Writing shell scripts to automate the build and deploy process for ColdFusion applications is not very much fun. The Jakarta Ant project is an open-source, cross-platform alternative that makes it easy to automate the build and deploy process.

I recently brought a Google Talk bot that I put online at cfdocs@gmail.com. Google Talk users can add this user to their buddy list and then submit CFML tag and function lookups to it. (I've also brought Yahoo IM and AIM versions online as nickname cflivedocs, but more on those shortly...

The mouse was the original idea of Doug Engelbart who was the head of the Augmentation Research Center (ARC) at Stanford Research Institute. Engelbart's philosophy is best embodied, in my opinion, in the design of another device that he invented, the five-finger keyboard - with keys li...

ColdFusion 8 introduces the CFImage tag and dozens of image manipulation functions. We have already looked at reading and writing image files and we have covered the basic yet powerful image manipulation possible through CFImage tag actions alone. Now we know enough to be able to reall...

Early releases of ColdFusion (under Allaire) focused on the Windows market and it was common to include example Access databases. It was common for entry-level developers to take this example to heart and build systems on Access back-ends. One didn't have to install, set up, admin, or ...

ColdFusion 8 has a load of awesome image manipulation functionality. So much so, in fact, that it will take several articles to discuss it in any sort of decent way. In Part 1 of this article (CFDJ, Vol. 9, issue 5), we spent the entire post just exploring all the ways in which ColdFus...

Of course, since this is ColdFusion I expected nothing less than this, i.e., powerful AJAX functionality combined with the simplicity of a tag-based language, and that's exactly what the Auto-Suggest AJAX component delivers. The code in Listing 1 is a simple example in which the auto-s...

This release is the first one to include contributed content from Rob Gonda, Tom de Manincor, Brian LeGros, Sana Ullah and Aaron Roberson. The ColdBox Team and contributors are growing. So enjoy this release. The ColdBox website is also being renovated and will be launched soon. Develo...

As a ColdFusion developer, hopefully by now you have heard at least a little about XML (eXtensible Markup Language). Wikipedia defines XML as a 'general-purpose markup language' designed to 'facilitate the sharing of data' and also designed to be 'relatively human-legible.'

Flex is a complete set of tools to develop rich Internet cross-platform applications based on the Flash platform. With Flex, you can create applications that not only have the 'wow factor' necessary to please clients and users alike, but the 'usability factor' necessary to make your ap...

Now that Scorpio is here (at least in beta), it is time to start figuring out all the new tricks of the trade, right? However, as most of your clients will not be switching immediately, you will still have to be doing ColdFusion 7 work for some time.

Until recently, tuning IT application performance has been largely a guessing game. This is both surprising and unacceptable considering the relentless focus IT organizations put on cost-efficiency and productivity. The traditional approaches to database and application tuning that in...

As both a .NET programmer and ColdFusion developer, I always wondered how I could leverage the world of .NET in ColdFusion. Both platforms come with powerful features and using them together might be a wonderful friendship, if one could only make them cooperate. There are two worlds ou...

For Web developers, form validation is a basic task, and yet one that presents some interesting challenges. Even discounting security issues such as SQL injection attacks and cross-site scripting (XSS), form validation is a critical step in your error handling strategy.

Many times object-oriented programming (OOP) is billed as the end-all solution to cure the spaghetti code that can come from procedural style applications. After all, you just have to stuff your logic code into a component (big OOP buzzword - encapsulation), and now your code is instan...

You have to love a software product that makes developers, even relatively inexperienced ones, productive quickly and empowers them to do seemingly impossible things. The more I work with and learn about ColdFusion the more it seems as if there are no limits to what can be done with it...

This article describes a basic method for indexing and searching images and digital photographs based on color using ColdFusion and CFImageHistogram (www.leavethatthingalone.com/projects/cfhistogram/). This method indexes and searches color in images quickly using ColdFusion.

Keeping up with the latest Web technologies is tough nowadays. Every week it seems new sites are launched that push the envelope further and further in terms of what can be accomplished using just a Web browser.

In the July 2006 issue of CFDJ, I wrote about the Directory Watcher event gateway, and how easy it was to set up and how powerful a tool it could be for managing files and external interfaces. While this is true, there are some potential hazards waiting for the unsuspecting developer w...

I can't wait to get started.' The sentiment struck me pretty hard as I struggled to get some sleep on a packed red-eye flight leaving Las Vegas at 11 o'clock at night.

As the Web develops, the need for easy and efficient Web site and portal management increases. Developing an easy-to-use future-proof content management system (CMS) from scratch isn't easy. The basic functionalities can be assembled in a reasonable timeframe, meaning that you will be ...

Often the hardest part of developing an application is getting agreement on what exactly it should do. Intent Driven Design (IDD) is an approach that simplifies and standardizes the process of getting detailed technical requirements from non-technical business users so you can develop ...

I'm a Webmaster for the Air Protection Division (APD), EPA Region 3 in Philadelphia and in April 2006, I wrote an article for CFDJ entitled 'How ColdFusion MX 7 Made Me a Hero at the Office' (Volume 8, Issue 4). That article described how I harnessed the power of ColdFusion to improve ...

Want to make your Flash forms more FLEXible? Well, now you can! But, is there any point, you say, now that Flex 2 is out and effectively free (if you can make do without FlexBuilder)? Well, if you can go with Flex 2 then do so, but maybe like me, it's currently off limits to you...

The sign of an experienced developer is solid design. Novices edit examples they find on the Net, journeymen figure out how to code something as they do it, but craftsmen plan their work. Starting out, this can look like wasted time, but if your app is any good, your customer will want...

While the IPO market on Wall Street has cooled substantially, there is a new IPO looming on the horizon that has the potential to make you millions of dollars in the coming years. This is not hype. This is not a pipe dream. This is not a fantasy. It is a reality that is yours for the t...

When I found out this month's issue would be a 'back to basics' issue, I was torn between several topics that I hope are of interest to every CFML developer. I settled on the array, which is a powerful tool in the hands of a skilled coder. Just to make sure everyone's on board we'll st...

Flex is one of the greatest technologies around. Combine it with ColdFusion and it just gets better. Adobe has made it possible to use Flex 2 efficiently with ColdFusion and easily get data across the server to a Flex front-end.

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.

Way back when ColdFusion 4.5 was released, the concept of structures (associative arrays to some of you) was introduced. Never one to be receptive to change - not to mention having no background in other programming languages - I shunned structures for the most part and kept on my merr...

As ColdFusion programmers or system administrators, there are times when we go through the CF Admin interface to try and optimize the server. A particular section located within the standalone version of the ColdFusion Administrator is simply called Java and JVM. When you reach this se...

Many ColdFusion developers expressed this sentiment after downloading and working with the Flex 2 beta. Flex 2 has made developing rich Internet applications in the Adobe Flash environment possible for everyone (not just those of us who know and love timelines and tweens).

Developers are no different, yet I see 'improv developing' all the time. A project manager will just describe what's needed - the outlines of a plot - and let the developers work it out. The results are often what you'd see with a movie. However, designing an application with UML can a...

One of the latest crazes in Web development is AJAX. Unless you've been living in a cave for the last year, you've heard of this old, yet currently popular, technique for making HTTP requests to a server without refreshing the Web page. While claims of smaller bandwidth, faster respons...

Putting support for XML processing in ColdFusion 6.0 was regarded as a major feature upgrade. With the switch to Java, ColdFusion could leverage the existing Java functions in Jakarta Commons and add support for things like Web Services (Axis). However, binding itself to Java also boun...

When the March 2006 issue of CFDJ arrived, I had just begun working on the maintenance interfaces for the support tables of a new system. There are many of these tables, and implementing the associated maintenance routines looked set to consume a lot of time.

I don't like browser-based WYSIWYG editors. There are a reasonably large number of them and several of the recent versions are even cross-browser-compatible with Mozilla and even some less popular browsers (although Safari continues to be problematic).

One complaint I have heard from many developers being introduced to object-oriented programming (OOP, OO) is that it is more work than it's worth. Setting up your objects, DAOs, gateways, etc., is a lot of coding that, until you have realized the power of OO, probably does seem like qu...

I must admit to having been excited at the prospect of the Pet Market frameworks project when Simon proposed it to us at the Fusebox & Frameworks Conference in September. I once tried to do something similar by creating a small blog application using the three popular frameworks that I...

I recently spoke to a group of attendees at the Fusebox and Frameworks Conference 2005 about the framework that I call TheHUB. Then when I was asked to write this article, I thought it would be a great way to compare and contrast it with several of the frameworks discussed at that conf...