As you may know by now, ColdFusion 7 includes a new feature that lets us
create forms in flash format. They work as a replacement for html forms, but
give us some additional controls like the tree, grid, and calendar. Even if
making a "form" doesn't sound very appealing to you, once you start using
this feature you will find that you can do much more than simple forms.
But the best is that they can enhance the usability of your regular forms,
even if they are simple, with built-in features such as validation, tooltips,
and tabs. It doesn't take much to make a flash form; basically, we only have
to specify that the form's format is flash in the cfform tag and proceed with
the cfform elements.
In this article, we'll walk you through the process of creating a small
application interface using only flash forms. There's a lot to discover about
flash forms, although you d... (more)
In Part 1 of this tutorial (CFDJ, Vol.7, issue 12), you built a search
interface for the Real Estate sample application. In Part 2, you'll learn how
to populate a form by binding the fields to a datagrid, and then edit, add,
and remove records from the database. You will add functionality to the
one-screen interface you started to build in Part 1 using ColdFusion and
Flash Remoting.
Requirements
To complete this tutorial you will need to install the following software and
files:
ColdFusion MX 7.01
For a trial download go to www.macromedia.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?
product=col... (more)
All applications, simple or complex, online or desktop, are composed of many
elements: screens, forms, menus, etc. In a Rich Internet Application, those
elements can also include video, audio, or images. From the programmer's
standpoint, it would be great to be able to reuse those parts so that they
can be incorporated into different places of the application, or in different
applications, using the same component.
In Flex, creating custom MXML components is a very easy task; whenever you
create a new component, simply drop it in your application as many times as
you want. You c... (more)
Flex is a complete set of tools to develop rich Internet cross-platform
applications based on the Flash platform. With Flex, you can create
applications that not only have the "wow factor" necessary to please clients
and users alike, but the "usability factor" necessary to make your
application a real success.
Flex 2 has recently been released and can be downloaded at Adobe's Web
site. This release includes Flex Builder 2 (an IDE based on Eclipse) and
Flash Player 9. At Adobe's Web site, you'll also find tools specifically for
ColdFusion such as the ColdFusion/Flex Connectivity... (more)
With the release of Macromedia ColdFusion 7 and the arrival of Flash Forms,
developers were presented with an alternative to HTML forms that offered them
additional functionality, such as full-featured controls not available in
HTML and built-in validation. That alone made Flash Forms appealing - and
with the addition of pieces of ActionScript code, developers were able to
create truly responsive forms. But because they were meant to be compatible
with HTML forms, they still shared the same submit-refresh model. What if you
could "submit" the form and, without a page refresh, get... (more)