Add opacity option for the Text Color Field, Linting with GitHub Actions - This week in Orchard (18/07/2025)
This week's topics include adding an opacity option for the Text Color Field, adding KnownNetworks and KnownProxies to reverse proxy settings, and a demo about lining with GitHub Actions using our Node.js Extensions project! Check out our post for the details!
Orchard Core updates
Add an opacity option for the Text Color Field
Let's say we have a site set up with the Blog recipe. By using that recipe, we will get a predefined content type called Blog Post. Edit the content definition of this content type by navigating Design -> Content Definition -> Content Types and hitting Edit near the Blog Post content type. Click on the Add Field button under fields and select the Text Field as the Field Type. We use the Color as the Display Name; it doesn't matter right now. Once we have our Color Text Field, click its Edit button and select the Color option from the dropdown list when setting up the editor type for this field.
Now it's time to create a new Blog Post! Here you can enter the RGB, HEX, or HSL values to set the color. But there's also a built-in color picker for this field, which we used, as you can see in the GIF below. After we select the color, we can use the horizontal scroll bar to adjust the opacity.
Add KnowNetworks and KnownProxies to the reverse proxy settings
The OrchardCore_ReverseProxy settings of appsettings.json now can have these two extra properties to filter the proxies you want to accept:
- KnownNetworks: Address ranges of known proxies to accept forwarded headers from.
- KnownProxies: Addresses of known proxies to accept forwarded headers from.
And this Configure method copies the values to the options of the ASP.NET component (ForwardedHeadersOptions).
Demos
Linting with GitHub Actions
The Lombiq Node.js Extensions project provides several MSBuild-integrated frontend asset pipelines - for building and linting SCSS, JS, Markdown, and other arbitrary files. It uses static configuration from your package.json with sensible defaults to free you from managing NPM packages and scripts yourself. Here, you can gain a broader understanding of our project, where you can also find examples of how to utilize it.
Currently, we will focus on the latest addition to this project: linting with GitHub Actions. We will check it out in our Open-Source Orchard Core Extensions full Orchard Core solution. You will also find our other useful Orchard Core-related open-source projects there, such as the Lombiq Base Theme for Orchard Core, which we will utilize here to demonstrate how linting works.
If you only need linting and have no need for asset compilation, you can use the Lombiq Node.js Extensions project through a GitHub Action. It downloads Lombiq.NodeJs.Extensions and executes the desired linting scripts on a local copy of your repository inside the workflow runner virtual machine.
The Lombiq Base Theme for Orchard Core repository provides a common base theme for our Orchard Core themes, utilizing Bootstrap v5.3.6. It can contain any shared content that is not specific to a project's theme. This repository also has a Native CSS theme that includes a layout, zones, and Bootstrap CSS base for your stylesheets. Now let's lint its resources!
Here, you can see that the Base Theme repository contains a simple lint.yml file. It utilizes a reusable workflow, and we specify the directory where our scripts are located. We provided the directory called Lombiq.BaseTheme.Native here, which is the root directory of the Native CSS theme. And it's sufficient in this case because by default, it automatically looks for the wwwroot folder. Under the hood, it still utilizes our Node.js library, but it does so on the GitHub server, which means we are not performing linting on our machine.
Let's say we modify something in the Native theme and commit it. Here, you can see that the pull request contains the changes, and here is the GitHub Action that runs the Lint Assets workflow using Node.js, which is preinstalled on this runner. As you can see, it displays some errors. Based on the errors, you will know what to fix without having these things installed on your machine.
And as always, if you want to learn more about this new addition, head to YouTube for a demo!
News from the community
Be a speaker at Orchard Harvest 2025
After last year, the Orchard Harvest Conference will be held again in 2025. Last year, it was held in Las Vegas, and we had a really great time there. We would like to try to organize it again in Europe this year. The first step was to assess the potential interest and what would be needed. We created a survey, and we had the results!
The Orchard Harvest 2025 conference will be held in Prague, and we look forward to seeing you all this autumn in the Czech Republic, in the heart of Europe. Our confirmed dates for this year are the 11th and the 12th of November. To make our conference happen, we need our unreplicable speakers. Do you have an interesting Orchard Core-related topic you'd like to present to the community? Development techniques, memorable case studies, and valuable experiences that you'd like to share? Click on this link now and apply to be a speaker by the 25th of July, midnight anywhere on Earth! Selected speakers will receive complimentary tickets!
As we move forward, we will keep community members informed of the details, and you will also find every detail in this newsletter! We also updated the official website with the latest information about Harvest.
Orchard Core Admin UI experience renewal survey
At the beginning of this year, we started a discussion about renewing the admin area with the help of a UX professional. We aim to have a modern admin UX that’s functional, convenient, unobtrusive, and something that ordinary contributors can extend by following patterns. The point is to improve the usability of the admin, not just making it prettier (though making it prettier would be nice too). The first step of the admin area renewal is to explore how people use the admin UI of Orchard Core and what their needs look like. Combined with contributor input, this will help us improve usability, guide design decisions, and align with long-term platform goals.
For that, we have conducted a survey. Please take a few minutes to fill out our survey and help shape the future of Orchard Core. Feel free to share it with anyone you know who uses or has used Orchard Core, including colleagues, clients, or contributors you've worked with.
Orchard Dojo Newsletter
Lombiq's Orchard Dojo Newsletter has 451 subscribers! We have started this newsletter to inform the community around Orchard of the latest news about the platform. By subscribing to this newsletter, you will get an e-mail whenever a new post is published to Orchard Dojo, including This week in Orchard of course.
Do you know of other Orchard enthusiasts who would like to read our weekly articles? Tell them to subscribe here!