Recently, I was assigned to handle issues related to conversion of some HTML documents we have built into PDF using the <cfdocument> tag in ColdFusion. One of the things you will notice if you check the documentation for the <cfdocument> tag is that it doesn't support the full-range of CSS style options (and no CSS3 for that matter at the moment). Rather than go through each of the many CSS documents related to what I am working on and finding each and every instance of a style that wasn't on that list, I whipped up a little one-pager ColdFusion Builder extension that does the work for me. Here's how it works.

Once you install the extension, you simply right click on any CSS file and choose "cfdocument CSS test > check for compatibility." Once it is done checking, which takes all of a few milliseconds, it will give you a list of any styles you may have used that are not on the supported styles list. At the moment, it simply tells you which styles were not supported not where they are in the document but, assuming others find this useful, perhaps that is a future enhancement. In addition, there are some limitations listed to some of the supported styles, I don't currently check that. Nonetheless, if you are working with cfdocument, this could be useful for you (and is yet another example of how you can quickly solve problems with ColdFusion Builder extensions).

If you want to install it, I am posting the code here for the time being. Also, I created a little video to show you how it works and dicuss the code used to build the extension as it is a good simple learning example in my opinion (sorry if the audio isn't great...but its still ok).

The other day someone asked me whether you could use ColdFusion Builder extensions and/or snippets in Flash Builder. The answer is yes. When you have ColdFusion Builder and Flash Builder installed together in the same Eclipse environment, which you should, many features of the IDE can carry over including things like RDS dataview, RDS fileview, snippets and more. However, when it comes to things like extensions, there are some limitations based on my experience. Still, there's enough added value that even you straight Flash/Flex developers who got a copy of ColdFusion Builder with Flash Builder Premium may want to install it. Here's what I've found.

My latest article for the Adobe Edge journal was just released. It covers the basics of starting a new ColdFusion ORM project using some of the features within the recently released ColdFusion Builder. The article walks through setting up your project in Builder to installing extensions, specifically I use Terrence Ryan's Appatacular extension which should be released soon (but is available in his article on the Developer Connection). Much of the ORM code is generated using this tool but I also show how you can manually manage ORM and allow it to make the necessary changes to your schema for you. If you are new to either ORM or ColdFusion Builder (or are just curious about Apptacular), this should be a worthwhile tutorial for you.

On another note, if you are interested in learning Flex and using Flash Builder, you can also catch me and a number of other great developers interviewed by Julie Campagna in the featured video on the Edge. The video covers ways to get started learning Flex and discusses a number of great resources available to you.

Article: Object relational mapping in ColdFusion 9 and ColdFusion Builder

Video: Getting Started with Flex

I've been using ColdFusion Builder exclusively for my ColdFusion development for months now. Nonetheless, there are still a ton of productivity features that I will admit to only just beginning to utilize. For instance, only recently have I begun to take advantage of the console and tail views. I'm sure someone must have blogged about these before but both are incredibly useful tools that are even more useful when you are doing Ajax and Flex development or working with ColdFusion ORM. Let me explain.

Five new projects and three updates this week in ColdFusion open source. With the release of ColdFusion Builder we're seeing a whole new group of projects built with CFML: ColdFusion Builder Extensions. It's already pretty impressive what people have come up with so far and I have even done a couple of minor extensions myself. This is an amazing feature that makes customizing your IDE to suit your preferences, your company's practices or to share with the ColdFusion community something that anyone with basic CFML skills can do. On that note, if you're in the Boston area tomorrow night and want to know more about ColdFusion Builder and extensions, be sure to come check out Adam Lehman speaking to my Boston CFUG.