Spreadsheets are key to just about all businesses and organizations, and ColdFusion developers have long sought a way to access and manipulate spreadsheet data programmatically. ![]() There is much more to this "ColdFusion as a Service" functionality, including lots more services exposed, and a sophisticated security model.īut the bottom line is that ColdFusion is now poised to become even more valuable to Flex and AIR developers, and now even of value to developers using other platforms and languages. To actually send the mail all you'd need is to invoke the following (possibly when a Send button is clicked): cfMail.execute() The above code creates an instance of the Mail object and names it "cfMail", and sets to, from, subject, etc., with the values of other Flex objects. For example, to send an e-mail you could use the following: Simply include the SWC in your Flash Builder project, define the ColdFusion name space like this: Īnd you'll have access to CFML tags within your Flex project. And the Flex developer can include a ColdFusion SWC file exposing ActionScript classes and MXML tags via simple abstracted AMF calls. NET, and Java developers can invoke ColdFusion built-in Web Services, pass in data, and get back results. Well, with the upcoming ColdFusion 9, the answer to all of these questions is yes, these are all doable! In ColdFusion 9 we're exposing lots of those integrated ColdFusion services via AMF (Flash Remoting) and SOAP (Web Services). So why couldn't a Flex developer just invoke directly, passing it name=value pairs so it can generate an e-mail? In other words, code is being written on the server just to be able to pass data from Flex on the client to the tag. For ColdFusion developers this means creating a ColdFusion Component which accepts data from a Flex application (likely via an AMF call) and then passes that same data to a tag. NET code, and I do mean lots and lots)? What about the Java developer who needs to easily manipulate spreadsheet files without tinkering with low level libraries?Īnd while we're at it, what about the Flex developer who needs to generate an e-mail message? Flex (well, Flash) has no built in SMTP libraries, and so Flex developers who need to programmatically generate e-mail messages do so by writing code on the server. NET developer needed to access Microsoft Exchange, why couldn't she use ColdFusion's brilliant Exchange tags (rather than having to write lots and lots of. While most of us focus on CFML the language, the truth is that the bulk of ColdFusion, the majority of what gets installed, is not the language but the extensive array of integrated services, services that are exposed to ColdFusion via CFML tags and functions.īut what if these services could be accessed outside of ColdFusion? If a PHP developer in the next cube over needed to merge PDF files, why couldn't he invoke ColdFusion's PDF manipulation services? If a. The same is true for, ,, support for SOAP and Web Services, XMPP and JMS integration, and so much more. We use tags like and expect charts to be generated and displayed, without every really paying attention to the fact that an entire Java based charting engine is built in and actually doing the heavy lifting. Have you ever stopped to think about just how much functionality is baked into ColdFusion? We use to work with databases, allowing for highly flexible and dynamic SQL as well as query caching and more, and this is powered by a sophisticated internal engine. ColdFusion Functionality Exposed As Services But, in this article I’d like to introduce you to some of what’s new and exciting in ColdFusion 9. In fact, to cover all of ColdFusion 9 you’d need a book (or perhaps 3 books!). This new ColdFusion boasts an impressive array of new and enhanced features, all intended to improve productivity for developers, IT administrators, and business decision makers alike. This is how innovative features like reporting and event gateways and server monitoring become a reality.Īnd ColdFusion 9 is no exception. ![]() In fact, in planning each new version, the ColdFusion product team meets with numerous customers and partners to ascertain exactly how the product is used, so as to be able to focus on improvements that have real value for users. For close to a decade and a half, ColdFusion has constantly raised the application development productivity bar with each new release.
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