Gavin Pickin talks about "All things ContentBox (new API, ContentStore, Themes and more)" in this episode of the ColdFusion Alive Podcast,with  the host Michaela Light. Gavin is one of the speakers for the upcoming Into The Box ColdFusion Conference, where he will talk about Bringing Legacy Apps Back To Life with *Box Microservices, Ortus Keynote and Developing ContentBox Themes.

"ContentBox is Ortus's creation. It's basically a content management system for ColdFusion. So over the years we've obviously built plenty of website for ourselves at Ortus. But also for clients along the way as well. We were not really happy with the previous content management systems around and instead of building our little apps every time we- Luis Majano, of course, decided to build ContentBox. So it's been out in the market for several years now and we've made a lot of changes over the last couple of years." - Gavin Pickin

Show notes

What ContentBox is and why would you want to use it?

What does it cost? (hint it is Open Source. One line install with CLI)

Why an API?

The ContentBox API Unleashed

The hidden features of Mobile app front ends and built-in JSON packets

Why using the ContentStore for custom settings is better than a database

Contentbox 3.5 and 4.0 features

native image support with auto thumbnails

custom ContentStore fields

easier overrides

- A story about CFML, which we think you will want to hear, and learn what Ortus and the community is doing for CFML and the future of CFML.

Why you want to use ContentBox Themes and what is new about them?

Theme Modules and Widgets

Expose custom theme settings

Powerful Theme events

Why are you proud to use CF?

WWIT to make CF more alive this year?

What are you looking forward to at Into The Box?

Mentioned in the episode

ContentBox

ColdBox

ContentStore

ContentBox Themes

Ortus University

Listen to the Audio

Bio

Gavin Pickin

The ContentBox Evangelist, Gavin Pickin has been coding in ColdFusion for over 17 years.

Gavin started using ColdFusion in 1999 when working for the university of Auckland in New Zealand before moving to California. He has lead teams, trained new developers and worked the full stack from graphic design, HTML CSS JavaScript through to ColdFusion MySQL and server administration.

Gavin has a passion for learning and cannot understand why the 9-5ers aren't listening to podcasts while changing diapers, watching video tutorials while cleaning baby bottles and folding clothes, or putting the kids to sleep with soothing phone gap mobile application cookbook recipes.

You will find him blogging at gpickin.com and on twitter @gpickin and occasionally being mocked on cfhour's podcast.

Links

Gavin Pickin Blog

Twitter - @gpickin

(* WWIT = What Would It Take)

Interview transcript

Michaela Light:               Hi, welcome back to the show. I'm here with Gavin Pickin, the ContentBox evangelist at Ortus Solutions. And we're gonna be talking about all things ContentBox today. So, we're gonna look at why you wanna use it and what you'd use it for. And we'll look at the new API that's coming out in it and all the cool things you can do with that.

                                            And, there's some of the hidden features in there which let you have a mobile app be the front end or even output JSON packets with just a simple change. Also we'll look at the contents tool as a way of storing custom settings, which is better than using a database. Gavin will explain why that is.

                                            We'll also be looking at themes. Which are out in ContentBox, and what you can do with them. Lots of cool stuff there. And then, Gavin will be revealing some of the new stuff in ContentBox 4.0 that is gonna be unleashed during the conference. So, welcome Gavin.

Gavin Pickin:                    Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.