ColdFusion on Wheels Blog

Wheels Presentation at MDCFUG Tonight

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:00:00 -0800

Mike Henke presented about Wheels tonight at the Maryland ColdFusion User's Group. He gave an overview of how Wheels and MVC frameworks work and demonstrated some code examples.

Here are the slides. You can also view a full screen version with speaker's notes.

Thanks Mike for your efforts to get the word out there!

The Release Candidate Is Out: Wheels 1.0 RC1

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:19:00 -0800

We've been talking about getting to 1.0 for quite some time now, and the first release candidate is here.

Download ColdFusion on Wheels 1.0 RC1

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Screencasts Are Back

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 05:18:00 -0800

This blog has been a little quiet lately, but believe me that plenty has been going on behind the scenes.

We've released a new section on our site for Screencasts. I've started a series on building a fake social networking site, and the first 2 episodes are there:

The aim of the series is to go through a real world application and cover different topics as they are appropriate.

There are plenty more episodes and standalone screencasts in the works, so be sure to subscribe via RSS or iTunes.

Welcome James Gibson to the Core Team

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 13:21:00 -0800

We're happy to announce the addition of James Gibson to the Wheels core team. The core team leads the development and community efforts of the framework.

James has been actively submitting patches to the Google Code site for a while now. He finds a problem and immediately gets to work on fixing it himself. That's a guy that we need on the team!

Please join me in congratulating James. We all look forward to our project getting that much better with him on board.

Released Today: ColdFusion on Wheels 0.9.4

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 06:45:00 -0800

We've just released ColdFusion on Wheels version 0.9.4 today on CFWheels.org. Thanks to Per Djurner, Tony Petruzzi, and James Gibson for contributing new features and improving the stability of the framework. And thanks to the community for feedback and supporting our efforts. Our presence is really starting to grow.

Improvements

There is a new labelPlacement argument on all form helpers that gives you more control over the label tag.
The error email now includes more information and also uses the global defaults you have set on sendEmail().
When linking you can now leave out the controller and action arguments and the link will point to the current page.
The rendering functions now accept a returnAs argument that you can set to "string" when you want to return the result for more processing instead of just displaying it right away.
… and more minor changes and bug fixes.

New Functionality

All finder methods (findByKey(), findAll(), etc.) can now return either an object, multiple objects in an array, or a query result set. You can decide what you want back by setting the returnAs argument to "object", "objects" or "query". The convention is still to return an object when dealing with single records and queries when dealing with multiples.
You can now specify a calculated property (maps to a SQL statement instead of directly to a table column) on a model that you can then reference in finders (selecting, ordering by it, etc).
The includePartial() function can now handle an array of objects (similar to the way it can iterate over a query).
You can pass in a field name in the group argument of includePartial(), and it will call the partial once for each group and pass in a sub query.
When specifying a hasMany association, you can now inform Wheels to create a shortcut to an additional model through a join table (very useful when dealing with many to many relationships).
You can now edit multiple objects of the same class in the same form, Wheels will automatically create nested structs in the params struct on the receiving end.

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A Couple Wheels Blog Series

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 06:35:00 -0800

Mike Henke and Clarke Bishop have been writing some great how-to series on using ColdFusion on Wheels. Both do a nice job of showing the steps involved with building simple sample applications.

So you want to create a CFWheels application? (6+1 parts): Mike's series for the Wheels framework similar to Dan Wilson's "So you want to" series for Model Glue:Unity.
Head First Rails Applied to CFWheels: Clarke demonstrates how topics in the popular book Head First Rails map to Wheels. This is a great way for those of you who know a little Ruby to see how it's done in CFML.

There are many other bloggers out there writing about Wheels, which we will feature in the coming months. But I felt that starting with a couple tutorial series was the way to go.

Download ColdFusion on Wheels 0.9.3

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:23:00 -0800

Wheels matures a little more with version 0.9.3. Download it today.

For those of you upgrading from Wheels 0.9.2, the most that you'll probably need to do is delete the wheels folder from your install and replace it with the new wheels folder. Voila!

What's new in this release?

Bug Fixes

Fixes to make Wheels run better on Railo 3.1 and the upcoming Adobe ColdFusion 9.
Fix to make it possible to use routes in forms.
Fix so that functions added to the events/functions.cfm file are globally available in the application and not just from ColdFusion events.
Fixes to the Oracle database adapter.
Fixes to make the ORM work better when mapping properties to columns with different names.
…and more minor fixes.

Feature Enhancements

Partials now allow you to pass a query, which will cause the partial to be run for every record in the query.
Improvement to the simpleFormat() function.
Improvements for display of pagination links.
For security reasons, Wheels will now abort all requests that don't go through index.cfm or rewrite.cfm in the root.

New Functionality

Added 3 new object callback types: afterNew(), afterFind(), and afterInitialization().
Support for the PostgreSQL DBMS.
Support for setting default values on objects based on the database settings (through the new(), create(), and save() methods).
New dependent setting for associations, which decides which join type to use in queries and whether or not to delete associated objects when the parent is deleted.

Watch for updates to the Documentation over the next few days.

Documentation Updates: Pages, Sending Email, and Configurations

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:03:00 -0800

We have 2 new chapters and 1 updated chapter in the Documentation.

First, Per wrote a chapter about Pages, which basically sums up a variety of ways that the view layer works to make your live as a developer easier.

Raul and Per worked together on a new chapter about Sending Email using the sendEmail() function. This is a powerful way to send different types of emails using templating and layout patterns similar to what's available in Wheels's view functionality.

Lastly, I updated the Configuration and Defaults chapter. I realized that we had left out some details as well as a full listing of what built-in configuration options are available.

Enjoy. Please continue providing feedback about the framework. We can't do this without you guys!

New Chapter: Object Validation

Tue, 26 May 2009 08:48:00 -0800

Another quick announcement. We've released a chapter in the Documentation about object validation.

Object validation allows you to enforce business logic related to your data easily. It also allows you to persist your objects so that your application can communicate error messages back to the user or handle the errors in some other way. It's a very clean way of handling logic that can be very repetitive if you choose to write it all out by hand instead.

How OO Almost Destroyed a Business

Sun, 24 May 2009 10:55:00 -0800

I stumbled across an honest account by Marc Funaro about how OO almost destroyed his business. He spares no detail in the post, but I still think it is worthwhile to read in its entirety as a reality check for yourself.

Dynamic languages like PHP and CFML have been on a quest over the past few years to be more "Java-like," adding more object oriented capabilities. These features bring a lot of promise for your code to become self-documenting and organized. But there have been undercurrents by pragmatists who contest that these features add unnecessary complexity for languages that were "fine just the way they were."

As I've progressed through my career with ColdFusion, I've started agreeing more with the pragmatists. While ColdFusion experts have been arguing about "XML versus no-XML" over the past year, I've strongly desired getting my work done so I could feel some accomplishment and have a fresh breath of air away from my computer from time to time.

With my personal experience, this is where ColdFusion on Wheels has entered and really brought the fun back into ColdFusion development.

One thing that Wheels has done for me is use CFCs to organize my code and make database queries easier. But at the same time, I don't feel like I'm wasting too much time worrying about the design of my objects. It all just flows and works organically, and it all works that way simply by following conventions that we've laid out for you. I will forever be amazed at what David Heinemeier Hansson has accomplished by implementing the concepts of Ruby on Rails and what these concepts accomplish for me in my life as a CFML developer through my use of ColdFusion on Wheels.

If you at all have felt CFML lose its magic in a way that Marc Funaro described so well, give Wheels a try. The more you uncover about our framework, the more it just makes sense. Our framework considers what ColdFusion as a platform does well and sticks with that. ColdFusion returns recordsets lightning-fast, so Wheels's findAll() methods return recordsets instead of CF's notoriously slow objects. (It also uses objects to represent data when that makes sense.) Wheels also helps you easily understand where your URLs point to in your code with its controller conventions. And hell, I'll even offer up the fact that Wheels's default URL behavior doesn't even give regard to the underlying platform. Having URLs that end with .cfm, .aspx, .jsp, etc. do nothing to contribute to the overall user experience anyway.

These sentiments bring me a lot of hope for Wheels's role in the CFML community. We're pushing forward and helping you develop beautiful code using the best platform for developing web applications, period.

Methods for Tracking Change

Fri, 22 May 2009 22:06:00 -0800

Per gets down and dirty with a new chapter in the Documentation called Dirty Records. Really it's all about tracking change to your database records dynamically.

Give it a read and learn about the power of methods like hasChanged(), XXXHasChanged(), XXXChangedFrom(), changedProperties(), allChanges(), and more.

Wheels 0.9.2 Release

Mon, 18 May 2009 19:56:00 -0800

We've released ColdFusion on Wheels 0.9.2 into the wild this evening. No new features really, but quite a few bug fixes.

Download version 0.9.2 and bring your Wheels app that much closer to 1.0. (We're getting really close.)

Hello Database Tutorial

Mon, 11 May 2009 21:11:00 -0800

As a follow-up to the Hello World tutorial, we've just released a tutorial called Hello Database.

As its name suggests, the point of this new tutorial is to help you get a jump start on learning about Wheels's ORM functionality. This is not an exhaustive walk-through but rather a taste so you can dip your toe into the pool.

If you've been on the fence on whether you'd like to try ColdFusion on Wheels, give the tutorial a read.

Associations Chapter in Documentation

Thu, 07 May 2009 15:26:00 -0800

A big part of Wheels's included ORM is its use of associations to describe relationships between models. It's been a long time coming, but we released a chapter in the Docs about associations along with the 0.9.1 release of ColdFusion on Wheels.

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Wheels 0.9.1 Available

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 10:58:00 -0800

We are excited to announce the availability of ColdFusion on Wheels 0.9.1. I personally can tell you that the core team and community have really outdone themselves with this release. It is a giant step toward an impending release candidate.

Here is a brief listing of what Wheels developers gain from this release:

Ability to set global defaults for most functions' optional arguments
Upgrade-friendly configuration settings
Support for using multiple data sources (set on a per-model basis)
Ability to group view helpers by controller
Support for sending multi-part emails (HTML and plain text in same email)
New PluginManager plugin that helps you find and install plugins
Improved Railo support
Lots of bug fixes and other minor improvements

Review the Upgrading to Wheels 0.9.1 chapter to see what you would need to change in your application when upgrading.

Because of the big changes to the way that configurations are done, we figured this would be a good time to finish the chapter on Configuration and Defaults.

More reference chapters and documentation on the functions in the Wheels API are in the works, so stay tuned.