3. WHO AM I REALLY?
Tim, you can fi l l this out
Long time CF Developer
IDMI Systems for Insurance
Industry
Content Committee for
Cf.Objective() Minneapolis
May 12-15 2015
& CFSummit
NOT RAY CAMDEN!
NOT A Builder Power User
@timcunningham71
4. WHAT IS COLDFUSION BUILDER?
Editor for working with ColdFusion
Windows, Mac, and Linux
Yes, Linux
No, really, it runs on Linux
And by run I mean you can open it and
do stuff
Runs as either an Eclipse plugin or a
standalone app
5. $COST
You get it free with ColdFusion Enterprise (3
whole copies!!!!) and ColdFusion Standard (1
copy)
$299 otherwise
No idea what it costs in other countries,
probably a billion euros
You can do a 60 day trial
But wait! There is a free version too!
6. WHAT ABOUT SUBLIME? BRACKETS?
Sublime has a “decent” CF editor…
Brackets has a CFML plugin…
9. Remember, Ecl ipse is an IDE, not just an editor.
I t is deep. Complex.
Subl ime is a girl friend/boyfriend. Ecl ipse is a 20 year
marriage.
ECLIPSE IS AN IDE
11. Color Coding
FEATURES
Makes code readable
Pretty & Stuff
Code Assist
Build knows CF, HTML & JS
I can never remember the parameter order for replaceNoCase()
Note: Much improved for HTML and JavaScript
Version per project one can be CF9, one CF 11 etc.
Code Insight
All your codes r belong to us
Builder is watching you
12.
13.
14.
15. MORE FEATURES
C o d e Fo l di ng ( s o yo u c a n h i d e t h e i nte r n’ s c r a p )
Snippets
Outl ine View
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21. Database view
Log Viewer
Service Browser
Server Manager
EXTERNAL CRAP
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27. EVEN MORE STUFF
Refactoring (yes, this is kinda scary)
Debugger
28.
29.
30. EXTENSIBILITY
Extensions can add new features to CFB
They can add right cl ick options to the fi le browser, the RDS
area, the Outl ine, and even the fi le editor
They can present UI to the user
They can do stuf f in the background
They can run when a project is created
31. EXTENSIONS
Written in XML and ColdFusion
Extension sends information to your CFML
Your CFML can do stuf f , and then return output
Ful l system access since it is on your box
32.
33.
34.
35. PROJECT TEMPLATES
For Mobi le and Regular Projects
Kinda l ike extensions, but simpler
Basically – a skeleton for a project
http://www.raymondcamden.com/2014/5/5/Using-Project -
Templates-in-ColdFusion-Builder-3
http://www.raymondcamden.com/2014/5/1/A-Warning--The-
White-Screen-of-Death-with-ColdFusion-Builder-3
36. OH YEAH – MOBILE!
Templates for CFCLIENT
Integrates with PhoneGap Bui ld
On Device Debugging
Multi-Device Inspection
(Yes, I copied these from marketing. )
37. SOME TIPS
Projects are your friend
Views
Search can be a bit complex
Ecl ipse wi l l use a default viewer for unknown fi les
Project refresh
You can hide fi les
38. MORE TIPS
You can find other plugins
You can tweak JVM settings
In regards to the plugin, I tend to recommend folks use the standalone. If you don’t know what Eclipse plugin even means, then yes, do the standalone.
I liked having it standalone even though I’m ok with Eclipse. I especially liked it when I did a lot of Flex stuff cuz I liked having CFB separate from FB. That’s just me though.
Mention that we will share details about the free version at the end.
For Sublime, it is just color coding, no deep inspection / code insight (afaik)
Brackets – it is kinda crappy now. Doesn’t add CF as a file type. Doesn’t support script (afaik) – be gentle with this as it is OSS, but… be honest. It isn’t ready.
I didn’t center this. Powerpoint should have guidelines.
For fun, count the number of views there
Color coding: Folks know this, but you may want to point out that the INITIAL release of CFB3 had issues, and folks still see issues. Me, I don’t see many anymore. Good to remind folks that bitching on Twitter won’t fix shit. Slide at the end will share bug tracker URL.
Code assist: I like to remind people what this means: the editor knows tags, functions, and it knows it for CFML, HTML, and JS. Stress the updates to HTML, JS – to me this was what got me off of CFB2. And what got me back. (I didn’t test CSS but I’d assume it is much improved as well.)
Code Insight is where it knows about the stuff you did. So it knows you wrote a UDF called poo and will intelligently suggest poo along with poo’s arguments. I highly recommend making a UDF called poo to demo this.
Also mention that code assist is version aware, per project. So one project can be CF9, one CF11, etc.
Code Folding – remind folks that CFB will remember what you folded. I think. Verify. ;)
Snippets – tell folks they can change the folder. I change mine to Dropbox so I can use the same snippets everywhere. May want to show placeholders in snippets which I don’t think we documented anywhere. Oh! We do document the tokens:
https://wikidocs.adobe.com/wiki/display/coldfusionen/ColdFusion+Builder+Workbench+Basics#ColdFusionBuilderWorkbenchBasics-Snippetsview
Outline view: mention that folks can trim it down to a set of tags, which is not the default. I do that so my outline is a bit more clear
DB View: Two things here. First is the RDS view which shows you tables and columns and shit. That is cool. You can also view contents from here, but it is bugged. You may get an error about a file not existing if you use it. I wrote an extension just to get around this. However, I do like having the ability to browse my DB structure in my editor. That is cool.
Second part is being able to right click in a cfquery block and get help. I believe it even works in queryExecute. You get a little SQL editor with color coding and code insight. I WISH Adobe would fix the “right click in rds” editor to have this too. :\
Log Viewer – depeneding on time, mention that you can modify the output and add format rules, so like if a log says Poo, it can be highlighted in the log viewer.
Service Browser supports web services and CFCs.
Server Manager: Depending on time, you may want to remind folks about the ass ugly old AIR app we have too for managing servers. No one talks about it, but it lets you check N servers, compare settings, etc. It is TOTALLY off topic but…
Refactoring is scary, but CFB will tell you exactly what it is going to do.
Debugging is nice, but honestly, I rarely use it myself. Just doesn’t mesh well with how I do stuff. I typically will CFLOG the hell out of shit and watch stuff as I run. That’s not a failure of CFB’s debugger, just how I do stuff.
For UI, this can be html, cf, flash, etc
For project created, mention the example of making a new ColdBox project – the extension could ask you for stuff like DSN, etc, and actually set that in the code for you
XML portion defines the “hooks” into the editor, ie, “I want to run when you right click a table in RDS db view”
When CFB runs your extension, it sends all kind of data along, like, what you had right clicked on, etc
For output, it can be a popup window, or a View
These things run ON your developer box, so it can RW files, etc.
Mention that there are a bunch at RIAForge and you will be sharing that link at the end.
So… not sure of what would be the best example here. Maybe show the extension I released last time to fix the damn DB view.
Oh! Show varScoper. That one is cool. And queryParam scanner.
So… not sure of what would be the best example here. Maybe show the extension I released last time to fix the damn DB view.
Oh! Show varScoper. That one is cool. And queryParam scanner.
So… not sure of what would be the best example here. Maybe show the extension I released last time to fix the damn DB view.
Oh! Show varScoper. That one is cool. And queryParam scanner.
Unlike extensions, these aren’t interactive, but, are simpler to use though.
Maybe mention this
http://www.raymondcamden.com/2014/5/5/Using-Project-Templates-in-ColdFusion-Builder-3
DEFINITELY mention the white page bug: http://www.raymondcamden.com/2014/5/1/A-Warning--The-White-Screen-of-Death-with-ColdFusion-Builder-3
Technically not a bug but if it tripped me up it will others
Speaking for me – I still haven’t tried cfclient. You guys know I’m against CF doing stuff on the client side. That’s my honest opinion. At the same time, I have NOT tried cfclient yet. I want to. I want to give it a fair shake.
Tim – obviously – do what you want here. I’m not even including a demo slide. Up to you.
While CFB has a Files view, Projects are where you will want to spend your time
Views are those panels thing. Show the Views menu and how you can type to find something, like Log Viewer.
If you use .inc for includes in CF, show right click, Open With, to get CFB to open it the right way
Show setting that makes projects refresh with file system AND show a manual refresh. I’ve found I still need to do that some times
Show filter thing
Maybe mention my blog post showing “Search export” added to CFB
Eclipse can be a RAM hog. Note that I’ve not bothered to tweak my CFB3, so far it seems to perform just fine on a SSD
There is probably a good third bullet point you could add here
May want to mention that RIAForge isn’t as popular as it used to be, hell even I didn’t put my last one there, I used GitHub. But there are 66 extensions available there.