Ben Forta

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Installing ColdFusion 8 Eclipse Extensions

The ColdFusion extensions for Eclipse include RDS panels, a Services Browser panel, a CF Log Viewer, RDS support, help, wizards, and of course the interactive debugger. These extensions are available for download along with ColdFusion 8 and will be distributed with the product when it ships.
To install the Eclipse extensions, do the following:

  1. Start up Eclipse (3.1 or 3.2).
  2. Select Help->Software Updates->Find And Install.
  3. Select “Search For New Features To Install”.
  4. Click the “New Archived Site” button.
  5. Brows to select the extensions ZIP file that you downloaded.
  6. Check the feature, and then Finish the installation.
  7. You’ll be prompted to restart Eclipse.

Once installed you’ll have access to all of the extensions. The Wizards are available under File->New->Other. To display the ColdFusion tabs go to Window->Show View->Other, the tabs will be listed under “ColdFusion”, select each tab to show it. You only need to do this once, the next time you start Eclipse the settings will be remembered and the tabs displayed.

18 responses to “Installing ColdFusion 8 Eclipse Extensions”

  1. Adam Cameron Avatar
    Adam Cameron

    Hi Ben.
    Before I pants-around installing this… does it also do syntax highlighting and code completion and all that sort of carry-on? Basically, is it a replacement for CFEclipse, plus that other stuff you mention?
    —
    Adam

    Reply
  2. Jake Munson Avatar
    Jake Munson

    It’s not a replacement for CFEclipse, it works in harmony with it. But I too am curious if the plugins contain the CF 8 docs (tag insight)

    Reply
  3. Ben Forta Avatar
    Ben Forta

    No, you’ll want to use this in conjunction with CFEclipse. It does add extensive CFML helps and docs, but the language awareness is still CFEclipse.
    — Ben

    Reply
  4. Sam Curren Avatar
    Sam Curren

    Will the new extentions work with CF7 for RDS? There never was an ‘actual’ release of the CF7 RDS plugin for Eclipse.

    Reply
  5. Will B. Avatar
    Will B.

    I’m running my CF8 in a virtual machine, but the tools all seem to force you to use localhost. Is there a way around this? I’m really excited about them, but I seem unable to use them.

    Reply
  6. Ben Forta Avatar
    Ben Forta

    Sam, they should, as I don’t believe RDS changed.
    Will, localhost is indeed the default, but you can change that in the RDS setting to point o any address or server.
    — Ben

    Reply
  7. Ashleigh Avatar
    Ashleigh

    I’m running my CF8 in a virtual machine, but the tools all seem to force you to use localhost. TPlay Is there a way around this? Theodore Plakadopoulos I’m really excited about them, basketball but I seem unable to use them.

    Reply
  8. Daniel Budde II Avatar
    Daniel Budde II

    Hello Ben,
    I followed your example on how to install the CF8 extensions, but i have noticed that when I type in a cfdiv tag so far, that it does not recognize the tag or its attributes. Is it not supposed to recognize it?

    Reply
  9. etienne Avatar
    etienne

    It seems that the cf8 extensions are not currently working with eclipse.
    When I follow the instructions above, Eclipse (3.2.2) wont load the new features. I’ve posted a more complete description of the problem here:
    http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=2&threadid=1289043&CFID=4391525&CFTOKEN=433c07525e7fb8b3-1F135251-0AAA-B84E-748A1A6A83958E39&jsessionid=121112b35ac92475701e
    Have I done something wrong or is this extension corrupted?

    Reply
  10. JOSH Avatar
    JOSH

    The new Eclipse plugin for CF8 is burried in the Flex 2 download. Im running Eclipse 3.3, and for whatever reason the Flex install for the plugin kept saying It needed Eclipse 3.1 or greater…. Which I obviously have.
    for the plugin, you can use the archive method within Eclipse as Ben described above, and point it to the following file (different from what everyone is saying):
    > Adobe Flex Builder 2.0.1 > Coldfusion Extensions for Flex Builder > CF_FB_Extensions.zip
    Hope this helps….

    Reply
  11. John Ceci Avatar
    John Ceci

    Can someone point me to where I can find E3.2? All I can get from the Eclipse site is 3.3 which doesn’t work

    Reply
  12. Richard Davies Avatar
    Richard Davies

    Why isn’t the plugin hosted somewhere on adobe.com? That way Eclipse can check for updates…

    Reply
  13. Ray Chmapagne Avatar
    Ray Chmapagne

    I agree with Mr. Davies here – why does Adobe make this so difficult for us? An update site would be ideal…instead we have to hunt around Google looking through blogs, some with outdated info, some with just plain wrong info, etc. Please Adobe, help us out!

    Reply
  14. Ben Forta Avatar
    Ben Forta

    Ray, I understand that a site is in the works. But, yes, I agree, it is taking too long.
    — Ben

    Reply
  15. Ray Chmapagne Avatar
    Ray Chmapagne

    Excellent. At least it’s in the works!

    Reply
  16. Adam Tuttle Avatar
    Adam Tuttle

    Any word yet on when we can expect the update site to be available?

    Reply
  17. Howard Ross Avatar
    Howard Ross

    RDS works for me in Dremweaver but it can not connect in Eclipse. I have re-installed eclipse, the CF8 extension, IIS and Coldfusion but none of that has helped. Any suggestions?

    Reply
  18. Tim Rubel Avatar
    Tim Rubel

    Ben,
    I have never had such a hard time using RDS, now using CF8 I am trying to play around and learn Flex. In doing so, I have not been able to sent up RDS. I have enabled RDS and I continue to get an error. This evening the error I’m getting is "Unable to contact the RDS Sever <myservername> "
    Do you have any suggestions?
    I have tried using dreamweaver, flex and cf report builder and no success.

    Reply

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