Trent’s Blog

For those of you not aware of what aedCFC is, it is a collection of cfc’s which dynamically build end user ready add/edit/delete, ideal for administration areas to websites. You’re asking yourself, “Well a bunch of frameworks build crud for me, why should I bother with this?”. The answer is simple, crud applications are for the developer, aedCFC is for the client. Also this isn’t a content management system, but a tool to very quickly build a very customized cms, specific to your needs, not some blogger’s needs

It’s been quite some time since the last aedCFC update, and quite frankly it is in desparate need of a major overhaul. Well thats exactly what its getting! With more of a MVC approach it will become more versatile and extendable. The new version will improve 10 fold, as now you will be able to easily add custom views, use specific image manipulation libraries(image.cfc, imagemagick, and cf8’s cfimage will be available by default), and several new options. All this is still possible by means of a simple xml model to build the aed. Stay tuned for the upcoming release!

Unfortunately I had to learn the hard way about the CF_SQL_DECIMAL option of cfqueryparam rounding my decimals off in SQL.  I had used it for inserting, then after a while noticed my decimal places were being rounded (3.50 rounds to 4.00) in the database.  Come to find out I needed to use CF_SQL_FLOAT instead.

Am I misunderstanding what a decimal is? Does anyone have a good explanation for this?  I understand that CF_SQL_FLOAT is the “proper” option, but never thought there was much difference.  If nothing else hopefully this helps someone or keeps them from making the same mistake, especially since money can be of type float

Well I’ve been playing with jQuery for a little while now and I really like its “query” like abilities to traverse the DOM. It has probably become my favorite javascript library. But I also discovered another project in the making.. CFJS, by Chris Jordan, a project working to implement many common CF functions using javascript. Not to be misled, many of the functions implemented can be helpful no matter what language you’re use to(like Array functions, List functions and decision functions). The idea behind it is to implement many of the most useful ColdFusion functions to ease the pain of js development.

I found that this really helps out when doing things like form validation. For instance.. I have an email field that I want to validate as an email(could be ssn, or telephone, etc,..). I would use the IsValid(’email’) function check with CF that it is an email address. Well now you would do the same with in javascript with CFJS. Maybe I want to validate a group of checkboxes to make sure there’s atleast two items selected,.. I could check with ListLen() to make sure there are two selected. Again, not to be mislead, you don’t have to be using CF or familiar with CF to use this library(nor do you have to use it with jQuery as there is a version that runs independently).

There’s a lot of potential with the jQuery library as well as the CFJS extension. Developers no longer need to feel like they’re tied down with spry when using JS and CF, there are other great options out there thanks to projects like this!

I’ve been working for a while on the aedCFC with the optional tree view.  This uses an old database technique described on sitepoint.com .. however the tree.cfc I created was very basic as in only adding, deleting, and printing nodes which sortof holds back the possibility to making this a real fun, dynamic cfc with drag and drop for tree nodes(soon to come to the aedCFC).  Finally I have added more to this tree functionality by successfully creating a function to move nodes(including child nodes) in the tree.cfc.  I dont have any documentation just yet,.. but you can see its pretty straight forward to use.  In the download there is an index.cfm  which is  a  small form controller for the treecfc.  All of the sql is basic so it is pretty likely it will work on most db’s(tested on mysql and mssql).  DB table fields are specified in the comments.  Maybe I will get some time to whip up some docs on this little tool.
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Finally many of the features we have been working towards made it in the aedCFC. Our long time debated XML config file finally made it in as an option(mainly for backwards compatibility). The biggest downfall to the config before was the function calls with many parameters. I’ve read a few other postings on the great XML config debate and I come to the conclusion that the aed wasnt in the situation where XML would kill it. The XML may slow it down a little,.. but is it enough to really matter?

Ok, so I am happy with the popularity? of the aedCFC we’ve posted on riaforge.org. I am also happy with the progress we’ve made with it over the past few months. Mr. Belcher and I both agree that we need to change the config file some to make the configuration a more clearcut process. I would say faster.. but it only takes about 3-4 minutes to set up a new add/edit/delete with aedCFC. An xml config??
Probably the most remarkable improvement in my opinion is the addition of the ‘tree’ view to allow add/edit/delete of hierarchial structure( menus, subcategories, etc..). Shad has an example on his site. Thoughts?..Anyone?