From CF Studio to CF Builder...

[Guest]

I've developed using CF Studio for the last 11 years. Yes, 11 years. I started in January 2000 and learned on it and even when I've tried other editors I've come back to CF Studio every time.

I just downloaded Builder and so far, it looks like a new version of Studio. Great! However, as I'm poking around with it, I can't find some stuff that I used to use all the time in Studio.

For example, Builder has a little tag reference list up at the top of my cfm file, with a few basic elements that it will stick in the document on their own, or around the text you have highlighted. However, I'm not finding the extensive "QuickBars" that were in Studio - including common, tables, CFML Basic, CFML advanced, CFForm, CFML flow and others.

Are they out there somewhere and I haven't found them yet? Can I download them from someplace? Are they just gone?

Yes, I understand there will be differences, I'm just trying to find some of my "old favorites"

Thanks!

Michelle

[henkemike]

First off, Congrats on the switch to Eclipse and CFBuilder. First you should learn some Eclipse basics. Eclipse documentation is great. This tutorial, I actually read this weekend. http://help.eclipse.org/helios/index.jsp?topic=/org.eclipse.platform.doc.user/gettingStarted/qs-02a.htm

Now with that disclaimer out of the way 🙂

For "QuickBars", you can customize your menu and toolbars as shown in the tutorial I mentioned above but as for all the items you mentioned I don't think they are available. But Eclipse/CFBuilder has a great set of key assists (shortcuts) and snippets that will be even better then using the mouse.

Key Assists (Shortcuts)

To see the shortcuts available, in the editor panel shift-ctrl-l should show you all the ones available. If that doesn't work go to Windows > Preferences > ColdFusion > Profiles > Keys and then remove the binding associated with ctrl-shift-l.

While you are in the keys you can sort by category and look at the CFML Editor shortcuts.

Snippets

CFBuilder also has customizable snippets which you can access with key shortcuts. I am not too familiar with them but if you google snippets, coldfusion, and eclipse I am sure you'll find alot of resources.

[Guest]

Snippets are great, I use them all the time with Studio.

Thanks for the Eclipse info, I'll check that out!

[Guest]

Another thing I'm not "getting..."

Is there drag and drop ability in the interface? In other words, I have a number of files in a project, and I want to add one to the page I'm working on. If I drag it to the window from the side bar (the "file panel") it opens instead of creating an ancor tag. The same thing happens when I drag an image file, it opens the .jpg file (which is very weird to me!) instead of creating an img tag.

Along those lines, are there properties panels that self populate anywhere? For example, once I have an image tag I'm not finding a place to have the height and width of the image added/calculated for me.

Yes, I know this isn't Studio, but it's not functionality that I expected to be missing!

Thanks,

Michelle

[Charlie Arehart]

I don't think you'll find what you're looking for, but perhaps others will point out if I've missed those things, too.

You're running into the problem that CFBuilder is built atop Eclipse, which is not an HTML editor (whereas with CF Studio and Dreamweaver, that was their heritage, and CF support was added later). Eclipse was a Java editor, and there have been projects to add more web-oriented development paradigms to it. One of those is Aptana, which is another thing included with CFBuilder. But still, it doesn't (as far as I know) provide many of the kinds of things you're missing.

It's a shame, but I think many would assert that if you're doing primarily HTML development (or even substantial HTML within CFML), then you will likely want to use an editor more oriented to that. CFBuilder, and Eclipse itself, is more oriented toward application development, of which HTML is often seen as only a small subset.

/charlie

[Karen_Little]

And one year later, I hopefully try ColdFusion builder hoping to find features offered by the old Home Site and CF Studio and nada. That is heartbreaking.

I have dreamweaver and it is a lump of lard for use in CF development. When did Adobe get the idea that CF is not CF, but really something completely different?

I have no problem paying for a good CF editor. It appears, however, that there is none to be had.

Disappointed, Karen Little

[tclaremont]

I have been using HomeSite for a decade or more. Right now I am playing with CF Builder 2 and so far see absolutely no compelling reason to drop HomeSite. Everything I try to do in CFB2 seems to be an order of magntude more difficult than under HomeSite. Part of that is learning curve, for sure, but even individual tasks that I take the time to understand do not compare to the ease of use within HomeSite.

I only hope that the CF10 tags are made available for HomeSite. That would seal the deal and keep me using it for another version of CF.

[Karen_Little]

I was brokenhearted to find out that HomeSite doesn't work on Win7 (without a lot of screwing around). The closest thing to it is the HTML Editor by www.coffeecup.com. It has a few shortcomings (especially with recent releases), but it is heads and tails better than whatever is out there for HTML editing. It is very similar to HomeSite.

Adobe must be joking with ColdFusion builder. I think way too many developers convinced Adobe to abandon ColdFusion because their way of coding was somehow better. What is really pathetic is that CFBuilder isn't even suitable for web construction. Awful piece of software.

Karen

[Adam Cameron.]

Adobe must be joking with ColdFusion builder. I think way too many developers convinced Adobe to abandon ColdFusion because their way of coding was somehow better. What is really pathetic is that CFBuilder isn't even suitable for web construction. Awful piece of software.

Suggesting CFB isn't a very good HTML editor is like saying Excel sux as far as word processors goes.  It's nonsensical.

CFB is a CF IDE, it's not intended as an HTML editing tool.  Adobe has DreamWeaver for that.  That said, CFB bundles Aptana in with it, and that is an HTML editing tool.  I've heard it's held in reasonably high regard, but I couldn't comment because I don't do HTML stuff.

I think way too many developers convinced Adobe to abandon ColdFusion because their way of coding was somehow better.

I think what you'll find is that Adobe has acknowledged that an awful lot of CF development is not really that closely coupled to HTML and web-page-centric web applications any more (wherein one might have home.cfm and orders.cfm, etc).

I code CF all day every day, and 75% of the files I edit have no mark-up in them at all, and we've got other people to monkey around with the view templates anyhow: they do the mark-up.  I'm not saying that's a "right way" or a "wrong way" or a "better way" or a "common way" or a "popular way", but it's "a way" and it's a way a lot of people do work.  We don't all work the way you do.

For the way you seem to work, there's DreamWeaver: that's the product aimed at you.  There's plenty of legitimate reasons to deride CFB, but what you're saying isn't one of them.

--

Adam

[Karen_Little]

Well, la de dah, Adam.

Dreamweaver is the answer to anyone's prayer for excessive overhead. I'd rather use Notepad.

ColdFusion builder without a really healthy handshake with HTML issues is rediculous.

So nice to hear that you have minions handle your html issues for you. Totally wish I had a servent class to assist me, but I digress.

HomeSite got it right and could have been made even "righter." Adobe had bricks for brains and everything else to drop it.

BTW, I did try Aptana, but didn't care it. This was not an exhaustive study, however. My default right now is CoffeeCup's HTML editor and I pretty much type in (or copy) whatever CFML I need. I do miss the "click 'n insert" of Homesite, but I digress.

IMHO, CoffeeCup's editor is the old HomeSite, but now fitted out for PhP. That company has it's own set of objectives that don't dovetail with mine, so you could say I'm engaged to it, but keep my eye out for other suiters.

[Adam Cameron.]

I have been using HomeSite for a decade or more. Right now I am playing with CF Builder 2 and so far see absolutely no compelling reason to drop HomeSite. Everything I try to do in CFB2 seems to be an order of magntude more difficult than under HomeSite. Part of that is learning curve, for sure, but even individual tasks that I take the time to understand do not compare to the ease of use within HomeSite.

I think it depends how you work.  Eclipse itself is bloody good if one develops more than just CF.  It has a seemingly endless array of plug-ins for doing all sorts of stuff, and that makes it head and shoulders above HS+ in my books.

As far as straight CF development goes... I would no see a compelling reason to stop using HS+ and shift to CFB, no.

--

Adam