There's interest in my organization in the ability to build forms, reports, menus, and pages (web sites/applications basically) as configuration that knowledgeable users can create and edit, rather than as actual code requiring a developer. Form capabilities would need to be fairly sophisticated, not just field name and SQL datatype, but for example... • Conditional visibility -- If you choose this value for field 1, field 2 is shown • Conditional validation -- If you choose this value for field 1, field 2 is required • Conditional options -- If you choose this value for field 1, these checkbox or select options are shown for field 2 • Multiple nested levels of all those constructs • Reusable multi-field widgets with those capabilities ContentBox I think is pretty much designed to let users create pages, but I'm less sure about it for forms, menus, and reports. • Has anyone used ContentBox for anything like what I'm describing? • Any other frameworks or approaches, short of building our own library of widgets, configuration data, and UI to manage that data?

my old employer has a product that might suit your needs and it would save you writing it, there is a forms designer that also plugs into a workflow engine as well as a CMS etc

Salesforce and other massive platforms that cost them prob more than a developer per year. 😎

Yeah, sounds like you want a low code platform and those aren't cheap.

Also sounds like they want to eliminate your job or the dev team in general where you work.

PresidePlatform? https://www.preside.org/platform/key-features.html

@thisOldDave (another old Dave here 🙂 ), I'll check that out. Yes, they're talking low code, and yes they'd like to stop doing custom coding. We're a Human Services agency, not a software development house, but we have complex needs, and over many years we've built two major systems that more or less meet them, but of course needs change and grow over time. They'd like to empower users more, and make additions and changes quicker to implement. (I'm not really worried about obsoleting my job, first things first. I know I'm of value.) @Adam Cameron I've heard of Preside, will investigate further on your recommendation.

My old work was using a product like this. Basically you build the structure of the page in JSON and that feeds into the form. So they built out a db with page structures that CF would get and then dynamically build the forms on the front end (it uses JS). I need to find the library. It was cool and worked well but the up-front setup took them 1/2 a year to get running smoothly.

In every similar effort I've been involved with, you end up having to write code to deal with some unanticipated circumstance, and/or hamstrung by the inability to Just Write Some Code (tm). I recently built a semi big semi complex form, nearly all single or multiple choice questions, with all that conditional and validation stuff. Then they wanted another one just like it, only different. I used the same form, and split the "model" component into a base class and two child classes, which worked really well. I'm way skeptical of a configuration-based system that could do that without cloning a bunch of config data, just as bogus as cloning and modifying code. In any case, the Powers That Be still want dev to investigate such things. Yadda.

Understood. 🙂

"NIH" is a syndrome to be mindful of. Form building and the obviously ensuing workflow are not things one wants to build. They're complicated, and solved problems. Buy.

Masa or Mura CMS, both have forms and Workflows, both are coldfusion based and both are secure "enough" for various 3-letter US governmental agencies. Coldfusion in General os so "fast" you could just strap a JAVAscript editor on a page, such as Grapevine.js, and then strip down the functionality to exactly what you like. Or you could use TinyMCE or FKreditor and build some base logic around either one of those.

@Adam Cameron re "Buy", buy what for instance? Do you mean Preside, like you mentioned before? Something outside of CF? I like a lot of what I see in Preside, to the minimal extent I've dug into it, except... • Lucee but not ACF • GitHub repo has no releases tagged, makes me concerned about governance

Oh I meant as in "buy vs build". As for Preside's github repo... dunno. I didn't even know it was open source. It's a commercial product. Best you speak to Pixl8 about it.

@Adam Cameron I get buy vs build, but buy what product/solution exactly?

Jesus Dave. What is the only product I have mentioned in this entire thread? Preside. Also you're being a bit literal about "buy vs build": it means don't write complex software, use something someone has already done ("the "buy" bit predates OSS and software being free).

https://www.preside.org/ heh

Oh go old school Mango CMS... it still installs and works, save for you need flash for the admin interface, There also is GalaxieBlog, FarCry, LuceeCMS, EvilwareTNS, CfNuke, CfWiki. You could even hijack the Coldfusion documentation for Lucee or Cfdocs and extend it to just roll your own CMS.

Jesus Adam, Preside is open source, at least the basic version, so I wasn't sure if you meant something else.

I think we should henceforth be known as The Jesus Bros