The ColdFusion community is full of bright people who have built really neat libraries and widgets to make better features and functions for applications. One of my favorites, CFUniform (a rich forms library) lets you build consistent, feature rich forms with very minimal code. I use this library all the time to make my applications snazzier and more maintainable. There are plenty of cool projects I’ve not yet used and while working on some Model-Glue features this weekend, I had an idea.
See, I’ve been working on the scaffolding feature in Model-Glue. This feature is a great way to get a jump start on a data-centric application. Simply configure Model-Glue and your ORM of choice and Model-Glue will generate everything needed to Administrate your data. Forms, Lists, delete screens, Bam, it’ll generate the whole thing for you in seconds. Of course, the generated code is easily customized to fit the need of the application, but because it is generated from the database, the functionality is generic and the look and feel is somewhat limited.
What if we had a real easy way to plug in some of these rich libraries into Model-Glue? Forms libraries, Ajax widgets, Grids, Rich tables, all these could be as simple as adding a few characters into an XML file. Sounds fun, right?
What I want is to talk to a few of the folks behind some of the coolest libraries to explore how I can provide the best integrations. If you are the author or maintainer of some library or widget, or you use something that you are really fond of, let me know by leaving a comment. We might be able to work together to provide some really neat, useful functionality for the community.