This document provides an overview of the Bolt CMS, including information about its configuration, content types, templates, and extensions. Key points discussed include Bolt's use of Twig templating, YAML configuration files, and out-of-the-box functionality for menus, taxonomies, and permissions. The author also acknowledges some limitations but notes that Bolt has an active community and development is ongoing to address issues.

2. About Me
● Freelance Web Developer
● PHPBench
● CMS Developer
– yProximité
– Symfony CMF
– Sulu CMS

3. Never made a website!

4. Other Symfony-like CMS systems
● Drupal 8
● Symfony CMF
● Sulu CMS
● Grav (flat file)
● October CMS (laravel)
● PageKit

5. Drupal 8
● Twig
● Uses Symfony components
● Uses Symfony CMF Routing component
● Would seem to do everything that I require and
more.

6. Drupal 8
● All files in web root by default
● No PSR-0/2!
● No Github!
● Configuration in the database by default
● Mouse-click configuration by default
● Composer support nascent
● DI container is global
● .. basically its unfamiliar
● Do I want to commit myself to this?

7. Bolt CMS
● Silex
● Twig
● Doctrine DBAL
● Great default configuration

8. Bolt Manifesto (abbreviated)
● Simple, sophisticated and straightforward.
● Targeted at editors and {front, backend}
developers.
● Always open source.
● Our code should be clean, well-organised and
legible.
● Always promote and maintain a welcoming and
inclusive community.
https://docs.bolt.cm/3.0/other/manifesto

9. Configuration
Subject Filename
Content Types contenttypes.yml
Menus menu.yml
Taxonomies taxonomy.yml
Permissions permissions.yml
Routing routing.yml

10. Content Types
app/config/contenttypes.yml

11. Backoffice form

12. Frontoffice Twig dump() of content on http://localhost:8000/pages/home-page
records implement array access

13. Field Types
● Text
● Image / Image list
● Repeater fields
● Markdown
● HTML
● Geolocation
● Video (Youtube)
● etc..

14. HTML

15. Markdown

16. Image, Video

17. Configuration
Subject Filename
Content Types contenttypes.yml
Menus menu.yml
Taxonomies taxonomy.yml
Permissions permissions.yml
Routing routing.yml

18. Menu
app/config/menu.yml

19. Menu

20. Menu
● Not dynamic
● Very fast

21. Configuration
Subject Filename
Content Types contenttypes.yml
Menus menu.yml
Taxonomies taxonomy.yml
Permissions permissions.yml
Routing routing.yml

22. Taxonomy
app/config/taxonomy.yml

23. Taxonomy
taxonomies can be applied via. the content type

24. Taxonomy
grouping taxonomy

25. Taxonomy
tags and categories

26. Configuration
Subject Filename
Content Types contenttypes.yml
Menus menu.yml
Taxonomies taxonomy.yml
Permissions permissions.yml
Routing routing.yml

27. Permissions
app/config/permissions.yml

28. Permissions
● No per-object permissions

29. Configuration
Subject Filename
Content Types contenttypes.yml
Menus menu.yml
Taxonomies taxonomy.yml
Permissions permissions.yml
Routing routing.yml

30. Routing
app/config/routing.yml

31. Templates / Themes

32. Templates / Themes
● Twig templating engine
● `theme.yml` config file.
● Templates fields.

33. Default Theme
● Foundation 6
● SCSS
● Gulp

34. Retrieving Content
In Twig templates
See https://docs.bolt.cm/3.0/templates/content-fetching

35. Retrieving Content
With PHP

36. Retrieving Content
With PHP
● EntityManager != Doctrine ORM
● EntityManager is “new”
● Content retrieved with EntityManager does not
behave like “Legacy” content (e.g. record.link
will not work).

37. Developer Tools
Debug Toolbar

38. Error Handling
Whoops Error Handler

39. Extending
● Install from the Web interface.
● Install from CLI.
● Local extensions.
● Bot extension repository.
● https://extensions.bolt.cm.
● Configurations added automatically.

40. Extending

41. Example Extensions
● Bolt Forms: SF Forms, submission handling.
● Bolt Members: User registration, profiles.
● DTL Fixtures: Load, generate fixtures via. Alice.

42. Its not perfect.. yet!!
● No Multilang support.
● Content types exposed by default.
●
Hacky route generation workarounds.
● Container injection is favoured
●
Hacky date handling.
● Experimental import / export functionality included but basically useless
● No system / user namespacing in database tables, value fields etc.
●
Ignores errors by default, sometimes including Fatals (WSOD)
● Composer extension handling can be confusing
● Cannot use packagist deps in extension
●
Raw DBAL query builder.
● Cannot currently override repositories for content.
● No hierarchical content handling.
● Cannot use custom repositories effectively.
● Cannot query relations using the new EntityManager without raw DBAL

43. Its not perfect.. yet!!
● Lots of refactoring happened for v3.0.
● System has both legacy and “new” systems.
● Legacy system still used by core in some
places.
● v4.0 should remove lots of legacy.

44. Issues I created
● github.com/bolt/bolt/issues/5469: Bug with repeating HTML field
● github.com/bolt/bolt/issues/5465: Datetime
● github.com/bolt/bolt/issues/5466: Bug with custom URL
● github.com/bolt/bolt/issues/5470: Video + Markdown +
Repeater??
● github.com/bolt/bolt/issues/5490: Category form population
● github.com/bolt/bolt/issues/5494: Query builder
● github.com/bolt/bolt/issues/5504: Strict variables
● github.com/bolt/bolt/issues/5506: Custom repositories

45. Pull Requests I made

46. Pull Requests I made
* I did make some and will make more!

47. Its not perfect
But very few things are.
If you found a perfect CMS, I want to know about it!

48. Summary
● Alot of things work out-of-the-box
● Small sites may not even need and PHP.
● DX is generally very good, except when its bad.
● Great support and very active community.

49. Live Demo!

50. The End
● Talk to me on Twitter: @dantleech
● Talk to Bolt on Twitter: @BoltCM
● Talk to Bolt on Freenode: #boltcms
● Visit the Bolt website: https://bolt.cm
● Enjoy a drink!