Features for ColdFusion developers
Dreamweaver MX provides a wide variety of code editing features for ColdFusion developers, including the following:
- Extensions that generate code for common ColdFusion application tasks.
- Extensions that let you perform administrative tasks without leaving the Dreamweaver environment.
- Rich tag editors for quickly setting attributes and values for every CFML tag.
- Code hints for writing CFML tag attributes.
- A code validator for validating code readiness against other ColdFusion versions.
- A tag chooser with integrated reference material for inserting ColdFusion tags.
- A snippets panel for reusing code.
- An integrated debugging display for quickly pinpointing problem areas in the code.
- A remote ColdFusion server connection for browsing remote data sources and files.
- ColdFusion MX documentation included in the Dreamweaver MX online Help.
To use Dreamweaver MX to build the sample ColdFusion application in this tutorial, see the following sections for information about configuring Dreamweaver for ColdFusion development.
Configuring Dreamweaver MX for ColdFusion development
Before you use Dreamweaver MX to create the sample application in this tutorial, you must configure Dreamweaver to use the ColdFusion MX 7 Extensions for Dreamweaver, which are included with ColdFusion MX 7. You must also define the connection to the sample database file. The Extensions simplify the process of configuring database connections.
To configure Dreamweaver MX to create the sample application:
- Install the ColdFusion MX 7 Extensions for Dreamweaver by double-clicking the cfmx7dreamweaverextensions.mxp file, which is located in the cf_root/wwwroot/CFIDE/installers directory.
- Create a site that contains the tutorial files.
- Specify ColdFusion as the application document type.
- Specify ColdFusion as the site application server technology. For information about how to perform these steps, see the Dreamweaver MX online Help or Using Dreamweaver MX.
- Specify the RDS login information for the site.
Tip: If you are a new Dreamweaver MX user, you can perform the Dreamweaver MX tutorial before using Dreamweaver MX to build the sample application. The tutorial in this book does not describe how to use Dreamweaver. The purpose of this tutorial is to teach you how to build ColdFusion applications using ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML).