CF Mitrah Blog

Yesterday, Adobe released ColdFusion 9 & ColdFusion Builder public beta. You can download that from adobe labs site.

ColdFusion 9 - Download

ColdFusion Builder - Download

I am sure, CF 9 will rock. :)

The below list of tags are added in the coldfusion 9.

Cfbutton
Cfcontinue
Cffileupload
Cffinally
Cfimap
Cfmap
Cfmapitem
Cfmediaplayer
Cfmessagebox
Cfprogressbar
Cfsharepoint
Cfspreadsheet

Cfpdf - New actions [ optimize, addheader, addfooter, removeheaderfooter, transform ...]

In Coldfusion 9, lot of new features are added.Definitely CF 9 will rock you. I will point out some of those features here.

CFML Enhancements
   New Server.cfc component introduced, we can configure this in CF Administrator.
   New onServerStart method for application.cfc
   Nested CFTRANSACTION
   CFCONTINUE, I am really waiting for this tag. Using this we can skip current loop iteration.
   Assignment chaining Eg. a = b = c
   Direct access to elements of returned arrays.It will help us to call functions as chain. Eg. myFunction()[x]
   Ternary operators will help you to write simple if else conditional assignments Eg. a = (b < c) ? b : c

CFSCRIPT Enhancements
   Full language support for CFSCRIPT, Now we can write every thing (which possible in CFML tags - query also) inside cfscript.
   <cfabort> - abort ["message"]
   <cfexit> - exit ["methodName"]
   <cfinclude> - include "template"
   <cfparam> - param [type] name [=defaultValue]

IMAP - Now we can access gmail through CF :)

Spreadsheet & PowerPoint Integration
   New 2 tags are introduced for office package integration.( CFSPREADSHEET, CFPRESENTATION )
   Create, Read & Merge Spreadsheets
   Compatible with Excel 97, 2000, 2003, 2007, 2008 & Open Office Spreadsheets
   Generate PPT files from CFML/HTML content
   Convert PPT to HTML or Flash
   Compatible with PowerPoint 97, 2000, 2003, 2007, 2008 & Open Office Presentations

Database to Code (ORM)
   We can interact with database without writing SQL & build database independent applications.
It is same as Hibernate framework. It will reduce 2 frameworks(transfer, Reactor) from my learning queue

Lucene Solr
   New Full-Text Search Engine with CFSEARCH/CFINDEX functionality

Exposed Service Layer (CFaaS)
   Direct access to ColdFusion services. It will be help non cf developers to use Coldfusion file upload support, Document Services (CFDOCUMENT), PDF Utilities (CFPDF), Image Manipulation (CFIMAGE), Mail (CFMAIL) and Pop (CFPOP). This services will be available as SOAP & AMF. So flash & flex developers can directly use AMF format service.

RIA
   AS3 / MXML Libraries for Adobe Flex
   Consumer CF Services
   High-speed Flash Remoting
   AS3 Data Persistence Library for Adobe AIR
   Online / Offline Data Synchronization

Enhanced UI Controls
   I think CF 8 using EXTJS 1.0 version for its ajax & UI tags. In CF 9,  ExtJS 3.0+ version is included which has lot of cool features like Multi-File Upload, Enhanced Data Grid, Progress Indicator, Message Box Sliders, Accordion Layouts......

CFIDE
We can manage settings like Datasources, Mappings, etc for multiple servers

       Yesterday i went to Bangalore Flex User Group Meeting at adobe. Mrinal Wadhwa presented about Flex 4 Component Lifecycle  . It was 3 hours presentation. little bit boring for me as a newbie developer to flex  :). But i got clear idea about prcess beyond the screen. Definately it will help me to write an efficient flex component.

       After meeting, I had short discussion with adobe CF team for Bangalore CF user group future activities. Adobe is willing to conduct CF 9, Bolt introduction meeting. Adobe engineering team will ready to give brief introduction about new features of CF 9 & bolt in their bangalore office. It will be based upon the user's ( who are all ready to participate ) response. Last date for the response is next week friday ( June-26 ). Please respond to this thread or contact me at j_saravanamuthu [at] yahoo [dot] com.