The Honey House Buzz - ColdFusion

CF "Just Like Visual Basic"

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 14:42:00 -0600

Wow, what a day. A local company needed some input on just what coldfusion was. When I asked what they thought it was, the reply was

Someone said it is just like Visual Basic

My comment was that it was more mature than that. Much so... Visual Basic on steriods with a rocket pack, and anti-gravity boots, super tool belt, and a cool red cape, maybe. Bottom line, I am thrilled that we will not be the only CF shop in town :).

Two New Facelifts Rolled Out This Week

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 10:22:00 -0600

Two sites got facelifts and freshenups in the past few weeks. Aiken's Makin was updated to coordinate the site with the new poster and marketing materials for the annual festival. Adelphi Christian Academy was revamped from an outdated Elexio CMS system into CF and updated to reflect the school's new branding strategy. Both are CF and both enjoy the rapid development CF and CSS offers. I love it when a plan comes together.

Goodby CFUnited, Perhaps next year

Sat, 07 Aug 2010 17:36:00 -0600

I have planned unsuccessfully to get to CFUnited. But the for last 6+ years, other obligations have interfered for that week..... So, I get my oxes out of the ditch (which included a funeral, a few surgeries to repair cycling injuries, mom-in-law getting 2 hip replacements...you get the picture) to clear July-August 2011 to attend Next Year -- 2011... (sigh) My friend Gene Godsey broke that news to me, no next year.... (sigh). So Here's My VOTE: Have it somewhere, somehow, someway and Honey House Web Designs WILL be there! PLease, please (please)....

HHWD Hiring ColdFusion Developers - Updated

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 08:59:00 -0600

WOW! What a year! Due to our expanding backlog of work, Honey House Web Designs is expanding our workforce. Update: We are looking for experienced CF coders, as well as subcontractors and Internet IT professionals. If you are a Coldfusion developer who is proficient in

CF 8 or 9,
CFC beans and Data Objects,
CSS based designs,
Java
Server Management

If you are proficient in Flash/Flex, CFEclipse, FusionDebug, these are added bonus. Candidates should live in the South East, (no relocation offered). Some telecommuting may be possible within a 150 mile radius in the beginning, but you must be an organized self-starter who can work without tons of oversight. Please send your resume and project sample links to hhd - at - honeyhousedesigns.com (you know the schpeal).

CF / IIS Service LockUp when using CFMX7, MS Access, and File Uploads

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 19:09:00 -0600

A client regularly uploads an Access database (I know, I know, not the best one for the job.. but the point is another blog/argument) which is then a CFMX7 datasource. Occasionally and intermittently over the last few years, the .mdb file would be locked, showing the corresponding .ldb file and the uploads would fail. But these files weren't just locked. They were so tightly bound, that FTP deletes would not delete. Even the hosting support personnel could not delete. They had to shut down the CF server, and IIS to delete the files and then restart. Not good news for other accounts the shared hosting server. Even more interesting is that all of a sudden, the problem became more frequent (locking 6 times yesterday, and 5 more today)... and thus, replicable. It appears as if CF Access datasource connection creates the lock (appropriately) when a query of any sort is performed, even SELECT statements. Attempting an upload while the file is "locked" however doesn't just reject the upload, it corrupts the files and the service. We don't know what changed, but every single upload now locks. and I suspect the java method that creates the datasource link may lock the database at the application.cfc level. (Any CF/JAVA wizards, please feel free to chime in on this suspician if you know one way or the other). IIS is v6. To correct this, have the CF Administrator UNcheck that the "maintain database connections" . Creating a "dummy" query is only for pre CF6.

Better way to set Dynamic Directory References?

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 12:11:00 -0600

I have several projects set up in the following directory structure:



\        (contains index.cfm and application.cfc)
\cfc     (contains all CFCs)
\html    (contains all non home page files)
\images  
\includes
\config
(and so on)....

The application.cfc uses REQUEST variables to reference the page location to link to based on where the location is. This is not very good practice, but is an ancient holdover from CF5 when I first started in Coldfusion. Here is an example:

Then I use the reference:



NavLink1

in my includes and pages to reference given page. There has got to be a better way to skin this animal. While I am plowing through beans and configs, in the meantime I have several projects that I just want to perform some simple cleanup on. Anyone got any better suggestions? The settings would need to change based on a page by page basis but aren't updated or reset by the user . A

Building a Dynamic P7 Image Gallery

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:01:00 -0600

Project Seven has great products for increasing the pinache and functionality of any website. Their Image Gallery creates a slideshow of images in a 'filmstrip' type of gallery. When HHWD created this for Aiken's Makin's website, it was instantly a huge hit. Another client, with a CF8 website wanted the same functionality with their home tour. But it needed to be able to pull photos from two locations and build the image gallery on the fly. Here is how to do this (after you first buy IG from P7):
1) In the page to build the Image Gallery, first create a 'dummy' image gallery, by allowing the code to set up a gallery using 2-3 images of your choice. This lets the P7 base code and CSS to be set up.
2) Update the code as follows. Since I needed to be able to display image, description, and alt tags, I first built an array of structures containing the image information to be displayed.
(first thing: before creating your image gallery and customizing it set a variable rowpernum = the number of tnails per row) The idea is to determine the number of thumbnails per row, know the ending tnail for the current row (and if it is at the end of the array/recordset -- variable i) and know the actual tnail number you are on (-- variable j)

From the Fields: Framework Newbie.... WOW!

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:01:00 -0600

WOW! My head is exploding AND I am impressed, motivated, and hungry for more. After watching Peter Bell's Business Object meetup, downloading ColdSpring, and reading the (cough) somewhat sterile and dry getting started guide, I feel overwhelmed. I understand beans and encapsulation, but I find that the code examples there over my head. Even .... Bruce Phillips Grade School Blog, which is geared towards "Coldspring 3rd graders" was too much. (I must still be in 1st grade). Before I gave up however, I logged back into the Lynda site and watched David Gassner's tutorial on the CFEclipse. A kindergarten version. Using the CFEclipse's RDS Dataview, a right-click > Coldfusion Wizard > Create CFC creates a CFC, DAO, and Gateway components. I was able to use these and compare them to the setup in my own CFC to see just how it worked. Now, as I completed the tutorial and tested how the get and set methods work, I am amazed. The complexity is kindergarten level, the objects are encapsulated, and the code generated was fast and very effecient, without me having to do anything extra. Granted, the sample code I was working with is very elementary, but now I am beginning to see how it fits together and how versatile it will be. Thanks to David Gassner, Bruce Phillips, Peter Bell, and to Dan Wilson (for his posts and tutes, which I will be working through as well, when I get past the first grade)!

Framework CRUD vs. Dynamic SQL

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 06:32:00 -0600

Day 2 of Framework learning curve and I want to throw out this question. Historically, I have passed arguments to a CFC function that performs a read based on a variety of conditions and created a dynamic SQL query inside my 'READ' or sometimes inside my 'get' object. Here is an example:



select * from Foo where true

   and id=


   and isactive=

Can I continue to create a 'read'ish query that is fluid in nature and be able to retrieve data on a variety of conditions or... would it be better form to have different objects created and called for each different instance of needing to retrieve information?

Application Framework Newbie Thoughts

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:36:00 -0600

Last week I sat in on Peter Bell's online CFUG and realized that the way business objects and Coldfusion framework was much more powerful and expansive than I have been using it. So, inspired, I am working to redo some small projects, and see if my own productivity increases. I'll report on the boo-boos, and uh-ohs I bump into along the way. I am sure I am not the only one to hit snags, but maybe by documenting them, I can help the next newb along. To start, I am reading and reviewing 'getting started' documents as well as going through some video tutorials. I have installed Coldspring to learn by so this will be my first framework endeavor. :)

CF Christmas Suggestions

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 09:03:00 -0600

Every year, My mom-in-law wants to buy me a magazine subscription, or goodie for my job. Any suggestions for a gift for her to order related to Tech goodies, or a ColdFusion Industry object? I have looked CFDJ magazines, which are ok from a technical standpoint (or were 2+years ago when I last looked at them), but I am not thrilled with their site, Adobe politics, and other nefarious behavior from Sys-con. So, instead of the annual subscription to 'Good Housekeeping', I am asking if anyone has a suggestion for another technical site, magazine, subscription, etc that may be an idea to give my m-i-l.

The Buzz gets updated

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 08:32:00 -0600

Whew! Finally, after getting HHWD.com updated, the Buzz also gets upgraded to BlogCFC 5.9.1 and all the CSS mess cleaned up :).

Using CSS to Populate a Dynamic Map

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 08:50:00 -0600

Clients often want maps of their service area, particularly county maps of a state, or states/regions within country. I had a project with a land company that wanted to be able to have a map automatically turn on/off a county based on the contents of the property's county in database. I decided to create a page that used a vector based map with the counties outlined, id each county with a CSS class of that county name, then if any county was retrieved from the query, that county's ID would be highlighted to display. No, the map doesn't need to be a vector map per se, but using CSS can you can extend the functionality of each unit of the map (and resize easily if need be). An example of this can be found at http://www.atlanticcoast-properties.com/html/scmap.cfm Since the potential for several states exsists, I created a CSS file for South Carolina, 'sc.css'. The CSS for the map contains a div tag for the overall map, and a div for the location of each county to display:

#scmap {
height: 506px;
width: 638px;
background-image: url(map/scmap.gif);
background-repeat: no-repeat;
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
position: relative;
font: Arial;
font-size: 11px;
font-stretch: narrower;}	
	
#scmap li {
    margin: 0; padding: 0; list-style: none;
    position: absolute; text-align: center;}	

#scmap li a:link, #scmap li a:visited,  #scmap li a:active
 {  color: black;   }

#scmap  li a:hover {background-color: #BF9839;color: #000;	
text-decoration: underline; }

#none {left: 540px; top: 470px; }	 
#spartanburg {left: 145px;top: 41px; }
#greenville { left: 103px;	top: 14px;	 }
#oconee {left: 12px; top: 70px; }
#laurens {left: 153px; top: 110px; }
#aiken {left: 207px;	top: 260px;}
#abbeville {left:90px; top:  152px; }
#edgefield {left: 164px;top: 224px;}
#cherokee {left: 202px; top: 9px; }
#union {left: 209px; top:  77px; }
#pickens { left: 65px; top: 44px; }
#anderson {left: 69px; top: 105px;}
#mccormick {left: 95px; top: 202px;}
#chester {left: 269px; top:  76px; }
#york {left: 269px; top: 34px; }
#lancaster {left: 332px; top:  80px; }
#fairfield {left: 276px; top:  127px; }
/*(and so on... not all counties are displayed here )*/

.disabled {color: #999999;}

Then in the .cfm file, I set up the code to use an unordered list display or grey out the counties as needed:




 
  

#county#

#cnt# listings 


  

 
#county#

The overall effect takes a bit of time to set up the location of the counties, but once done, it allows your map to disable or show links based on database values without having to recode the map. This effect can be applied to geographic maps, real estate siteplans, and many other applications that use an overall large mapping but the need to be dynamic in the content for that map. I can take this effort one more step to create hotspots based on the vector shape of the county and make rollovers, or even color the entire county based on the query results.

Quick & Dirty Right SideBar ... or Not,

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 15:49:00 -0600

If you have a site that you some pages to have a sidebar and some NOT without having to create 2 similar templates (if you are using DW Template feature), you can easily set a variable in the file to turn the side bar on or off. This method creates a floating right sidebar if the variable is set, but it can be adjusted for a left sidebar as well. There are two quick and dirty methods of doing this. The first involves a dynamic div creation by setting up the Div id to be evaluated at run time using 2 CSS ids, one for content width accommodating the sidebar and one without:



Put Content Stuff Here

 
Put Your SideBar Stuff Here

The second is a more basic method that simply shows or hides the sidebar div based on the setting of the variable:




:


 banner here 
   nav here 
     Wraps Content and Sidebar 
    
        
Thu, 11 Sep 2008 13:59:00 -0600
Today, Charlie Arehart hosted a meeting of the Adobe Online ColdFusion User's group. The CFUG usually meets weekly on Thursday at noon and/or 6pm and has a wide variety of topics.

I don't make it all of them due to other commitments, but I was excited to hear of today's topic: "ColdFusion Free Clinic". It was an open opportunity for members to toss out issues or problems and get feedback from other members. What an excellent way to learn about obstacles that others are facing and get information and alternative ideas to tackle these issues.

And... what a great way to be distracted by all the resource websites and get a glimpse of the vast capabilities of Coldfusion. TERRIFIC, and I hope that the CFUG has this at least once per quarter.

Thanks too, to other folks that attended, including Ray Camden, CF Jedi and Coder Extraordinaire, and Josh Adams, Adobe.