries. 

There are some great prizes for winners of this competition, and the winning entries will be announced at the Mix ’11 conference (April 12-14, 2011).

Ok – GO FOR IT !