Ok, one of the most common question I've been asked over the past couple of years is "When's the next version of qForms coming out?" Well, I still don't have a definitive answer for that, but I am working on it in my free time. Since I know that isn't very helpful, one thing I thought might be helpful is put up a working demo. I'm wrapping up the demo and it should be posted in the next 24 hours, so be sure to check back soon!
Have you ever wanted to turn off Internet Explorer's "auto-complete" feature for a specific form field? Well, there's a lesser known, IE-specific, attribute named "autocomplete" for the <input> tag which will disable the auto-complete drop down box from appearing. Why would you want to do that, well there's lots of reasons. Maybe your creating a site geared towards public computers that allow a user logon; in that case, you don't want user names appearing in the autocomplete box.
To disable the auto-complete feature, just add the "autocomplete" attribute to your form field tags with the value of "off". For example:
<input type="text" name="userId" autocomplete="off" />
Here's a nice little Mozilla/Firefox tip:
Mozilla has a nice way to view files that are in both your memory and file cache. In the Address Bar, type - about:cache. This will take you to a page that allows you to view a summary of your browser cache and also will allow you to browse the files stored in the cache.
Macromedia official released some public information on Royale this morning. The new official name is "Macromedia Flex." There's a brief online presention done in Breeze which you can view—it gives an overview of the product, how to use it and where it fits in.
They've also released a "white paper" and several other articles at the Macromedia Flex home page.
For more information, see the official press release.
Macromedia announces today they've formally applied for membership to ECMA International. This is the organization that oversees ECMAScript (ECMA-262 and ISO/IEC 16262)—which is widely referred to as JavaScript (Microsoft JScript, Macromedia ActionScript, etc.)
For more information, see the official press release.
Matt Liotta brought up an interesting point about CFC in CFMX. It's been discovered that the OUTPUT attribute in the <CFFUNCTION> tag, when used to declare a method in a CFC, actually operates as a "tri-state boolean" value—meaning the default value does something different than the behavior if either true or false is specified.
In a nutshell, if you leave the OUTPUT attribute out, the code is processed just like any other CFML is—you need <CFOUTPUT> tags surrounding any variables you want processed and white space is generated as normal. However, if true is passed to the OUTPUT attribute, than all code inside the <CFFUNCTION> tag is implicitly invoked inside a <CFOUTPUT> tag. Lastly, if false is specified as the value for the OUTPUT attribute, than everything inside the <CFFUNCTION> tag is implicitly invoked inside of a <CFSILENT> tag—meaning nothing is outputted.
Here's a some sample code that illustrates the differences. This code is courtesy of Barney Boisvert from the CFCDev Mailing List:
It's recently come to my attention that some of my work is has been getting some mention in various forms of press as of late. The last issue of the ColdFusion Developer's Journal (Volume: 05 Issue: 10) has the second part of a two part article which is based upon the DTS article I posted a while back on PengoWorks.com.
Also, much to my surprise I found mention of my qForms JSAPI in a couple of books while browsing the bookstore the other day. The following books mention me:
Title: Reality ColdFusion: Intranets and Content Management
Author(s): Ben Forta
ISBN: 0321124146
Publisher: Macromedia Press
Ok, I've been migrating a lot of stuff from older version of ColdFusion (that were based on either C or C++) to ColdFusion MX v6.1 (which is based on Java.) I've run into several anomalies, which I thought I'd document here.
The <cfdirectory> tag no longer returns the ./.. rows in the query. I had several applications that used <cfdirectory> and I was manually filtering out these entries by starting on the third row of the queryset. Obviously, this caused problems in the CFMX v6.1, since those records no longer exist.
Christian Cantrell recently blogged on the issue of server-side and client-side validation in entry "Validation - Client or Server-side?." While he doesn't mention qForms specifically in his writings, many people commented on the usefulness of qForms and how it makes implemented the validation a cinch. Anyway, it's always good to read others viewpoints on my projects—especially when some of the comments come from people I respect. :)
Well, Steve Nelson's said what I've been thinking for a long time: Macromedia should buy qForms. I really probably out to learn the Dreamweaver API so that I can build a qForms add-on for it. (PS - Thanks to Michael Brunt for passing on the link to me.)
Now, if I can only get my girlfriend to understand that I'm "wicked smart"... :)
Well, I think this link deserves it's own blog entry. Macromedia has (finally) released ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML) History list. This documentation shows what features are available starting with ColdFusion v4.01. If you are ever coding projects for older versions of CF, than this is a must download. Here's a quote from their web site:
As the ColdFusion Server product has grown since its inception, the ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML) has adapted to meet those changing needs. This TechNote provides a downloadable file providing the details of those changes to the language, beginning with ColdFusion 4.0.1 and continuing through the currently released version.
I worked on a project several months ago where this documentation would have really come in handy. I had lots of problems trying to figure out when certain attributes, tags and functions where introduced. The client was running CF v4.01. I had a manual handy for CF v4.0, but I knew there were substantial updates to the language for v4.01. Since I was doing development on a CFMX box, this made trying to figure out what was code safe for v4.01 very tricky. This document would have saved me tens of hours at the start of my project.
As I stated yesterday, I smelled some announcements coming from Macromedia today. Macromedia released ColdFusion MX v6.1 today. This is a free upgrade to existing ColdFusion MX users. Although listed as a minor revision, as almost all ColdFusion minor releases, it includes some significant changes and improvements. Check out the ColdFusion MX v6.1 FAQ for an overview. I recommend downloading the upgrade and testing it out as soon as you can.
Also, with the launch of the new version of CFMX, Macromedia has released a number of new ColdFusion Development Center articles. Below is a list of articles that introduce concepts new to CFMX v6.1.
I smell an upcoming announcement from the folks at Macromedia very soon... I wonder what it could be? :)
Mozilla v1.5 (Alpha) was just announced. There's a couple of new features, but the biggest news to me was that they've had to delay the release of Firebird. According the official Mozilla Roadmap:
It's clear now that we will not be able to switch to Mozilla Firebird by the Mozilla 1.5 final milestone. Instead, we expect Mozilla 1.5 to coincide with Mozilla Firebird 0.7. But we intend to implement the new application architecture in the next several milestones, till most of the community is won over to the new apps.
First off, I'm not on the RedSky beta—I knew I wouldn't really have any time to "test" the product, so I didn't bother signing up for the beta. Anyway, I heard via the ol' grapevine that RedSky went "gold" today. I have no idea how reliable the person I heard this from is, but we'll find out in a couple of days how accurate this "rumor" is.