Orchard Harvest's new website; Ready to simplify your Orchard Core hosting? - This week in Orchard (24/07/2026)
Ever lost a minute scrolling past features you'll never toggle, just to find the one you need?
Wondered which shape template actually rendered a fragment on one of your pages?
Curious what the redesigned Orchard Harvest website will look like?
And ready to simplify your Orchard Core hosting?
This week we've got all four, courtesy of Mike Alhayek and Nick Jackson, plus a look at DotNest.
Read on for the details, or jump to the section that matters to you!
Orchard Core updates
Improve Features Management UI
Mike Alhayek reworked the Features page in the admin UI:
- Removed the jQuery dependency in favor of vanilla JavaScript.
- Search now matches on both feature description and feature ID.
- New filters hide On Demand and Always Enabled features by default, with an option to show them.
- You can now select all features within a category at once.
- Dependency badges switched to the lighter badge style, matching the pattern used elsewhere in the UI, including the Content Management screens.
The GIF below shows the Visibility filter hiding features by default, then selecting every feature under one category in a single click.
Shape Debugging Site Settings
Mike Alhayek introduced a new site-level "Debugging" settings group that lets site owners turn shape debugging (HTML comments around rendered shapes) on or off directly from the admin UI, instead of requiring code changes.
To enable it, go to Settings -> Debugging and tick Write shape debug information. When enabled, Orchard Core writes HTML comments around rendered shapes so you can inspect which shape binding or template produced a fragment on a running site.
In our example, we have a site set up with the Blog recipe and checked the source code of the homepage. As you can see, the rendered shapes are wrapped with comments on any page you inspect. The opening comment contains the shape type and the binding used. Razor bindings report the .cshtml path, while Liquid bindings report a virtual .liquid source.
Demos
Inside Orchard Harvest's New Website
Nick Jackson presented the redesign concepts for the Orchard Harvest website: layout changes, improved navigation, dynamic content blocks, and enhancements to the Try Orchard Core site.
The preview shows the new hero section, call-to-action buttons, sponsorship logos, and streamlined navigation. The redesign supports dynamic layouts for pre- and post-conference states, including sections for submitting talks, past event photos, and sponsor information. Speaker profiles are simplified with links to GitHub or LinkedIn, and the schedule is presented in an accordion style to save vertical space and highlight breaks.
Nick also showcased improvements to the Try Orchard Core demo site, clarifying the signup process, emphasizing privacy and free access, and adding frequently asked questions for user reassurance.
See the preview and share your feedback on direction, accuracy, and tone.
Watch it on YouTube and check out the pull request!
News from the community
Ready to simplify your Orchard Core hosting?
We launched DotNest, our fully managed Orchard Core hosting platform, on Microsoft Marketplace, already powering more than 6,000 websites worldwide. IT teams, marketing teams, and digital agencies can now provision a fully managed Orchard Core site in minutes, directly through their existing Azure subscription: no separate procurement, no infrastructure to manage.
What you get: automatic updates, native Azure integration, extensive theming and content-modeling freedom, built-in ecommerce, enterprise-grade performance, and GDPR compliance out of the box.
Skip the infrastructure work. Explore DotNest on Microsoft Marketplace, or visit DotNest.com to learn more.
Read the announcement on our site!
Orchard Harvest 2026 Program
The Orchard Harvest 2026 conference will be held in Vancouver, and we look forward to seeing you all this autumn in Canada. Our confirmed dates for this year are September 10th and 11th.
Don't miss this limited-time offer: just $280 for two days of all-access learning and networking. Secure your early-bird tickets to the conference now!
The full Orchard Harvest 2026 program is live! Be sure to check out the conference's updated official website for the program!
As we move forward, we will keep community members informed of the details, and you will find every detail in this newsletter, too!
Don't miss the biggest Orchard Core event of the year!
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