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My Experience with Coldfusion Builder


Thread posted 08/21/09 by Raghuram coldfusion last edited 08/24/09
9,036 views, 1 comments.

Title
My Experience with Coldfusion Builder

Content

Hi cf friends,

Being a coldfusion developer for the last 2 years, my style of debugging is more like cfdump, cfabort and enable the debugging mode all the times.

Coldfusion builder, i guess this is the second IDE which developed for the coldfusion developers specifically. First one is CFEclipse.

2weeks back, installed Coldfusion Builder and started using/looking into the features how exactly useful in local,remote server environments for coding, ftp, rds, debugging,  cfc creation, extensions,cfnature and ORM etc etc...

So instead of clubbing all the features all together, i wanna make some points.

1. CFBuilder :: Coding
This IDE has common features like content suggest, auto tag closing,highlighting matched content, expand/collapse tag hierarchy and syntax check/suggestion are some common features.
 while Coding.
a.Content suggest has intelligence that it will not show the already selected/written attributes. It means, if name   attribute for cfquery tag is already existing, it will show remaining attributes other than name.

b. As soon as you type datasource=, it will show the datasources available in the system.
   Its same with the object creation for particular component. with in createObject function it will show the all the cfc path to select. so no need of worrying about the correct name for datasource and correct path for cfc.
click on the cfc path or function, it will take you to that cfc.
Sounds good right!

c. Refactoring: If we want to change function name in a application, we used to search for all the functions and replace manually in dreamweaver. Now this IDE will identify which is function/variable, based on our selection it will modify particular functions/variables in the application.So it will reduce the time/risk in changing function/variable/object names.

2. CFBuilder :: Dealing with servers

a. Just add a server to cfbuilder by providing host name, port number(8300 for cf8/8500 for cf9), cfadmin login credentials document/web root and server root(JRun path).
With this setup,
we can view the server log in cfbuilder server console it self.
we can manage(start/stop/restart/refresh) server right from your IDE.
(No need of going to services to restart server. If you have multi servers like apache and coldfusion, you have to restart both.That case it is one click away to restart both the server in cfbuilder.)
we can check the errors while debugging.

b.we can connect to RDS just like the above setup.

3. CFBuilder :: FTP

cfbuilder will support FTP and SFTP connections.
so we can synchronize our coldfusion project with the remote code by providing host details and mapping path.

4. CFBuilder :: Debugging

a.Local Debugging:

create project with the code which you have in local, by providing web root/context root,port number etc..
Add the server to that project, which we have already added to cfbuilder. Open the file which you want to debug.

Keep breakpoints, where you want to stop the flow for debugging. Run the application.

As soon as the flow comes to break point, it will stop at the break point and you can view the variable,scope variables(request,session,application...)/structure/object holing values and you can verify the execution flow by clicking on next.

For viewing variable holding values, you have to select window > show view >Debug > variable etc...

Ensure that you enabled line debugging(debugging and settings > debugging) in coldfusion administrator before start debugging.
After enabling you have to refresh the server for taking new changes(enabling line debugging) in server settings.(in cfbuilder server wizard,select the server and right click to refresh. coool right!)

a.Remote Debugging:
create project,provide remote path,add remote server and start debugging.

while adding server, based on your ip address/host name it will identify the remote server and shows the status as remote in server wizard.

5. CFBuilder :: CFC creation

cfc creation is very simple with cfbuilder.
select the table for which you want to create cfc through RDS wizard and right click on it.
you will find create cfc option, just click it.
Its done.
Tell you boss that, i have created 10 cfc's in 1 minute :)

6. CFBuilder :: Extensions
An year back, for creating sample application(hello world and login module) in model-glue, it has taken 2 days for me.

cfbuilder has model-glue extension. The procedure is very simple(of course, its the purpose of extension).
Go to navigator. Right click for project creation. provide project location and select the extension(enable check box).
click on finish.
you are done with model-glue hello world application.

if you specify application root while creating project, it will create the code accordingly. No worries :)
Hello coldfusion world...Its beautiful..........I like it...why because i struggled for that by downloading, copying, changing path etc etc.

some of the other extensions i found are cfparam checking etc...(I will update you after a try)

you got hello world application.
 How intelligent it is :)

7. CFBuilder :: CFNature
suppose that you have created a java project and you want to change it as coldfusion project.
Just right click on your project in navigator window and select CFNature.
Done. your project got changed to coldfusion project.
If you are not believing, check the project icon before and after applying CFNature.

Funny thing happened with me is like, i used this option and checked all the files. I found no java file changed into cfml. Later i came to know that, the properties of the project and the icon will change.
I shared this with my friend sadashiv, who is sitting next to me.
Now a days he is teasing me by calling "Raghuram Nature".


8. CFBuilder :: ORM
----------------------------------------------------------
I need to use this option ........will update very soon.
----------------------------------------------------------
Problems i faced during set up and usage are:

If you face any jvm error: Need to update jvm.config file with the path specified in coldfusion admin line debugging screen.
I guess,if you are using cf9, this problem will not come.

while using ftp,restarting servers through cfbuilder, have some patience. Don't click again and again until it hangs :)

cfbuilder has to update the features in UI development area like browser compatible check,designer view,drag n drop controls, UI templates like dreamweaver.

Thanks for reading my experience with cfbuilder.

If you have not installed yet, here are links for the free download:

CFBuilder installation is available at : http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?e=labs_coldfusionbuilder

And how to use help pdf file at :http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ColdFusionBuilder/Using/cfbuilder_beta_help.pdf

Please send your suggestions to raghuramgreddy@gmail.com to make this blog worthy.

Happy coding,debugging.

Comments

posted 10/18/10 by Raghuram coldfusion | Report Abuse

share your exp. on ColdFusion builder with me here