http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/ Latest articles from Charlie Arehart Copyright 2008 COLDFUSION DEVELOPER'S JOURNAL Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:07:00 GMT COLDFUSION DEVELOPER'S JOURNAL 10 http://backend.userland.com/rss http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/296223.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/296223.htm Tue, 14 Nov 2006 14:30:00 GMT There are many resources we should analyze to ensure optimal ColdFusion operation or to help diagnose problems. Fortunately, there's an awesome free tool that comes to our aid to turn voluminous data into useful information. http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/289652.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/289652.htm Sat, 28 Oct 2006 17:00:00 GMT FusionDebug is an easy straightforward tool, but if you leverage the experience of others, you can be even more productive. http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/279867.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/279867.htm Sun, 08 Oct 2006 12:00:00 GMT Errors and bugs: they happen in all code, mostly in development but in production too and perhaps more easily in CFML than in compiled languages. There are several features to help better handle, debug, and test for them, and this article will focus on those. http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/122170.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/122170.htm Sat, 24 Sep 2005 15:00:00 GMT The ability to view tag-level execution profiling (the amount of time spent on each tag in a request) is no longer a dream, and it opens up powerful new forms of debugging and performance tuning. http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/86127.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/86127.htm Wed, 18 May 2005 13:00:00 GMT It's great to have a whole issue of CFDJ focused on integrating CFML with Java. The process is a lot easier than many might think, as the articles in this issue will show. http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/45338.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/45338.htm Tue, 22 Jun 2004 00:00:00 GMT Why reinvent the wheel when you can easily run your CFML applications on any J2EE server? If your team is considering or being forced to move to J2EE (WebLogic, WebSphere, JBoss, Tomcat, etc.), it may be helpful to know that you don't have to throw away or even rewrite your CFML applications. http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/44475.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/44475.htm Tue, 13 Apr 2004 00:00:00 GMT There are many excellent conferences and user groups for CFML developers, and one that consistently gets great reviews is Michael Smith's CFUN event, which will be held in the Washington, DC, area June 26-27. This preview gives you the 4-1-1 on the event. http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/44481.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/44481.htm Tue, 13 Apr 2004 00:00:00 GMT Do you really know what it means to run CFML applications on a J2EE server? How does it work, and why would you bother? There are many benefits you may never have considered. In this article, the first of a series, I'll answer these questions. http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/42101.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/42101.htm Tue, 11 Nov 2003 11:13:00 GMT Have you ever wanted to see what lines of code are being executed in your template? If you looked for CFTRACE to do that, you were likely disappointed. http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34217.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34217.htm Tue, 23 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT While we all made it through the new year, there is still at least one more date issue to contend with. Many systems may not properly recognize that this year, 2000, is a leap year. http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34113.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34113.htm Thu, 18 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT Advanced Security is a set of features that came out in 4.0 of ColdFusion Server, and it offers several very interesting improvements on security, both in terms of how authentication is done, and what can be secured. http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34131.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34131.htm Thu, 18 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT CF Advisor learns more about ColdFusion 4.5, in the first installment of a two-part interview with Allaire Corp.'s Product Marketing Director. http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34132.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34132.htm Thu, 18 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT In the second installment of an exclusive two-part CF Advisor interview, Allaire's Vice President of Technology Strategy, Jeremy Allaire, joined Product Marketing Director Adam Berrey in mapping out Allaire's multiple programming language strategies for ColdFusion, Spectra, WDDX, Java, and XTML. http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34137.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34137.htm Thu, 18 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT On Saturday, June 26 in Bethesda, Maryland, several hundred CF developers gathered for the first annual DC ColdFusion User Conference. Created and organized by TeraTech, which sponsors the Maryland CFUG, and co-sponsored by several other notable CF firms including Fig Leaf Software, Infusion, CF Advisor, and of course Allaire, the conference brought together folks from as far away as Illinois, New York, and Georgia. http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34148.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34148.htm Thu, 18 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT For a first-time event, the 1999 Allaire Developer's Conference provided a jam-packed two days of information and socializing for the more than 1,000 developers in attendance. http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34154.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34154.htm Thu, 18 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT One of the great new features in 4.5 is a new form of global exception handling. Whereas 4.0 introduced CFTRY/CFCATCH to wrap around a segment of code to be tested and acted upon in case of error, we were still limited to the aged CFERROR tag to trap general errors. http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34159.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34159.htm Thu, 18 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT It seems that many, especially newcomers, are not aware that Allaire created a free, limited functionality version of ColdFusion. http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34059.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34059.htm Wed, 17 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT We've all been taught that, when we have a choice to take all we can of something, we should instead take only what we need. http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34064.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34064.htm Wed, 17 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT The query building and interactive debugging tools in Studio each work in conjunction with the RDS (remote development services) feature, whether you're working with databases or templates that are stored locally or against a remote server. http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34065.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34065.htm Wed, 17 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT When you're inserting date/time values into a database, you want to be careful about deciding whether the date should be hardcoded into the form (perhaps as a hidden field) or whether it should be computed at the time of the data entry. http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34066.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34066.htm Wed, 17 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT When performing a CFIF testing multiple conditions, be careful when testing against a value that could equate to a Boolean true or false (0 or 1, yes or no, etc.). http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34067.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34067.htm Wed, 17 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT If you have to test a condition against many values in a CFIF, you may be tempted to write out a very long condition, such as: http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34068.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34068.htm Wed, 17 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT Studio has an interesting (and to some, annoying) mechanism for determining where to save newly created files. If you're not aware of this approach, you can be left feeling that Studio has made a mistake in deciding where to save a file—if you even notice it's not where you had expected. http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34070.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34070.htm Wed, 17 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT Did you know that Studio has a built-in SQL query builder? It provides a drag-and-drop SQL query building interface (much like that used in MS Access) that can be performed against any of your available datasources, including Access, SQL Server, and the rest. http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34071.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34071.htm Wed, 17 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT If you've longed for more documentation on how to get the most from the ColdFusion Studio editing tool, Allaire has heard you. There have been two recent updates to the documentation that you may have missed. http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34072.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34072.htm Wed, 17 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT Did you know that you can have Studio automatically close quotes, pounds, and comments when you enter an opening one? http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34073.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34073.htm Wed, 17 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT You've probably noticed that CF leaves white space in HTML pages where CF tags existed before the page was processed. http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34076.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34076.htm Wed, 17 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT Let's say you want to create a dynamic SQL query -- that is, a CFQUERY that looks up different fields depending on circumstances. Why would this be useful? Let's say you're creating an employee roster application. http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34080.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34080.htm Wed, 17 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT Did you know that in Studio you can place the cursor on a tag and press F1, to view the help file for that tag? http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34087.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34087.htm Wed, 17 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT If you're using Microsoft Access as the datasource for a CF application, you should be very careful about the placement of that database file (the .mdb file) on your web server. http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34088.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34088.htm Wed, 17 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT It may be hard to believe, but there are times when you should pay careful attention to case (use of upper and lower case letters) when spelling the datasource name in a CFQUERY tag. http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34090.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34090.htm Wed, 17 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT After you've built some SQL in the tool, you have the option of either copying the SQL you build to the clipboard-to paste into your CFML template-or 'saving' the query for later use. http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34091.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34091.htm Wed, 17 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT If you 'save' the query instead (either by using the left-most icon at the top of the query builder or by simply closing the query builder... http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34029.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34029.htm Tue, 16 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT Ever had to find all the references to a given string among all the files in your application? And how about in all the files in any of several subdirectories, perhaps in your web root? http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34035.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/34035.htm Tue, 16 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT ColdFusion provides us with an incredible wealth of functions for performing everything from string and date manipulation to array and list processing. http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/42069.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/42069.htm Thu, 11 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT The world of ColdFusion application servers is quite interesting at the moment. Macromedia's recent update to CFMX 6.1 promises to add a lot of stability and speed to the product. BlueDragon, New Atlanta's alternate CFML runtime engine continues to gain momentum. Yet despite these two great products, much of the development out there is still based on ColdFusion 5 (or earlier). http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/42061.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/42061.htm Tue, 12 Aug 2003 00:00:00 GMT Do you know how to use the internal browse capability in CF Studio/ HomeSite+? Did you know that you don't need to use the RDS feature to be able to do so? And that you can use it to browse not only CFML templates running on both ColdFusion and BlueDragon, but also JSP, ASP, PHP, and others? http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/42051.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/42051.htm Fri, 11 Jul 2003 00:00:00 GMT You've probably been told for years that CFINCLUDE is like a compile-time directive that 'pulls code' from another file into your template for reuse. That's wrong. I'll prove it to you. Indeed, have you ever tried to include something other than a CF template? You can. Wonder what including a text or XML file might do? http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/41617.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/41617.htm Mon, 16 Jun 2003 00:00:00 GMT Fans of ColdFusion Studio may lament that Macromedia no longer sells the product, but take heart. It really does continue to exist in the guise of HomeSite+, which is basically the same thing and then some. What's more - if you own Dreamweaver MX, you can install HomeSite+ free. Have you checked it out? http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/41598.htmhttp://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/41598.htm Thu, 01 May 2003 00:00:00 GMT Is your CFMX server running with the latest set of fixes? Macromedia now uses 'Updaters' as a means to apply patches and extensions. There have been three so far. Are you running the latest, or any at all? How would you know? And why should you bother?