Blog

Congratulations to the ADOGO group for getting their user group status. Adam, Brian and Maxim, congrats on this. Maybe we can share presenters and topics.

Here is a basic script of what will be covered in the CFFRameworks workshop on July 18th. This script might change if it is too much to cover or not. I will be updating it as I go forward with it.

• ColdBox "Down & Dirty" Presentation

1. Introduction

1. Who am I?
2. What is ColdBox?
3. Why ColdBox?

2. Novel Features of ColdBox

1. Documentation
   

2. Code Controllers

1. Handler Packages
   

3. Custom Conventions
4. Debugging Panel
5. ColdBox Caching
6. Unit Testing
7. ColdBox Dashboard
8. Software Aspects via Configuration
9. Plugins

3. Installing ColdBox
   

1. Download from website
2. Show Installation Instructions & Overview
   

3. Unpack Archive
4. Explain the Archive, what it contains
   

5. Move to webroot
   

6. Fire up the samples gallery

1. Hello World
2. Login App
3. ColdBox Reader
   

4. Explain other apps
   

4. Installing CFEclipse ColdBox Dictionary
5. Fire Up Eclipse
6. Application Template Overview

1. Conventions Explained
   

2. Config.xml & Configurations
3. Handlers
4. Layouts
5. Views
   

7. Showcase the tag insights

1. Modify a Handler
2. Modify a View
   

8. Showcase the CFFrameworks Plugin
9. ColdBox Dashboard

1. Quick Overview
2. Application Generation: MyBlog

1. Generate Application
2. Open Application
3. Show Unit Tests
4. Import into Eclipse
5. Show Unit Tests within eclipse
6. Scaffolding via Illidium

1. Show entries Table
2. Create entries generation
3. Show users Table
4. Create users generation
5. Create a datasource in the config.xml via plugin
   

6. Modify coldspring.xml to include datasource alias
7. Open Unit Tests & Modify Paths.
8. Fire up the entries list & create an entry.
9. Fire up the users list & create an entry

10. Create a second entry
11. Show sorting via queryHelper
12. Show delete
13. Show Validation

10. Summary

This past friday was our ignaural IECFUG meeting at Cal Poly Pomona and it was an incredible success. We had 9 members show and the Railo crew presenting their latest Railo CFML Engine. The presentation was a two hour galore of Railo features and capabilities. Let me tell you I was impressed by the maturity of this product and how FAST IT IS!! The new kid on the block is not joking around!! So here are my notes from the Railo Presentation, if I misunderstood something, please correct me. Ohh by the way, ColdBox is 100% compatible with Railo.

Railo 2.0 RC 3

• Main focus in performance.
• New Architecture
• Two administrators
• Railo Archives
• Resources
• Performance
• Different Security Settings
• New Tags & Functions

Railo Architecture

• Many web contexts

  • Each context are logically separated.
  • A web context corresponds to a web application.
  • Great Security Separation of resources like datasources, mappings, etc.
  • Each user can change his own settings
  • Security is easy to manage
  • Settings are stored in the local context
  • Each web context can have its own locale and time zone, charsets
  • Can have its own base component
  • Application Listener, locate of the Application.cfc or change of modes, where to look, or only server .cfm or mixed, etc.

• One Installation, its just a Java application.
• Can be deployed on any servlet application
• One server administrator for defaults.

• Global Datasources
• Global mappings
• Default Settings
• Resources

• One for each local web via contexts

Features

• Implicit getters and setters, magic functions
• #oObj# will call its _toString() method implicitly if its defined.
• serialize() method, will serialize to cfml code. Then I can evaluate it back. Similar to RMI communications.
• One internal HSQLDB is installed by default.
• Search engine is LUCENE

  • Administrator can search for items, very Cool

• Multiple Mail Servers, failover support.
• Mappings

  • Can use relative or absolute pathing for resources
  • Trusted, will speed up the core application.

• Archives/Mappings

  • Can exclude or include source files, when doing the archives
  • They are actual jar files that can be executed.
  • Can be assigned to mappings
  • Top Level setting, can simulate virtual directories, so you can use your mappings in the urls

• Restart Railo via the administrator, really awesome.
• Update Railo via the administrator.
• Debugging in cascade mode, can actually replay the queries, for debugging purposes.
• Debugging to console, great for production applications. It will throw the debug output to the console, with no need to show debug output on the application.
• Railo Resources

  • Virtual Filesystem, that are available via cffile, cfdirectory, any fle method or tag.
  • Can be ftp, ssftp, zip, ram, http and more.
  • Can even be used as mappings.
  • Can be an entire application zipped up, etc.
  • Reusable Code
  • Ways of distribution.
  • One location for files.

• Pricing is PHENOMENAL!!

  • Professional Version $300

    • Additional Web Contexts $100

  • Enterprise Version $2,400 (Unlimited Webs)

This might be a little late and silent, but thanks to Mark Drew and his insatiable coding skills we received a few days ago CFEclipse 1.3.1.5 and with it an update to the CFFrameworks Plugin which includes support for ColdBox. This support is to visually see and maintain the ColdBox configuration file. You can view all of your settings and aspects, very nice indeed.

So I want to thank Mark Drew for including my icons, actions and all to support ColdBox on this incredible plugin and if you have not donated or given your support to CFEclipse, please do so now!!. If you are not familiar with this plugin, visit the CFEclipse website and head over to the TV section.

Thanks to the guys over at CFFrameworks.com, I will be doing my first ever workshop and presentation about ColdBox. The title for this workshop is "Down & Dirty with ColdBox".

When: Wednesday, 18th July, 2007 @ 7:00pm PM GMT (2:00pm EST)

Please register your interest online here.

The URL for the event is: http://adobechats.adobe.acrobat.com/coldbox

I will cover the basics and the whys behind ColdBox, installation, goodies, eclipse integration, code generation and more. I just send a script of the presentation to the CFFramework's guys, so they should post it soon.

Happy 4th of July!!

And to commemorate this great holiday, why not have a surprise features. Yes, CFEclipse tag insight, function and scope insight for ColdBox. You can now have insight into the major scopes of ColdBox like event, rc, controller and also all the methods that are used in event handlers, plugins, layouts and views. WOW!! A handy way of coding, and much much faster.

Is this awesome or what!! This will help your development as you can see the latest syntax for the major components of ColdBox. All you need to do, is download the dictionary and follow the instructions found at http://ortus.svnrepository.com/coldbox/trac.cgi/wiki/cbCFEclipseDictionary

That is it, you will now have function and scope insight right from CFEclipse.

I HAVE UPDATED THE DISTRIBUTION ZIP FILE TO INCLUDE THE CFECLIPSE DICTIONARY

Charlie has written a nice intro of our first IECFUG meeting that is finally taking place here in Southern California. If you live in the LA area or surrounding area, this will be a great group for you to join and discuss CF to your heart's content. If you are a speaker or want to be a speaker, contact us via our mailing list or at [email protected]

when:	friday, july 6 / 7:00pm
where:	cal poly pomona 98C 4-27
what:	seeing as how it's our inaugural meeting, we'll briefly discuss some of the overall goals of the group. but the big news is... railo!  the railo team will be in town to talk about the railo CFML engine.  how does it differ from ColdFusion?  how is it the same?  why you should take some time to evaluate it. have you already used it, but have questions?  they'll be more than happy to answer.

Thanks go to Sami and Charlie for making this possible.

I just got an email from dell small business with this incredible offer that maybe somebody will be interested on. This is one day only

$399 Dimension with 19flat panel! One Day Only!

Limited time offer beginning 6/26/2007 12:00 a m CDT

One Day Only! Dimension C521 with AMD Athlon" 64 X2 Dual-Core 3600+ processor, 512MB Single Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz - 1DIMM, 19 inch SE198WFP Widescreen Flat Panel Monitor, 80GB1 Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache", 16X DVD-ROM Drive and choice of Windows XP or Vista TM. Only $399!

Offers subject to change.

* For hard drives, GB means 1 billion bytes; actual capacity varies with preloaded material and operating environment and will be less.

Pricing, specifications, availability and terms of offers may change without notice, are not transferable and are valid only for new purchases from Dell Small Business for delivery in the 50 United States. Taxes, fees, shipping, handling and any applicable restocking charges extra, vary, and are not subject to discount. The Small Business site and offers contained herein valid only for end users and not for resellers and/or online auctions. Dell cannot be responsible for pricing or other errors, omissions, or consequences of misuse of site and its functions and reserves the right to cancel orders arising from such errors. Offers not necessarily combinable. Discounts cannot be retroactively applied. Orders subject to cancellation by Dell. Software & Accessories and Printers, Displays & Electronics offers do not apply to Recommended Solutions systems in the online system configuration pages (including PowerConnect switches); you must purchase eligible items through the separate Software & Accessories and Printers, Displays & Electronics online stores. Limit 5 systems and 5 discounted or promotional products per customer. In case of customers leasing under this promotion, please note that items leased will be subject to applicable end of lease options or requirements. All sales are subject to Dell's Terms and Conditions of Sale located at http://www.dell.com/terms unless you have a separate agreement with Dell.

I love Transfer!! I have been using it to the max in all my projects and now I found it an undisspensable tool for my software development. If you have not checked out this incredible ORM, please do. Since I am using it so much, I decided to host the docs on my site for easy access, hope this is ok with you Mark?

Just point your browser to: http://www.luismajano.com/transfer/documentation/ and you can read to your eyes content.

I just updated the previous unit testing guide over at the Trac site with a much more in depth overview of unit testing in ColdBox. It covers on how ColdBox does unit testing for your handlers, how you can create unit tests, unit test suites, how to integrate to Sean Corfields' cfcUnit facade to CFEclipse's CFUnit plugin and much more. In depth with Pictures, for those fellows that like pictures better than words!!

Overall, in ColdBox you can create unit tests for your event handlers, which are your application's events. You can then test the entire application without rendering any HTML. This is the first time you can unit test you entire application via events and Coldbox is the first framework to bring it to you. This helps like you have no idea!! TEST TEST TEST!! No more excuses and if it weren't that easy, the ColdBox Dashboard, when you generate an application, it will also generate the unit tests for the application. So all you have to do is fill in the blank!! Come on, is that easy!! Give it a try!!