Hello Thompson
Quote:
Originally Posted by THOMPSON
ColdFusion, what is it and what is the use of using this application. Sorry for asking this kind of question, but I am completely new to this hosting world and I want to make a good website by using good applications.
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ColdFusion is a commercial rapid application development platform.
Originally designed to make it easier to connect simple HTML pages to a database, by version 2 (1996) it had become a full platform that included an IDE in addition to a "full" scripting language. As of 2010[update], versions of ColdFusion include advanced features for enterprise integration and development of rich Internet applications (RIA).
ColdFusion is also associated with scripting language, ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML), which compares to the scripting components of ASP, JSP, and PHP in purpose and features, but more closely resembles HTML in syntax. "ColdFusion" is often used synonymously with "CFML" or "CFM", but there are additional CFML application servers besides ColdFusion, and ColdFusion supports programming languages other than CFML, such as server-side Actionscript and embedded scripts that can be written in a JavaScript-like language known as CFScript.
ColdFusion is most often used for data-driven websites or intranets, but can also be used to generate remote services such as SOAP web services or Flash remoting. It is especially well-suited as the server-side technology to the client-side Flex. ColdFusion can also handle asynchronous events such as SMS and instant messaging via its gateway interface, available in ColdFusion MX 7 Enterprise Edition.
Working of different Version
Version 3.1 brought about a port to the Sun Solaris operating system. Cold Fusion studio gained a live page preview and HTML syntax checker.
ColdFusion 4
"Cold Fusion" moniker renamed simply as "ColdFusion" - possibly to distinguish it from Cold fusion theory.
ColdFusion 4.5
Version 4.5 brought the ability to natively invoke Java objects, execute system commands, and talk directly to a Java EE server.
ColdFusion 5
First release from Macromedia after the Allaire Corporation acquisition. The last to be legacy coded for a specific platform.
On January 16, 2001, Allaire announced a pending merger with Macromedia. Macromedia continued its development and released the product under the name
ColdFusion 5.0. It retained the name "ColdFusion" through the remainder of version 5 releases.
ColdFusion MX 6
Prior to 2000, Allaire began a project codenamed "Neo". This project was later revealed as a ColdFusion Server re-written completely using Java. This made portability easier and provided a layer of security on the server, because it ran inside a Java Runtime Environment. Senior software engineer Damon Cooper, still with Adobe on the LiveCycle team, was the major initiator of the Java move.
In June 2002 Macromedia released the version 6.0 product under a slightly different name,
ColdFusion MX, allowing the product to be associated with both the Macromedia brand and its original branding. ColdFusion MX was completely rebuilt from the ground up and was based on the Java EE platform. ColdFusion MX was also designed to integrate well with Macromedia Flash using Flash Remoting.
With the release of ColdFusion MX, the CFML language API was released with an OOP interface.
ColdFusion MX 7
With the release of ColdFusion 7.0 on February 7, 2005, the naming convention was amended, rendering the product name "Macromedia ColdFusion MX 7". CFMX 7 added Flash-based, and XForms-based, web forms and a report builder that output in Adobe PDF as well as FlashPaper, RTF and Excel. The Adobe PDF output is also available as a wrapper to any HTML page, converting that page to a quality printable document. The enterprise edition also added Gateways. These provide interaction with non-HTTP request services such as IM Services, SMS, Directory Watchers, and an asynchronous execution. XML support was boosted in this version to include native schema checking.
ColdFusion MX 7.0.2, codenamed "Mystic" includes advanced features for working with Adobe Flex 2.
Adobe ColdFusion 8
On July 30, 2007, Adobe Systems released ColdFusion 8, dropping "MX" from its name. During beta testing the codename used was "Scorpio" (the eighth sign of the zodiac and the eighth iteration of ColdFusion as a commercial product). More than 14,000 developers worldwide were active in the beta process - many more testers than the 5,000 Adobe Systems originally expected. The ColdFusion development team consisted of developers based in Newton/Boston, Massachusetts and offshore in Bangalore, India.
Some of the new features are the CFPDFFORM tag, which enables integration with Adobe Acrobat forms, some image manipulation functions, Microsoft .NET integration, and the CFPRESENTATION tag, which allows the creation of dynamic presentations using Adobe Acrobat Connect, the Web-based collaboration solution formerly known as Macromedia Breeze. In addition, the ColdFusion Administrator for the Enterprise version ships with built-in server monitoring. ColdFusion 8 is available on several operating systems including Linux, Mac OS X and Windows Server 2003.
Other additions to ColdFusion 8 are built-in Ajax widgets, file archive manipulation (CFZIP), Microsoft Exchange server integration (CFEXCHANGE), image manipulation including automatic captcha generation (CFIMAGE), multi-threading, per-application settings, Atom and RSS feeds, reporting enhancements, stronger encryption libraries, array and structure improvements, improved database interaction, extensive performance improvements, PDF manipulation and merging capabilities (CFPDF), interactive debugging, embedded database support with Apache Derby, and a more ECMAScript compliant CFSCRIPT.
For development of ColdFusion applications, several tools are available: primarily Adobe Dreamweaver CS4, Macromedia HomeSite 5.x, CFEclipse, Eclipse and others. "Tag updaters" are available for these applications to update their support for the new ColdFusion 8 features.
Application
Creating an application with ColdFusion is as straightforward as creating a static Web site. However, in a ColdFusion application you can introduce an incredible range of functionality that is not available either in static Web sites or in traditional client/server applications. A ColdFusion application is very simply a collection of pages, similar to a static Web site. But unlike the pages in a static Web site, the pages in a ColdFusion application include the server-side ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML) in addition to HTML. CFML gives you the ability to control the behavior of your applications, integrate a wide range of server technologies, and dynamically generate the content that is returned to the Web browser.
When a page in a ColdFusion application is requested by a browser, it is automatically pre-processed by the ColdFusion Application Server. Based on the CFML in the page, the Application Server executes the application logic, interacts with other server technologies, and then dynamically generates an HTML page which is returned to the browser.
About Databases
The database is the backend of any CF website. For the purposes of this tutorial we will be using Microsoft Access. Microsoft Access is a relational database which means you can relate the tables to one another. Now this article assumes you know how to work a database and are familiar with basic terms such as Field, Row, and Table.
When accessing a relational database from a website regardless if its Oracle, Microsoft, or MySQL, and regardless if you're using CF, PHP, or ASP, you will use a language called SQL. SQL is the bridge between the frontend of your website and the backend. In this article you will be shown how to construct and use basic SQL statements which can be applied to any server side scripting language, not only CF.
To let CF access a database you will need to set up a DSN on the server. To do this first upload the database file and then tell your server administrator you need a DSN set up with XXXX name using Microsoft Access Drivers, and tell them the location of the database file.
Basic Database Setup
When creating your Database there are some things you should know. First of all never include a space in your field names. This will cause problems later. Second never name a field name using a reserved keyword such as 'text' or 'date' this will also cause problems. Finally you must correctly specify the field datatype. What follows is a list of datatypes and what is commonly used to input into them.
Alternative server environments
ColdFusion originated as proprietary technology based on Web technology industry standards. However, it is becoming a less closed technology through the availability of competing products. Products include Railo, BlueDragon, IgniteFusion, SmithProject and Coral Web Builder.
The argument can be made that ColdFusion is even less platform-bound than raw Java EE or .NET, simply because ColdFusion will run on top of a .NET app server (New Atlanta), or on top of any servlet container or Java EE application server (JRun, WebSphere, JBoss, Geronimo, Tomcat, Resin Server, Jetty (web server), etc.). In theory, a ColdFusion application could be moved unchanged from a Java EE application server to a .NET application server.
Regards
Christopher M 
ColdFusion Hosting !!
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