CFWACK 8 Volume 1 Shipping

I'll see if I can figure out the category tree thing. Thanks for the example. Verity seems to me to be different beast than databases. Verity is included with CF. The CF documentation, however poorly, does make it seem like Verity is something that is part of the CF package. Therefore, it seems that it is Adobe/Macromedia/Allaire's responsibility to provide documentation that actually covers using the available features in the CF package. The documentation concerning zones and custom fields is especially poor since it references files that don't exist or exist in multiple locations. How are you supposed to figure that out? If CF bundled the MSSQL Managment Studio I would expect that the provided documentation would cover how to properly use the bundled software. Fortunately, SQL Studio comes with extensive, freely available and complete help files.

@Verity Docs: Ian, I'm sorry. I didn't realize Verity had locked this stuff down. Ben - can you please speak to someone who works with Verity at Adobe to see if we can get access to those docs? @Categories: You do not need a separate collection per

Actually you can't read that information at Verity's site. I have been to the new owner's website and everything customer service / documentation related is under lock and key unless you have a Verity license. I have read and reread the docs about categories and category trees and maybe I'm just dense. I have a tree starting at root that contains books, gifts, apparel, etc. Each of these subcategories can contain one or more subcategories and so on. Do I need to create a separate collection for each possible branch on this tree? How do the individual categories used in the cfindex tag relate to the category tree path? The docs really aren't that helpful (or I'm just not running on enough sleep). If CF is going to include these features then it is up to the company that owns CF to provide functional documentation, not the original vendor.

Ian - I will give you that - there should be more docs on the zones and fields. You _can_ read this at Verity's site though. That's less CF and more Verity. So the issue is that there isn't anything specific for CF in the docs. As for categories - it doesn't matter. It isn't any differnet for databases. That's kind of the point. You assign the categories yourself. So there is no need for a separate example just for database driven content. It doesn't really matter _what_ the source is.

Ben and Ray bobbleheads? Hummm.

Thanks Ben - I'll probably just buy all 3 of them. Maybe you guys can sell them like publishing companies push video games! I can see the add now - "Get the all new CF8 WACK Limited Collectors Edition Box Set - Includes Ray Camden and Ben Forta action figures with Adobe MAX toy stage along with the making of CFWACK DVD. Order today and get the ColdFusion revisionist history booklet from SysCon. (while supplies last *toy stage speaking podium not included) LOL

Let me give a couple of examples: The documentation says that to create custom fields you need to edit the style.ufl file. Unfortunately there is more than one. Which to edit? The docs also say that zones have to be defined before fields can be created and that they can be created in xml, word and other "popular word processing programs" and html files. Unfortunately, that is as far as the docs go. No explanation of how to create zones in html and no examples of how (if possible) to create zones in spreadsheets. The docs also mention that to create zones you need to edit the style.zon file which doesn't actually exist on my system. While trying to create custom fields in a spreadsheet we found that verity dumps everything into one single field so your results are a mess. I agree that the docs do get into spelling suggestions and categories but the category documentation seems to only address physical documents and not database product categories.

Andy, check the TOC I linked to above. My Ajax chapter in Volume 1 is very basic. Ray's Ajax chapter in Volume 2 picks up where mine leaves off and is far more sophisticated and in depth. --- Ben

The reason the CF8 docs didn't change from CF7 when it coems to Verity is that nothing changed. I have to disagree with you - the docs do cover stuff beyond the basics - like categories, custom fields, and spelling suggestions. As for the WACK - information on this _may_ get in. It is a bit hard to cover -everything- out there. ;)

Ben, What are the other two volumes like? I participated in the private beta for Scorpio and got pretty good with the Exchange features and I already knew flash forms. What I'm working on now is gaining proficiency with AJAX features. BTW - thanks for posting the AJAX file tree - it helped me out quite a bit. So - where should I go with this - Volume 2? Thanks, Andy Sandefer

Is there going to be anything that gives verity some decent documentation for things like category trees, custom fields and zones? The Adobe docs (which are just a direct copy of the lousy Macromedia MX7 docs) are really poor as soon as you get beyond the most basic implementation. For something that is always listed as a great bargain in CF, the documentation makes implementation very difficult.

done.

Well, we can agree to disagree about where Adobe's responsibilities lies in this area. I would encourage you though to file a bug report to ask Adobe to add more docs on this and to specifically point out the bad file references. You can file a bug report here: www.adobe.com/go/wish

Why does adobe press say that the book is not for sale? http://www.adobepress.com/bookstore/product.asp?isbn=032151548X

Ben or Ray... which volume covers Flex2-3 integration?

Hmmm... Maybe it's shipping, but actually as of today, no one has the books, neither Adobe Press nor Amazon nor BN or whoever else. What's the actual availability date for the 1st book?

Ian & Ray, I have not used CF 8 much, but I will say that there is very little to "disagree" about regarding Ian's statement. Adobe packages Verity functionality directly within CF. It's part of the feature list, there's an entire CF framework built around it, and, in most instances of the documentation, it's a completely seamless addition to the CF API. I don't see how you can possibly decide that Adobe's responsibility ends where the documentation is weak on this one.

...Amazon e-mailed and said the release date on CFWack 8 Volume 1 has been pushed back to late November. This will be one of our bibles for the next couple of years, so I know I want it to be READY... ...but I'd like some insight to when the reference will be on our hands as I'm holding off on certain projects. Thanks guys! CF8 is great! Cory

I'm also having trouble ordering. Amazon wasn't able to deliver it either. What's the hold up?

Why has the Amazon date been pushed again if you say it's shipping. Delivery estimate: December 3, 2007 - December 11, 2007 December?

Well it IS shipping, I got mine today... Wonder what the deal is with Amazon et al.

I ordered it from bookpool.com, from what I see they still have it in stock now.

Where did you order yours from?

Amazon were quoting December on my order. I stuck with it anyway and it shipped last week, some dodgy code perhaps. The good news is that Amazon is shipping Volume 1.

Don't know what's up with Amazon either. Their shipping estimation is crazy. I ordered it from them when I saw this post and figured I'd be getting it soon. Checked my order on Amazon a few days later expecting it might ship already and it was claiming middle of Nov to ship. So i promptly cancelled my order and got it from Barnes & Noble online store over the weekend. It's already shipped and on its way to me.

I ordered this from amazon it took almost a month to ship to Vancouver I was so annoyed but it was worth it in the end http://www.seekbc.ca

We got it shipped last week, didn't take long to arrive. Already taken a look through the first few chapters, and it's looking pretty good.

Again, and this is something we may just have to disagree with, I would not call the CF docs on Verity meager. You can definitely make great use of Verity based on what you get from the CF side. The face that Verity the company is being stingy with the extended docs is something that is a bit out of Adobe's control. If you do decide to go with Lucene, I'd recommend my Seeker project (http://seeker.riaforge.org). It makes CF/Lucene integration easy.

This goes back to Ian's comments from 9/11/07. Has anyone actually tried to go beyond the meager offerings on coldfusion docs and find comprehensive documentation on Verity K2? It is absurd. It's like the product/company never really existed. I'm seeing docs from Oracle and Sybase, but nothing beyond a brief PDF on operators and other query related matters. Should I bother learning this stuff or is it totally dead? Just skip to lucene/solr?