On my last post, Sami Hoda, pointed out the following:

How about an architectural comparison between Coldbox and other frameworks to give existing frameworks people perspective?

And I think it is a great idea to give reference on what ColdBox can do and how does it compare to other frameworks. However, I do need some help from you (Developers) to post exactly what you want to compare. I can ramble and ramble, but I would prefer to get a listing of what exactly needs comparison. So please post all your questions about this framework and I will start gathering the answers and posting them. Please try to be specific, give examples if possible, I have not used all the frameworks out there and I am no expert on any of them, except my own, :)

Here are some questions that I came up with:

• What are ColdBox plugins?
• What is the difference between a ColdBox event handler and a Model Glue controller?
• How does model calls differ from ColdBox than Model Glue?
• How are views in ColdBox different than in Model Glue?
• Why does ColdBox have Layouts and views, while Model Glue only has views?
• Coldbox can use UDF libraries, can other framework use them?
• Do I code in my config.xml like Model Glue/Mach II in Coldbox

These are just some. So please bombard me with what needs answering, I will try my best to conjure up excellent answers.

Have a good night.

I just realized that the bundle upload was incorrect. You should now be able to download the coldbox bundle. My apologies, the file escaped my mind!!

Enjoy

This new revision is now available for download. It includes the new JavaLoader cfc by Mark Mandel as a ColdBox plugin, a new sample application to show how to use the plugin, two fixes and mostly code cleanup.

The docs have been updated and so has the wiki. In the future I will be mostly updating the wiki docs, and posting the documentation there.

So please give this revision a try. You can use the auto-update feature on the Dashboard or just simply download it.

Download ColdBox 1.0.2

I also noticed that Mr Ray Camden release a new galleon forums. So I will be updating the framework version of it to include his changes. Hopefully, by the time I finish, he still has not release a new one!! You are a machine!!hehe.

Enjoy

I found these tutorials for Callisto on Eclipse that are very nice and can help any newbie setup eclipse and some great plugins and features.

Go to:

http://www.eclipse.org/callisto/java.php 

You will see them on the right hand side. They have tutorials on

• Installing Eclipse SDK 3.2
• Installing Features from the Callisto Discovery Site
• Installing and using the Eclipse Visual Editor
• Installing and Using the Eclipse Web Tools
• Installing BIRT (Reporting)

I just viewed them all and find them pretty great!!

 

I will be releasing a minor update this Friday for ColdBox. This is special, because it now includes a JavaLoader CFC plug-in and it works great. It remains true to the actual cfc, just a little bit simpler to use. I will be including a new sample application to demonstrate how to use the JavaLoader cfc and updating the Wiki.

It also includes a fix for the CustomException Handler, it now has the exceptionBean in the request collection for usage if needed. Code cleanup and removal of unused files that escaped my mind.

A good note about the CustomExceptionHandler receiving the ExceptionBean is that you can determine the type of error and determine what to do with it.

For example, all of the framework internals throw certain types of errors that can be handled by this exception handler. ( ExceptionBean.getType() ) One that I use very often is:

Framework.EventSyntaxInvalidException

You can use this if the event being passed via the url is incorrect.

Framework.EventHandlerNotRegisteredException

You can use this if the event that is tried to be executed is not a registered handler in the framework. You can then proceed to redirect or do the necessary steps to deal with this exception.

I will be posting this revision on Friday. I would also welcome your feedback, you can comment here on this Blog, or use the Forums or just email me at [email protected]

Enjoy

I just finished uploading some initial observations of the beta. Specifically one with the ApplicationStartHandler, where it was not firing automatically, just manually through the fwreinit action.

You can download the update, or you can use the auto-update feature of the dashboard.

So give that auto-update feature a spin and let me know if it blows up.

http://www.luismajano.com/projects/coldbox

Enjoy.

Thanks to ColdBox's easy i18n and resource bundle support (Paul Hastings and Ray Camden) the dashboard application is now in Spanish for all of the Latinos in the CF community.

Also, the samples gallery application is in Spanish.

I will be updating all the documentation to Spanish too, but it will take me some time. I really would appreciate your feedback on typos or sentences that really do not make any sense or if you want to help me translate, well,you are more than welcome.

You can download the ColdBox public beta 1.0.0 from here:

http://www.luismajano.com/projects/coldbox

Enjoy.

Well, I have been finally going at it more than usual to get this public beta out. You can find it now under my projects section by using the link below

http://www.luismajano.com/index.cfm?event=ehProjects.dspColdbox

So welcome to ColdBox.

Please use the trac site for issues and the wiki, which I have been putting a lot of content.

Use the forums for any discussions, and if you need to contact me use the contact button in the nav bar or email me at [email protected]

The disto includes several sample applications, some of which were not created by me. So please respect the authors licenses and rights.

Thanks and hope you enjoy.

Well, it is almost a week since my announcement of ColdBox and here are the updates on my progress.

• The dashboard is complete with the framework auto-update feature included
• i18N support via resource bundles is complete, you can now internationalize your applications via the config.xml and one simple getresource method. It takes more time to create the resource bundles than to actually enable multi-language support.
• Samples gallery application finished in both English and Spanish
• Quick Start Guide almost finished.

What is keeping me back from opening the source is the Quick Start Guide. I want to be able to provide some decent and abundant documentation, so from now on, that is the only task I am doing. This guide will give you an overview of the framework, how to use it, why use it, why not to use it, and more.

Now to the Dashboard preview. Below you can see some thumbnails of the sections of the Dashboard and brief descriptions:

Just a note that i took my ColdFusion 7 Certification friday at 4:00 PM.  Well, got an 88%!!  The studying payed off. My only material for studying was Ben Forta's Macromedia ColdFusion MX7 Certified Developer Study Guide which is a great study aid.  However, the best tool is actually using ColdFusion in you daily work.

 I can now upgrade my certification, Hooray!!