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ColdFusion Studio

Beginner

How can I alter the shortcut Ctrl-Shft-M to insert a ColdFusion comment instead of a regular HTML comment?

Shift-F8 | Keyboard Shortcuts tab.
Scroll down to the Description "ColdFusion comment" and select it.
Click in the window to the left of the "Apply" button.
Hold Down Ctrl-Shft-M and click the "Apply" button.
Confirm that you wish to reassign that shortcut.
Click Close.

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What is RDS?

RDS stands for Remote Development Services. In ColdFusion Studio, you can connect to and work with the files on any server that has ColdFusion Server installed by using RDS, just as if you were working with files on your own computer.

From ColdFusion Studio, select the make sure the Resource Pane is displyed (F9 toggles the display on and off). Then select Allaire FTP and RDS from the pull-down menu at the very top of the pane.

If you know the IP and RDS password for any computer with ColdFusion Server installed, you can add it as an RDS Server by right-clicking on Allaire FTP and RDS and selecting Add RDS Server.

The Description is whatever you want the RDS Server to be called in the display you can see. Host name is the IP or server name of the ColdFusion server you are trying to connect to. Normally you don't need a Username (hey, people, why is it there?) but you must enter the correct RDS password in the Password field.

Click OK and your computer will try to connect to the new RDS Server. If it connects OK, you will see a listing of all the drives and directories you have permission to view.

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When I click the Browse tab, what should I do to avoid seeing this message: When I try to browse it, appear the following message: "The Coldfusion file tou are trying to browse cannot be resolved into an URL. Add server development mapping to enable URL

This means that you are browsing it in your studio and that you have not created a development mapping to the server you are working from. This can be resolved in two ways, depending on whether you are using a full server or a local version with PWS (or whatever). The key to either is that you have RDS turned on. If you are working from a local version then you should be able to turn it on yourself, if not you will have to turn in on the remote server.

It also depends on the version of Studio you are running, but the basics are the same:

1. Click on the Development mapping button, or go to Debug and choose Development mapping, or use Alt+M (keyboard shortcut).
2. On the DM window choose your Server (localhost or whatever)
3. In Studio Path click on the folder button and find the website folder or specific file you are after - the key here is to use the same path that you are using in your Files Window - as if you use a different path to the server it will not show
4. Next write in the CF server path - this is the physical path used by the server - so you will need to know where the files are on the server (or local server) - so while the studio path may be something like \\REMOTESERVER\wwwroot\INTRANET the CFserver path maybe C:\InetPub\wwwroot\intranet or whatever - either way it will probably be different.
5. Finally choose the browser path - this will be an http formatted path - so it may be http://www.remoteserver.com/intranet (or something)

Then press OK - the best way to use this is to use folders rather than files, because then you will be able to view "all" the files in your project from one development mapping.

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Where can I download patches or updates for ColdFusion Studio?

ftp://ftp.allaire.com/pub/cfstudio/win32/updates/

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Advanced

How can I make my own wizard?

You'll need to learn VTML and WIZML. Adam Churvis, of CommerceBlocks fame, did a presentation at the Atlanta CFUG about this, and he posted a pretty thorough VTML/WIZML tutorial
http://www.commerceblocks.com/common/download.cfm

Also, Nate Weiss has a visual VTML tool. Ask him for a copy by contacting him at nate@nateweiss.com

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How can I stop or alter the resource level warning that is displayed in ColdFusion Studion 4.5.2?

There are two registry keys you can add to control the resource warning level % and the checking interval. We default these, but you can add them to your HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Allaire\Cold Fusion Studio 4.5 main root key

Key 1: ResourceLevelCheck - an integer % indicating the starting threshold to start warning about resources. Our default is 30%.

Key 2: ResourceLevelInterval - an integer indicating the number of minutes interval to check resources. The default is 10. You can completely disable resource monitoring (highly unrecommended) by setting this to 0.

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How do I use the debugging tools within ColdFusion Studio?

To use the CF Studio debugger, you have to do the following:

1. Make sure you can view and edit files on the target server via RDS. If you can't, you'll need to create an RDS mapping.
2. Create a development mapping to the target RDS server. You can do this by
3. 1. selecting "Development Mappings" from the debug menu
   2. selecting the target RDS server from the dropdown
   3. clicking the little yellow button next to the "Studio Path" text box
   4. navigating to the web root directory of the target RDS server
   5. clicking "OK" in the navigation dialog, then clicking "Add" in the main Development Mappings dialog
4. Once you've created a development mapping, you'll need to open the file to be debugged, and set breakpoints in it. Once you've set your breakpoints, you can click the "Run" button on the Debug toolbar, and you're on your way.

For more info, you might look at this CFUG presentation on the Fig Leaf website
http://www.figleaf.com/figleafhome/cfug/CFUGSep99-GAkickoff.zip

However, manually debugging your code by placing CFOUTPUTs and CFABORTs in your pages to diagnose specific problems is possibly easier and more helpful.

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I was running Studio and Dreamweaver 3 just fine. I've installed the upgrade to Dreamweaver 4 (not ultradev) and now the DW button in CF Studio doesn't work anymore. What's the fix?

I think if you create a custom button within Studio that points to the correct executable, it straightens out the path issue.

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