ColdFusion Zone - Everything for ColdFusion users & developers

Hey WMI, Where Can I Print

boyan — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:09:13 -0400

Windows Management Instrumentation, or WMI for short, is a very powerful and often under used technology. I am simply fascinated by how much you can accomplish using WMI. It is mostly intended for computer management tasks but it can be used for much more. Some examples include getting all kinds of computer information, managing system services and application. This article will cover a possible...

Freeing the Dragon an Interview with Vince Bonfanti

dan — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 10:56:03 -0400

DZone sits down with Vince Bonfanti, President and co-founder of New Atlanta Communications, LLC. New Atlanta creates server-based software products built using Java/J2EE and Microsoft .NET Framework technologies.

Flex Powered Adobe Photoshop Express

dan — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 09:31:04 -0400

Today, Adobe Systems released the beta version of Photoshop Express. Photoshop Express is a web based version of the popular Flagship Image Editing product and contains a plethora of common features in an easy to use Web Based Interface.Users can store 2 GB of images on Adobe servers for free and also show their images in a personalized gallery, akin to Flickr.

CFUnited Interview - Peter Bell

remotesynth — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:19:11 -0400

In this month's installment of my CFUnited interview series, I speak to prominent ColdFusion blogger, author and presenter and good friend, Peter Bell. Peter is well known for his innovative and often controversial ideas about code generation and design patterns. Peter also runs his own business, SystemsForge, based in New York City.

Model-Glue Tips and Tricks

boyan — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 10:26:22 -0400

Turn off automatic reloading of your application This will greatly reduce the time the application needs to process all request. This is the way I develop Model-Glue applications. In your Model-Glue configuration (the "modelGlueConfiguration" bean in ColdSpring.xml), look for the "reload" property and set it to false: <property...

Querying the File System - From ColdFusion to SQL Server

boyan — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 16:10:16 -0400

While looking for a solution of a different problem, I realized that SQL Server has a feature called extended stored procedures. Extended stored procedures, at least in SQL Server 2000, have to be written in C++ and compiled to a DLL. A good example of such a procedure is my previous article on Using Regular Expression in SQL Server. I am not going to get into how to write extended stored...

Closing The 404 Gap For Dynamic Page Generation With onMissingTemplate()

atuttle — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:12:29 -0400

ColdFusion's new onMissingTemplate() function is a great addition to our toolbox, and mind blowingly useful for Dynamic Page Generation, but (as Ben Nadel notes) the problem of requiring a ColdFusion template to be requested in order to invoke the functionality has yet to be addressed.

The Man Who Set Twitter Free

dan — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 08:00:00 -0500

DZone sits down with Aaron West, the man who set Twitter free of the browser. Aaron is a long time ColdFusion, Flash and Flex developer who created twitterAIR, the first Twitter/RIA integration based on the Adobe Integrated Runtime platform

Multi-selects Related with CFAjaxProxy

remotesynth — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 09:28:17 -0500

About a year ago I wrote a post about how to do Multi-selects Related with AjaxCFC. Recently someone was saying they found it useful, and I mentioned that if I were doing it today I would likely just use ColdFusion 8's new <cfajaxproxy> tag. Therefore I have decided to show how the identical example could be done in ColdFusion 8. In the end, I think it is easier to understand and...

ColdFusion 8's image functions + jQuery= a UI for adding text and color blocks into an image file

bcswartz — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 08:28:41 -0500

One of the new features in ColdFusion 8 is the ability to manipulate images using ColdFusion tags and functions. In addition to being to do generic image manipulations (like rotating, resizing, and cropping), you can also add text to an image using the ImageDrawText function, like in this example:

ModelGlue Layout Factory

dan — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 21:31:34 -0500

Many developers want to add AJAX enhancements to an application. When that application uses a front controller, the inevitable question comes, should the remote request also route through the front controller?The answer is, as always, It Depends!If the remote requests will primarily pull data back from the back end, then this is a good indicator the requests should pipe through a Remote Service...

360|Flex Atlanta - Big Success

dan — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:30:54 -0500

The 360|Flex Conference, Atlanta version, is drawing to a close and it is now time to take home the fancy conference schwag and tons of new information. I'll be driving for 5 hours to get home but honestly, I'd much rather spend that time coding with some of the techniques and libraries I learned about during conference sessions.

Adobe Fires a Shot Across The Bow

dan — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 09:44:11 -0500

For those new to Rich Internet Applications, there is a War of the Platforms taking place right now. Users are demanding more intuitive applications, increased functionality and freedom from the restrictions of the browser, There are 3 companies poised to offer solutions, Microsoft, Sun and Adobe. Adobe, in my opinion, has the most compelling, broadest reaching solutions.

Top Features in ColdFusion 8 on Sitepoint

remotesynth — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 09:23:57 -0500

My latest article has just been posted on Sitepoint. It covers my personal favorite new features in ColdFusion 8 (at least, those at the moment as this tends to change throughout the lifetime of a release). Although many readers may be familiar with these features, if you haven't used ColdFusion 8 much yet, I do go into some brief examples of things like the Ajax integration and Multi-threading.

CSS3: A solution for applications, or are we the boiling frogs?

dan — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 22:41:57 -0500

The old saying goes, if you throw a frog into boiling water, he will jump out quickly. If you put the frog in a pot of water and slowly increase the temperature, the frog will remain in place even when the water is boiling.

Universal Package Tracking in ColdFusion

boyan — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 14:19:52 -0500

A while back, I was in need of a universal package tracking tool that is not specific to the carrier. Almost every carrier provides some kind of an API but it can be a pain to set up each one separately. Fortunately, I found a nifty tracking tool which is universal and can be leveraged through RSS. It works with UPS, FedEx, USPS, or DHL/AirBorne without having to specify which carrier you need....

Get All Form Fields in ModelGlue the Elegant Way

boyan — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 12:27:52 -0500

If you are using the ModelGlue framework for your ColdFusion development, you know how to get variable values from the form/url scope. Assuming you are inside a controller method that takes the argument "event" of type "ModelGlue.Core.Event", ModelGlue makes this as simple as arguments.event.getValue("eventVariableName")

Querying Active Directory Through SQL Server

boyan — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:55:57 -0500

Integrating your application with Active Directory (or another LDAP based directory) is a common requirement in many business applications. Almost every language has a way to query LDAP but little known is the approach of integrating SQL Server with your LDAP controller. This quick article will guide you through setting up and using LDAP queries through SQL Server 2000 with Active Directory as...

OK, So Can Ajax Do This?

dan — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 21:04:46 -0500

Ajax, Flex and Silverlight are pretty much the top of the foodchain when talking about RIAs. Sure there are some other technologies, but none have quite the reach.Having been a part of many Ajax applications I see where the value is. Partially updating a page or providing a sweet drag and drop functionality can smooth out a difficult workflow for the users.

Quick Tip on Including JavaScript files in Your Model-Glue Views

boyan — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 10:48:45 -0500

While programming with Model-Glue, I find that I have to often include JavaScript files in each individual view. I most often do this for form validation but it could be for whatever other reason.

Who Uses ColdFusion?

cfsilence — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 09:04:00 -0500

Those who haven't used CFML often have the perception that it is a niche language or 'training wheels' for developers to get their feet wet with programming before moving on to a 'real' language. What they fail to realize is that CFML is used to rapidly create powerful, easily maintainable, scalable enterprise level web applications. Who uses ColdFusion? Well, our very own Zone Leader Rey...

What Function Called My Function

ggilbert — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 03:37:23 -0500

I recently came across a question on the Adobe forums about being able to tell who called a certain function in a base component (the "super"). The first thing that came to mind was: is this even possible? The answer is: Yes of course it's possible!

ColdFusion + Java = Easy, Rapid & Powerful

cfsilence — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 11:12:20 -0500

Many ColdFusion developers know that the underlying power of ColdFusion is Java. I've personally never written a line of Java, but I have taken advantage of this power by integrating some Java projects into my ColdFusion code. One example of such integration is my PPTUtils project. PPTUtils utilizes HSLF which is a sub-project of the larger and widely recognized Apache POI project.

CFUnited Interview - Ray Camden

remotesynth — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 10:02:09 -0500

Ray Camden is next in my series of interviews of speakers at this year's CFUnited conference (see the prior interview with Matt Woodward at my blog). As ColdFusion's resident "Jedi Master", Ray probably needs no introduction, but he's getting one anyway.

Using Generic Lists and SQL Server Views in Model-Glue

boyan — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 13:39:17 -0500

Model-Glue comes with some generic messages that you can use to manipulate data from your database. Generic messages are only available when you are using an ORM adapter with Model-Glue (such as Reactor or Transfer). In general, "messages" are how Model-Glue refers to requests to the server. As a very brief overview, messages are broadcast by the event handler and then handled by one...