ColdFusion 8 CFImage Write To Browser Bug?

Posted June 19, 2007 at 9:16 AM

Tags: ColdFusion

I was playing around with ColdFusion 8's image shapes (rectangle, oval, etc.), when I came across something that might be a bug. I thought I would post it here see if anyone had some insight. Basically, what I found was that after I do a CFImage[ action=WriteToBrowser ], I lose all of my drawing properties. Take a look at this example:

 Launch code in new window » Download code as text file »

  • <!--- Create a new canvas. --->
  • <cfset objImage = ImageNew(
  • "",
  • 400,
  • 200,
  • "rgb",
  • "##F5F5F5"
  • ) />
  •  
  •  
  • <!---
  • Turn on anti aliasing. We are going to be
  • drawing some rounded rectangles, so we want
  • the edges to be smoother.
  • --->
  • <cfset ImageSetAntiAliasing(
  • objImage,
  • "on"
  • ) />
  •  
  • <!---
  • Now, set the drawing color. This should set the
  • color for all susequent drawing actions until
  • the color is explicitly changed (dark blue).
  • --->
  • <cfset ImageSetDrawingColor(
  • objImage,
  • "##4B4B9A"
  • ) />
  •  
  • <!---
  • Now, we are going to loop over this image three
  • times. For the first two rectangles, we are going
  • to just draw to the image. For the third one, we
  • are going to write the image to the browser first,
  • then draw the rectangle.
  • --->
  • <cfloop
  • index="intI"
  • from="1"
  • to="3"
  • step="1">
  •  
  • <!---
  • For the third iteration, we are going to first
  • write the image to the browser.
  • --->
  • <cfif (intI EQ 3)>
  •  
  • <cfimage
  • action="writetobrowser"
  • source="#objImage#"
  • />
  •  
  • </cfif>
  •  
  • <!---
  • Pick a random X and Y coordinate at which to
  • start the rectangle (all rectangles will be
  • 100 x 50.
  • --->
  • <cfset ImageDrawRoundRect(
  • objImage,
  • RandRange( 10, 290 ),
  • RandRange( 10, 140 ),
  • 100,
  • 50,
  • 30,
  • 30,
  • true
  • ) />
  •  
  • </cfloop>
  •  
  • <br />
  •  
  • <!--- Draw the image with three rectangles to the browser. --->
  • <cfimage
  • action="writetobrowser"
  • source="#objImage#"
  • />

Here, I am setting the anti-aliasing to be On and the draw color to be dark blue. Then, I loop three times and for each iteration, I draw a rectangle on the canvas. Right before the third iteration, I draw the image to the browser. Therefore, we get two image: one before iterations 2 and 3 and one after the loop is done:


 
 
 

 
CFImage Write To Browser Bug  
 
 
 

 
 
 

 
CFImage Write To Browser Bug 2  
 
 
 

Notice that the third rounded rectangle has a white fill. White is the default draw color of the canvas. Somehow, the WriteToBrowser action has gotten the canvas to reset its properties. And it's not just the draw color. If you look at this image, which is just a blow up of the previous one:


 
 
 

 
CFImage Write To Browser Bug 3  
 
 
 

... you will see that the white rounded rectangle has no anti-aliasing on it either. This must be a bug, but I thought I would throw it out here to see what you guys think. I can see no reason why Adobe would want to reset the canvas after a browser write.

Download Code Snippet ZIP File

Post Comment  |  Ask Ben  |  Permalink  |  Print Page




Reader Comments

Jun 19, 2007 at 11:58 AM // reply »
30 Comments

I thought that writetobrowser was to be used to send a single image to the http stream in place of an html page, so why would you use this tag more than one time in a given page?

Or did I misunderstand this tags functionality?


Jun 19, 2007 at 12:26 PM // reply »
5 Comments

I was under that impression too, insofar as it's just an easy way of changing the http response headers to indicate that it is just an image rather than a html document.

in the very quick tests i did with it, it doesn't seem to do any further output after it is used.

although i have spent literally 5 minutes looking at this after an adobe cf8 presentation where someone asked a question about outputting multiple images to the screen without writing them to disk first and the speaker wasn't sure.


Jun 19, 2007 at 12:27 PM // reply »
25 Comments

Ben,
This looks like a bug. I will log a bug immediately for this. If you think there is some bug, don't think twice before reporting it. We will anyway evaluate whether its a bug or not :-)

@Ken,
You can write multiple images to the browser using WriteToBrowser.


Jun 19, 2007 at 12:31 PM // reply »
6,516 Comments

@Rupesh,

Thanks. I reported it this morning. Thanks for looking into it.


Post Comment  |  Ask Ben

Recent Blog Comments
Nov 21, 2009 at 6:47 PM
Hal Helms - Real World Object Oriented Development, Sarasota - Day Five
@charlie griefer, Thank you.. ... read »
Nov 21, 2009 at 5:15 PM
Using ColdFusion Structures To Remove Duplicate List Values
@Jose Galdamez, Oh heh yeah I didn't paste the whole code. I should have defined the vars -- my bad. It's fixed thou. Thanks. ... read »
Nov 21, 2009 at 4:49 PM
Styling The ColdFusion 8 WriteToBrowser CFImage Output
Great work yet again Ben! Whilst I didn't use this whole code, I copied some of your regex code for a similar problem with the lack of an alt attribute and unescaped ampersands in CFIMAGE for Railo 3 ... read »
Nov 21, 2009 at 1:13 PM
My First ColdFusion Builder Extension - Encrypting And Decrypting CFM / CFC Files
@Ben, Because I am pedantic, I just want to make sure that everyone knows there is absolutely no encryption going on. There is only encoding and obfuscation. The cfencode tool only obfuscates your C ... read »
Nov 21, 2009 at 12:28 PM
Using ColdFusion Structures To Remove Duplicate List Values
@Jody I can't seem to get your code sample to work. If you are still having problems, try this code out and see if it gets you what you wanted. <!--- Comma delimited list with various duplicates ... read »
Nov 21, 2009 at 11:03 AM
Groovy Operator Overloading Does Not Work In The ColdFusion Context
Hi Ben, Thanks for this informative post. Now I am reading ur old posts too ... read »
Nov 21, 2009 at 10:56 AM
HostMySite.com Has The Best ColdFusion Hosting
@Mehul, Yes very nice people, however several downtimes per day which was not acceptable. Hence we had to move out. I am glad you are having good luck with them so far. ... read »