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How to use CF Builder coming from Dreamweaver?

Explorer ,
Dec 23, 2012 Dec 23, 2012

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I have installed CF Builder 2 and have setup the localhost server correctly (I am using CF10 on IIS 7.5)

The thing I don't understand is in Dreamweaver you work on files in a 'local' folder and then you upload these to  a testing server or remote server to see how they work

In CF Builder 2 I don't understand how this works. It asking me for web roots and document roots etc but I just don't understand how to set it up like Dreamwever so that I can edit files in my C:\MyWebsite folder and then upload these to C:\inetpub\wwwroot\mywebsite for testing on? CF Builder seems to want to only use the files in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\mywebsite but that is not where my local files are kept. That is only where files that I want CF10 to run are kept.

Am I missing something major here?

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Community Expert ,
Dec 29, 2012 Dec 29, 2012

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@solaced, the simple answer someone might offer is that CFB and DW are simply very different. But in fact there are some concepts that are quite similar, so you just have to be aware of how CFB works differently, and adjust to it.

For instance, DW has a concept of “sites” (which doesn’t necessarily relate to a web site on your web server), while CFB’s corollary is a “project”. Setting those up completely in CFB (especially with respect to connecting to a server) is quite different than was true in DW.

And of course, few have identical development setups, so getting things just right for your preferences will be a challenge. Rather than try to walk you through things, maybe pointing you to some resources may be more helpful.

We all tend to want to open an app and hope it “just works” , but for a complex IDE like CFB (and it is more of an IDE, or integrated development environment, than DW is), you really do need to be sure to understand at least a few fundamentals before you can be even modestly effective. (This is not a dig at you personally: it’s just an acknowledgement of what I’ve observed as many have tried to get started.)

You may have noticed that when you open CFB, it offers a welcome page that tries to help get you started, including pointing to a few resources. Of course, some people turn such a thing off, or tend to ignore it.

The most important thing to make sure you know about is the CFB documentation itself: yep, there is a manual (available online, or in the tool) for CFB itself, and it’s quite substantial. After the first few basic chapters (well worth reading, and some of which may address your challenge), note that there is a chapter specifically on projects, which may be most pertinent to your question. Here’s the direct link to that:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ColdFusionBuilder/2.0/Using/WSf01dbd23413dda0e1736ebc1213a528ab0-8000.html

And you can see the other chapters in the book on the left.

Beyond that, you may also benefit from an article focused on setting up CFB, found on the Adobe site (and despite its title, it may be useful whether you use Windows or not):

“Setting up your ColdFusion development environment for Windows”

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/coldfusion/articles/setup_dev.html

There are still other resources that focus on helping transition between DW and CFB, which may be helpful. At a minimum, you’ll want to consider:

“Moving from Dreamweaver to ColdFusion Builder 2”

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/coldfusion/articles/dreamweaver_cfbuilder.html

But you may also enjoy these:

“I want Eclipse to be like Dreamweaver”

http://henke.ws/post.cfm/i-want-eclipse-to-be-like-dreamweaver

“http://blog.terrenceryan.com/coldfusion-builder-for-dreamweaver-shops/”

http://blog.terrenceryan.com/coldfusion-builder-for-dreamweaver-shops/

And while not specifically directed at your question, I’ll just point out that if you or any other readers may extend the question to “why might I want to consider CFB against DW”, there have been at least a couple of blog entries addressing that:

http://fusiongrokker.com/post/why-i-think-you-should-buy-coldfusion-builder

http://www.carehart.org/blog/client/index.cfm/2010/5/25/more_on_why_buy_cfbuilder

With respect to all the resources above, do beware that they could have been written before CFB 2 or 2.0.1, which may have addressed some concerns raised initially.

Finally, I know that the above are not really a direct answer to your question, but trying to walk you through steps to resolve your specific challenge just didn’t seem as productive as pointing out these resources, any of which may well get you started, and give you a lot more great info, especially as you (or others reading this) make the transition from DW to CFB. If anyone knows other resources that are well-suited to this discussion of making the transition, please do share.

And if you end up still struggling, @solaced, then let folks here know and hopefully someone will be able to help.

/charlie


/Charlie (troubleshooter, carehart.org)

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Explorer ,
Jan 02, 2013 Jan 02, 2013

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Thanks Charlie, thats is a very comprehensive reply and more than I expected! I will go through the links and get up to speed. For now I find it very hard to let go of DW, it would be nice if CF Builder could be part of DW rather than a seperate product.

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Community Expert ,
Jan 03, 2013 Jan 03, 2013

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Glad to have helped. As for your wish (“it would be nice if CF Builder could be part of DW rather than a separate product”), that really never could happen. They’re entirely different products with entirely different underlying platforms (CFB being built atop the open source Eclipse project, and DW being hand-built from scratch by Adobe…well, based on the core bought in the Macromedia acquisition.)

Beyond that, they really do address different users: DW built for any web app development user, with a focus on design, mobile, ajax, and other wizzy features; and CFB addressed only to CF developers, with a focus on advanced IDE capabilities (and Eclipse being created originally for Java developers, with many vestiges remaining, supplemented by the Aptana add-on to give it more web-development features, but still not really to the level of DW.)

Just will have to be different strokes for different folks, I really think.

/charlie


/Charlie (troubleshooter, carehart.org)

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Explorer ,
Aug 10, 2013 Aug 10, 2013

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I'm still unable to make CF Builder work for me..... heres my situation.....

I have installed IIS 7.5 on my local machine, and CF 10 developer edition which uses the IIS 7.5 server.  I have the exact same setup on a remote machine which is a production server.

I just want to create a project in CF Builder 2 (like a site in DW), where I can work on my local files.... copy them to the local testing server, and then finally FTP them to my remote server.  This is the workflow I am used to and prefer in DW.

When I setup a project and server in CF Builder 2, the document root has to be the web server document root (in my case C:\inetpub\wwwroot). And these are the files that show up in the navigator for me to edit. But I don't want to edit these files because they are my testing server files. I want to work with my local files (C:\mywebsite) and then 'upload' those to the testing server (C:\inetpub\wwwroot\mywebsite) for previewing.

If I end up editing the testing server files directly like CF Builder wants me to do, then its chaos. Why? Because the testing server will have the latest versions of my files, not the local copy. If I switch to DW to do some design work, then each time I will have to 'get' the files from the testing server, edit them and make changes, and then reupload back to the testing server.

<!--- start rant --->

Basically CF Builder is messing up the entire workflow that DW has instilled since it started. And lets be honest, DW is far far FAR superior to CF Builder to work with. I still think DW should support ColdFusion. You can't even view SQL Stored Procedures in CF Builder for gods sake, so how can it possibly be a professional IDE? Its not and if I had the time I would ditch CF already and move to ASP.NET.
<!--- /end rant --->

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Explorer ,
Aug 16, 2013 Aug 16, 2013

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LATEST

Bump.... ^^

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Explorer ,
Jul 04, 2013 Jul 04, 2013

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I am  honestly trying very hard to like CFB.   It's a journey I dont really have the time to take, however I'm forced to take it because Dreamweaver no longer does what I need.     I can't believe how hard it is to move from DW to CFB.    Charlie your answer here is helping a lot.  It's the first thing I've seen that actually helps me.    I've seen many times statements from other developers like "I dont use Dreamweaver because it's not a REAL IDE."     But I never saw anyone say what makes CFB a "REAL" IDE until I followed the links in your post.

However one of the most spruiked reasons for using CFB is that it has Code Insight.    Looks pretty good on a video.   Looks like something I'd like to use.   But it doesnt work for me.   None of my CFCs cause code insight to appear.    Is that because I use ColdSpring to instantiate most of my CFCs?    Does CFB not work with ColdSpring?   Or have I not set something up properly yet?

I'll persevere with CFB if I can get it to do what it's supposed to do, but really if there's no HTML5 support,  that means any time I use the code error and syntax checking I'll have errors scattered through my code on any page with display in it.       If there's no Code Insight because I use ColdSpring,   I'm starting to get crosses rather than ticks on the reasons to use CFB.   It isnt looking too good to me.

Another little annoyance    .... As far as I can see, I can't add new file types to the File>New function  and I can't edit the default file format to add my comment headers to every file, unless that's another feature I've missed seeing.   How would you handle that?  (In Dreamweaver, I edited the default .cfm file to add my comments/date/author/file purpose etc and copyright statement at the top of the document.  )

Mike Kear

Windsor, NSW, Australia

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Adobe Employee ,
Jul 05, 2013 Jul 05, 2013

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Mike, ColdFusion Builder provides code insight for a CFC variable if it can resove the path of that CFC. I have provided a brief description of how CFCs are resolved in the section 'CFC path mappings for Projects' in 'What's new in ColdFusion Builder 2.0.1' article.

Coming to the code insight issue using ColdSpring - in ColdSpring you create objects/CFCs using getBean method of coldspring.beans.DefaultXmlBeanFactory CFC.  getBean method returns 'Any' object. So from the return type CFB cann't resolve path of the CFC. And since there is no tight integration between CFB and ColdSpring, CFB does not know that getBean method returns CFC and that full name of the CFC is specified in the xml config file of ColdSpring.

Just like in ColdSpring you map CFC alias to its full name (using <bean> tag), if you tell CFB that a variable is in fact of a particular CFC type, then CFB would be able to provide code assist for that variable. To do this -  right click on the project, and select Properties (project propoerties). Then go to 'CFC Mappings' section and provide mapping between variable name and full CFC name. For example you might map userService to MyColdSpringApp.UserService. Once you do this, CFB would provide code assist when you type "userService."

To add default content to new pages, go to Preferences->ColdFusion->Profiles->Editor. At the bottom of this preference page, you will find options to specify initial content for CFC and CFM files.

-Ram

Adobe ColdFusion Team

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New Here ,
May 19, 2013 May 19, 2013

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There truly are too many pluses for ColdFusion Builder over Dreamweaver which justify the investment/switch.


However, why give up Dreamweaver? It’s paid for. Why not keep it on standby for the things Eclipse was never meant to do?


I don’t know why this is not documented by Adobe but you can add a File Associations within ColdFusion Builder that allows you to right click within an open document or within the Navigator and select Open With.  Register Dreamweaver within CF Builder once and it’s always 2 seconds away.

When the task at hand is creating or editing reports which require tables and adding or deleting columns, Dreamweaver (for me) gets the job done in fraction of the time because of the visual interface. If the file is already open in CF Builder, when I switch back, it prompts me to accept the changes made by the external editor – which I do. You now have the best of both enviromnents.

I found the following link helpful regarding “How To” as I was searching via Eclipse after no luck searching via CF Builder. Note Dreamweaver will be considered an External Editor as opposed the multiple editors that are preinstalled.

http://help.eclipse.org/juno/index.jsp?topic=%2Forg.eclipse.platform.doc.user%2Ftasks%2Ftasks-51.xht...

Tim

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Community Expert ,
May 20, 2013 May 20, 2013

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Good tip that you shared, Tim, and not a bad suggestion to propose to Adobe. If you don’t get any reply from them here (none is guaranteed), it would be wise for you to open a feature request. Those they do commit to looking at https://bugbase.adobe.com/.

/charlie


/Charlie (troubleshooter, carehart.org)

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New Here ,
May 20, 2013 May 20, 2013

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Charlie – you replied to my post a few weeks back about the Windows 2012 installation problems. I really didn’t understand the full message until a subsequent reply came from you indicating that if the redirect.dll didn’t have the latter date, I skip a crucial step. Knowing what the finish line is supposed to look like helps. Again, why wouldn’t Adobe regenerate an updated installation exe with the fix already applied? Don’t answer that.

I walked a partner through the same set of procedures on an identical installation last week saving him countless hours of trial-and-error and searching for resolutions. It almost looks easy once you have it right.

Good luck and thanks again.

Tim Carrigan

New Prism, Inc

Mars Hill, NC

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Community Expert ,
May 22, 2013 May 22, 2013

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Thanks for the update and kind regards, Tim.

As for Adobe creating a new installer, I know you said I didn’t need to answer, but to clarify for others (since it’s a reasonable request), Adobe is just reluctant to build new installers often, as that requires a really substantial set of tests against all the various Oss, OS versions, DBs, DB versions, Web Servers, Web server versions, and combinations thereof.

But I hope we may see a new installer in coming months, because there clearly have been a lot of updates, and especially with CF10 and the issue of the web connector, the mandatory update, and the updates.

/charlie


/Charlie (troubleshooter, carehart.org)

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