These are session notes, so they might not adhere to the standards of a complete blog post, but there's a bunch of inspiring info that I had to get out of my head… Shapes – Overview What are they dynamic data model can be updated at runtime replaces static(ally typed) view models Creating Shapes Never instantiate Shape directly it won't trigger the related events in code, use an IShapeFactory dependency IShape Create(string shapeType) in Orchard views, use New   - New is just an IShapeFactory cast to dynamic   - New.Product -> IShapeFactory.Create("Product") Rendering Shapes use well-named file templates use shape methods any method in class inheriting from IDependency with the [Shape] attribute future: dynamic shapes to come, e.g. from DB (by Piotr Szmyd) refer to IDisplayHelperFactory and IDisplayHelper for more detailed info Advanced Uses of Shapes If you're just starting with Orchard Shapes, I recommend you to skip this section for now ;-) Creating Strongly Typed Shapes in your ContentDriver, when creating a Shape, you can do: 1: protected override DriverResult Display(EntryPart part, string displayType, dynamic shapeHelper) { 2: return ContentShape("Parts_Common_Body" /* Placement Key */, 3: () => shapeHelper.Parts_Common_Body(Html: someHtml)); 4: } becomes: 1: public class ConcreteType : Shape { 2: public string Html { get; set; } 3: } 4:  5: protected override DriverResult Display(EntryPart part, string displayType, dynamic shapeHelper) { 6: var shape = (ConcreteType) shapeHelper.Parts_Common_Body(typeof(ConcreteType)) 7: shape.Html = someHtml; 8: return ContentShape("Parts_Common_Body" /* Placement Key */, 9: () => shape); 10: } And then in your template, you can actually define your @model to be of type ConcreteType: 1: @model My.Namespace.ConcreteType 2:  3: @Display(Model.Html) Shape Events We have different extension points to hook into the shape rendering process: IShapeDisplayEvent intercept all shape Display events ShapeMetadata intercept a specific shape's Display events IShapeTableProvider configured at discovery time, for a specific type hook into events other than Display Order of invocation of the different event handlers: Displaying ShapeDisplayEvents ShapteTableProvider ShapeMetadata Display Set Metadata.ChildContent Shape is rendered if ChildContent not set (open e.g. for Caching) Wrappers are rendered in order, from Metadata.ChildContent, e.g. Document.cshtml Displayed ShapeDisplayEvents ShapteTableProvider ShapeMetadata Shape Morphing change the Metadata.Type of a Shape before rendering render the same Shape again using a different template see the MenuItem template for an example Shape Relocation The idea here is to add a Shape to a different part of the page than where your current ContentItem is rendering. In your view, just use: 1: @Display(Model.MyTitle) Now, in your placement.info file, write: 1: <Match ContentType="Page" DisplayType="Detail"> 2: <Place Parts_Title="MyTitle:5" /> 3: </Match> This will display your Title shape (possibly) a second time.

These are just quick notes from one of the sessions at the Orchard Harvest conference currently taking place in Amsterdam. Fluid Grids bootstrap-responsive SimpleGrid 1140Grid FooTable hides columns, shows content in expandible elements Fluid Fonts FitText: fittextjs.com makes text fit into header elements SlabText adjusts text sizes to make page look beautiful Toggle navigation using Twitter bootstrap: put .nav-collapse and .collapse on the nav element Frameworks Foundation (uses SASS) INK Pure by Yahoo: new, small - 5KB