Since there are many places/cases where we store boolean properties as string properties in jcr (i.e a checkbox from a dialog), it's quite cumbersome to convert those in FreeMarker.

Instead of what I'd expect to write:

    [#if content.myProperty]<p>Hello world</p>[/#if]

one currently has to write something along these lines

    [#if content.myProperty!'false'=='true']<p>Hello world</p>[/#if]

... which is admittedly annoying, awkward and downright ugly.

Here's a patch that shows we could expose strings as models of both strings and booleans to FreeMarker