Blog

Adam Fortuna created a post on a technique to automatically assign default views to your application, which is very very interesting. I also posted an alternate way of assigning default views/layouts to even any handler by just creating and implementing a preHandler or postHandler method on your handler.

Great Snippet Adam!!

My good Friend Oscar Arevalo, from Home Portals fame and CFEmpire has now released another incredible application, WSCandis.

WSCandis is a caching and directory solution especially tailored for enterprise environments in which client applications rely on a layer of webservices that may be located on separate locations. In these environments applications are often deployed from one or more development servers to one or more production servers.

The Webservices Caching and Directory Service (wscandis) tries to address the following issues:

The need of applications that act as webservices clients to have the webservice WSDL address hardcoded as part of the application code.

The lack of a single directory of web services used by all applications

Lack of a consistent naming scheme for all webservices (i.e. "com.uvi.general.resorts") regardless of their network location, implementation language and environment.

An application's need to use a different webservice, or the same webservice but on different

locations, based on whether the application is being executed on a development or production

server.

Performance hit on high demand applications due to having to continually instantiate and discard

webservice stubs for each request.

WSCandis tries to solve these problems using a two-part approach: a webservice stub caching mechanism and the use of a central directory and lookup service.

I just put together a ColdBox cheat sheet for all you ColdBox Developers. This cheat sheet gives you an overview of the most used functions in your every day development, tips and tricks. I have included a copy with the download bits and also in the track site. Now, you can also download it from here.

ColdBox Cheat Sheet

Again, this is a great way for you to learn the framework and have all the common methods handy. When I get more DONATIONS, I'll create a big old POSTER like the FLEX ones.

With the advent of ColdBox 2.0.1 you are now able to unit test your event handlers, plugins, etc. I just completed a step by step guide on how to do this with the provided source in the bundle. Another interesting note is that the ColdBox Dashboard generates applications for you and yes, it also generates the unit tests for it.

Unit Testing Handlers Guide

So click on the link above to start unit testing your handlers.

Thanks to AJ Mercer,

The application template included in the download for the dashboard became corrupt. I replaced them in the distribution files and I am attaching the zip file to this post. You can download it and place it under the following directory:

{DashboardInstall}/model/templates/apptemplate.zip

Just replace the old zip file and you should be ok. If not, just download the bundle again. Sorry for the inconvenience.

As with the new 2.0.1 release from yesterday, you now also get a new Refactoring Guide. This guide is a step by step guide on how to refactor ColdBox for use in your own custom server environments, shared environments or even embedding ColdBox in your commercial applications.

Open The Refactoring Guide

If you would like to add anything to this guide, please let me know and it will be added. Also, if you have other alternatives to refactoring, then please let me know.

More coming soon.

One of the most coolest features the 2.0.1 release brings is a Request Context snapshot viewer as part of the ColdBox Debugger. This snapshot shows you the state of your request at every specific event execution time. I find this tool extremely amazing, since I can see how my variables change, when they change, which event changed/added/removed them and much more. Look at the screenshot below:

As you can see from the screenshot, the debugger has a RC Snapshot column that you can expand and collapse. Once expanded on a specific event, you can see the content of the request collection as the event got executed. You can see the xeh variables, the dbService object and its type, the event variable and more. As your application executes events, the snapshots are taken and will be ready for visualization in the debugger.

This is a great tool and a great way to debug your applications. No more cfdump and aborts to see where variables get set. Just look at the snapshot.

Welcome to another wonderful release day. This day marks a milestone in ColdBox development as I deploy the new deployment formats and two separate products: ColdBox ColdFusion Framework and ColdBox Dashboard.

They are now two separate products with separate licenses and development timelines. So enjoy these new versions!!

Before the news and release notes I want to thank God for his wisdom in yet another action packed release and for giving me the projects to help the ColdFusion community. And now the news:

Brian LeGros Joins the ColdBox Team

I met Brian last year in Florida and met him again at CF Objective this year. We went over the entire roadmap of ColdBox and he decided to dedicate development time to the framework and has already come up with some exciting new features for the framework. He has over 7 years experience with ColdFusion and assorted web-based technologies,

employed by Central Florida Investments as a Technical Lead for the Web Development Team and has a degree from the University of Central Florida, BS in Computer Science. His Java and OO experience will bring new methodologies and technology to this framework. So please welcome Brian to this community effort.

http://www.brianlegros.com/blog/

ColdBox 2.0.1

Welcome to another release of the ColdBox framework. Below you will see a summary of all the fixes and new features this release now holds.

Updates and Enhancements

* All guides updated with new content and strategies.

* New Guides: Plugins Guide, Refactoring Guide

* RequestContext/Event Debugger Monitor : You can now see snapshots of the request context as it traverses executed events. Great for debugging changes in the request context. You can now monitor EVERYTHING!

* Custom Conventions : You can now choose your own application layout conventions. YES SIR!! Choose your own conventions and easily update them using the new ColdBox Dashboard.

* Modified Application Template, more generation via ANT, unit tests and consolidations. Yes, you heard me right, you can now do Unit Tests on Event Handlers!!

* Addition of Cache Object Expiration Dates to debugger, you can now see when objects will expire.

* Added Memento's to ColdBox Bean Objects

* Custom Exception Template Included in application template. WILL MAKE YOUR LIFE EASIER

* Config Override Variable - Choose your own config file from within the index.cfm. You can now choose to load any coldbox configuration file for your application. You can do multi-tiered configurations files and load them as needed. WOW!!

Fixes

* Fixes for case sensitive OS's

* Timer Plugin extends fix.

* Cache Panel Monitor Not opening div Fix

* Samples gallery changelocale context fix

* Coldboxreader - ehUser.doLogin, context not found Fix

* Config.xsd - Change xs:sequence to xs:all

* XMLParser fails on file read for CFMX 6.XX

* Logger Plugin - init method fails if using as a new instance - check for coldboxlogslocation var

* beanFactory - not properly executing MIXIN or injected UDF's on CFC

* Debugger Panel CSS and HTML Cleanup

* Cache locking timeouts increased to 30 seconds

* Debugger fails when request.debugTimers is not set

* Critical Error when using Cache JVM Thresholds - 500 Error

* MS Sql 200 scripts for coldboxreader failed

* Galleon Admin Sample - Paging is invalid

* Login sample App Updated

* Refactor.xml - Errors on absolute prefixes.

* Bug Report/Debugger enhance to use request Context Methods

* Transfer Sample, MSSQL script is invalid

* Timer Fix - Initial testing logic for determining application in debug mode.

As you can see, action packed!! And now to a new generation of ColdBox IDE.

ColdBox Dashboard 2.1.0

The new dashboard has several internal fixes and the following enhancements:

* Framework Conventions: You can now change your application layout conventions right from the dashboard.

* Application Generator: Introducing the basis of RAD for ColdBox applications. You now have an application generator that will generate your basic application with several customizable features and even UNIT TESTS!!

Well, this wraps up another release day. Stay tuned as there are tons of more upcoming releases and plans for The Premier ColdFusion Framework, ColdBox!!

Well, more development has been under way this weekend and there is a lot of exciting news and updates that will be coming in the next few weeks, but I can't tell you! :)

However, I can tell you that the companion application to the ColdBox Framework has received a new Trac site at the following location: http://ortus.svnrepository.com/coldbox_dashboard/trac.cgi/wiki

You can now follow the ColdBox Dashboard's development progress. So check out the new features in the upcoming 2.0.1 release.

God Bless

I have just spend some good time working on a revamped guide that will truly help the ColdBox newbie digest and get a hands on approach. You can reach it by clicking me here.

This guide covers the application template and ANT generation scripts that ColdBox provides. It will be further enhanced once the application generator is finalized in the ColdBox Dashboard.

Please give me your thoughts on this guide. Do you find it too technical, want to see more information on a specific topic, etc?