Ben Forta | Blog

Blog posts tagged Tips (Dreamweaver)

Title says it all, the Dreamweaver team blog is online.

Title says it all. See the Studio 8 page for more details. And at 8:00 am on 8/8, what an incredible coincidence. ;-)

A colleague just forwarded me a link to a page describing WebAssist Database Search, a Dreamweaver extension which generates rather impressive looking search and drill-down interface code against databases of your choice. Code is generated for ColdFusion, ASP, and PHP (as the code supports CF5 or later I am assuming that it does not generate CFCs which is a bit of a bummer). I've not played with this one myself yet, but considering just how many of the apps I run into that are database search front-ends, this one could be well worth $150.

ColdFusion creates a folder named /cfide/installers under the ColdFusion web root. This folder contains two files, one is the ColdFusion Report Builder installer, and the other is Macromedia Extension file (MXP) used to install the ColdFusion MX 7 extensions for Dreamweaver MX 2004.

If you are installing ColdFusion MX 7 on a shared development server, you'll want to run these two installers from each developer workstation.

Dreamweaver supports the creation and use of ColdFusion Recordsets (essentially tags), listing returned columns as bindings which can subsequently be used in output code. Dreamweaver has been able to do this for a while, generating a single .cfm page containing both the query and the output code. One of the Blackstone Dreamweaver extensions enhances this functionality so that generated code adheres to best-practices guidelines while retaining the simplicity inherent in the feature. The extension optionally changes the generated code so that Dreamweaver creates a ColdFusion Component containing a method that returns the query, output code that uses to invoke the CFC method, and still populates the bindings properly. This extension will make Dreamweaver Recordset functionality useful to those of us who have shied away from it in the past, and will also teach and demonstrate better coding practices to those that do rely on this functionality already.

ColdFusion debug output is displayed at the bottom of the generated page, right? Well, not necessarily. Ever since ColdFusion MX, this output has also been available in a separate window, as well as in the results panel in Dreamweaver (in a really nice tree control). But, as many Dreamweaver users know, clicking the debug button might generate no debug output at all, because the relevant IP address may not have been defined in the ColdFusion Administrator. One of the Blackstone Dreamweaver extensions solves this problem, cleanly and transparently, so that debug output will be generated when the debug button is clicked without having to manually set any IP address.

Need to add a datasource but don't have access to the ColdFusion Administrator? One of the Blackstone extensions to Dreamweaver solves this problem for you. Click the + button above the list of datasources and you'll be prompted for all the details needed to define a datasource, details which Dreamweaver will then submit to ColdFusion creating the datasource on the server (without ever having to open the ColdFusion Administrator). This one will make life easier for lots of users.

Blackstone will ship with Dreamweaver extensions designed to simplify ColdFusion application development (especially for beginners, but some useful for all developers). One that I was just using is a toggle inserted into the Application panel that changes the list of displayed CFCs, toggle one way to show all CFCs and toggle the other way to see just the ones in your application. My server-wide CFC list has grown to the point that this list was too long to be useful, and this little enhancement is much appreciated.

DRK7 is available, see http://www.macromedia.com/software/drk/productinfo/product_overview/volume7/. This edition includes content for ColdFusion, Dreamweaver, Flash, and more.

A new six-part ColdFusion training series has been posted to http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/coldfusion/articles/rd_cf.html. These Flash based videos start with absolute basics, and move up to data driven pages, and even using ColdFusion Components. If you are new to ColdFusion, or have yet to work with CFC's, these are highly recommended. (FYI: these tutorials were created using Macromedia RoboDemo).