David Boland

Blogging about web, mobile, and content management systems. I am an Optimizely MVP, a Contentful certified developer, and a ContentStack certified developer.

Development Blog

Content Modeling Best Practices in Contentful

March 15th, 2023

To optimize your use of Contentful, it's important to follow best practices when creating your content models. In this blog post, we will explore five best practices that will help you create a well-structured and easy-to-manage content model in Contentful.

contentful

An introduction to Optimizely CMS: What it is, how it works, and why you should consider using it for your website

March 7th, 2023

In this blog post, we'll introduce you to Optimizely CMS, explain how it works, and explore the benefits of using it for your website.

optimizely

episerver

Font Awesome Icon Picker for Episerver

February 27th, 2023

A custom episerver widget might seem daunting, but it doesn't have to be. Build an icon picker property together with me and see how easy it is!

episerver

optimizely

The DXP Difference: Examples of Websites Built with Optimizely

December 6th, 2022

Following the merger of Optimizely and Episerver, we’ve written about how Optimizely stacks up against its competitors, what it unveiled at its latest big customer event, and more. But the best argument for the impact that Optimizely can have on brands looking to deliver great customer experiences is looking at Optimizely-powered websites themselves.

optimizely

episerver

dxp

Upgrading to Optimizely Content Cloud (CMS) 12 Offers Key First-Mover Advantages

November 17th, 2022

Continuing to streamline and evolve its many digital innovation products, Optimizely has made a major change to its cornerstone content management system (CMS), inviting customers to take a leap into the future.

episerver

optimizely

Contentful Most Frequently Asked Questions

February 7th, 2022

There are many general questions that get asked over and over regarding Contentful. Since they keep getting asked, I figure the answers aren't the easiest to find online. This post is an effort to get those answers out there.

contentful

How To Implement a Queue in C#

January 27th, 2022

An overview of how to implement a queue in C#. I go over some general info about queues and get into a code implementation.

queue

data structure

How to Implement a Stack in C#

November 7th, 2021

I wanted to give a quick overview of how to implement stacks in C#. I will give some general info about them, then get into the actual code.

stack

data structure

Rendering Gatsby Images from Contentful Rich Text

August 19th, 2021

Gatsby is great at rendering images. To do this, you need to leverage the Gatsby Image Plugin. For most of the images on the site, that is no problem. For images in Rich Text, it's not so simple.

contentful

gatsby

Content Modeling Custom CTAs for Contentful Web Pages

June 3rd, 2021

Lots of Contentful website examples contain models for everything you would expect from a website. Standard pages, articles, authors, SEO, images, content blocks, etc. However, there is one subtle aspect that can get tricky, CTAs.

contentful

content modeling

What is Headless CMS? Benefits of Accessing Content Anywhere

February 25th, 2021

Headless content management systems (CMS) allow digital content to be accessed and edited from anywhere without being tied to a website.

headless

How We Built Multiple SPAs with On-page Editing using Episerver Headless

February 11th, 2021

A client came to us needing a recommendation for a headless CMS to run multiple portal applications. With the requirement that we provide a headless option, and the knowledge that the editors love Episerver's features, it took us all of two seconds to come up with Episerver's Content Delivery API as a solution.

spa

headless

episerver

optimizely

Organize Your GraphQL Calls with Fragments

September 30th, 2020

In this post, I wanted to show how to clean up your GraphQL calls with fragments. This will make for a cleaner, more reusable code base.

graphql

gatsby

Dynamic Content Types with Gatsby & Contentful

September 9th, 2020

In this post, we will go over how we leverage Gatsby and Contentful to allow us to use dynamic content types across our site pages.

contentful

gatsby

Image Gallery Powered By Contentful

August 20th, 2020

In this post, we will cover one of our favorite features in Contentful, the Images API. We will go over some of it's coolest features, and how we leveraged it to build a custom image gallery.

contentful

Content Modeling in Contentful

July 21st, 2020

Content modeling can be a tricky thing. If done incorrectly, it can cause all kinds of headaches for editors. And trust me when I say going back to update the structure of your content after your project is live is worse. It's something you want to get right the first time.

contentful

Signing Your Work as a Developer

December 5th, 2019

The concept of signing applies to more than messaging and encryption. I wanted to give some examples of how you could start signing your work as a developer. I will be walking through how you can sign your git commits. As well as any files/packages you build.

encryption

Encrypted Contact Form in Vue

November 27th, 2019

I have always been a big believer in digital privacy. I try to take extra steps to secure my personal data whenever necessary. I implemented a contact us form to allow users to encrypt their message they submit it on a site.

encryption

Machine learning with Episerver: Ascend 2019

November 10th, 2019

For this year's Episerver Ascend conference, I gave a talk on machine learning. I wanted to share some info about the talk, as well as the slides I used.

machine learning

episerver

optimizely

Build a simple PWA with Episerver: Ascend 2019

November 3rd, 2019

My coworker and I ran a lab at this year's Episerver Ascend conference. In this lab, we went into detail about all the benefits of PWAs (Progressive Web Apps). We also walked through some tools and techniques for integrating them into your site. I wanted to share a bit about the lab, including some common questions we received.

pwa

episerver

optimizely

TinyMCE Templates Package In Episerver

June 18th, 2019

Since my last post about Episerver TinyMCE default templates, I have worked on several projects that could benefit from them. I decided to create a NuGet package of some generic templates that I think most projects could benefit from.

tinymcs

episerver

optimizely

Adding Episerver Content Type Icons in 2 minutes!

June 16th, 2019

Have tons of Episerver content? Can't easily distinguish content types from eachother in the page tree? Here's how to add some episerver-supported icons that look great!

episerver

optimizely

Using Cache Effectively on Episerver

June 14th, 2019

Cache can greatly improve the responsiveness of your website, especially when running in the cloud. On Episerver? On Episerver DXC? Running a .NET site in Azure? This might be helpful for you!

episerver

optimizely

Fast & Reliable Deployments on Episerver with Azure DevOps

June 13th, 2019

Are you having issues with your Episerver website? Experiencing bugs, slow development cycles, long deployment interruptions? Here's how to improve the reliability and confidence in your Episerver website with automated deployments via Azure DevOps.

episerver

devops

optimizely

Creating CMS Editor Guides

June 10th, 2019

At Nansen, creating editor documentation is part of our development process. I wanted to share how we implement our editor guides, and hoping to hear from others how they implement theirs.

cms

documentation

contentful

episerver

optimizely

Using Azure AD to Secure an Episerver Website

June 6th, 2019

It's no secret that security is vital all websites. If you use Azure Active Directory to login to organization infrastructure already, why not use it to secure your website? Here's how to implement it.

episerver

optimizely

Utilizing Episerver Commerce In a Mobile App

May 12th, 2019

Episerver provides an amazing framework for transactional e-commerce websites, but that's not the only way you can use it. We created a mobile application for our client which allowed them to make in-person sales. Here is a bit about what we did and why.

mobile

episerver

optimizely

Create Episerver TinyMCE Default Templates

May 11th, 2019

In this post, I will be describing how to add custom templates to your Episerver TinyMCE. Using templates can improve the content entry experience for your editors by minimizing the amount of editing that needs to be done.

tinymce

episerver

optimizely

Track User's In-store Experience with Episerver Profile Store

May 11th, 2019

Track user's behavior using Bluetooth beacons and Episerver Profile Store to bridge the gap between the online and in-store experience

episerver

insights

optimizely

Creating An Episerver Editor Documentation View

May 11th, 2019

In this post, I will be describing how to add a custom editor view in Episerver that will be used to render documentation. Our example will be pulling the documentation from Github but I will discuss how the implementation can be extended to pull documentation from other sources.

documentation

episerver

optimizely

Changing Episerver PropertyList Modal Size

May 11th, 2019

In this post I will discuss updating the size of the Episerver PropertyList modal in the editor view with CSS to improve the editor experience.

episerver

optimizely

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