Introducing Beacon, a CMS for Phoenix LiveView

Leandro Pereira shared insights about Beacon, a content management system (CMS) created specifically for the Phoenix LiveView framework. Beacon stands out by allowing dynamic web page content to be managed and published without the need for redeployments, thus facilitating real-time updates. It uses HEEx template compilation and rendering, supports module reloading at runtime, and embeds Phoenix LiveView to deliver high-performance web content rendering and SEO-friendly pages. For the DockYard website, Beacon currently handles over 700 pages, including blog posts in Markdown and HEEx templates. During his talk, Leandro explained the technical workings of Beacon, including how it compiles and serves page content in memory for speed and how it uses a custom 'router' table to manage dynamic content. He also highlighted the system's performance, low memory consumption, and SEO capabilities. A demonstration of Beacon's admin interface was given, showcasing live updates to web pages, and the future addition of a drag-and-drop visual editor for HEEx templates was discussed, which aims to make content creation more accessible.