As I was developing some pretty complex stuff with IE, it kept spitting at me with a dialog box that said "Operation Aborted." After looking through the code, which was mostly manipulating the DOM, and asking my good friend Google, I found that the manipulation of an element that is not fully created, causes real problems with IE. In other words, I was trying to manipulate a <div> tag before it finished creating the end tag.

This is pretty common with IE. So, beware, another IE issue (albeit and old one) to deal with.

We're revamping a report building feature for one of our products. It was interesting to see the similarities between all of the necessary reports:

1) DATA: The information for which you wish to analyze. For our system, its the number of applications submitted for services.

2) DATE RANGE: Filtering based on when the applications are submitted (for our system). Generically, the date range of when the process occurred to produce the data your querying.

3) BREAKDOWN: The interval at which to tally subtotals. For example, we wanted to see the number of appplications submitted monthly (or yearly, or weekly, or daily, quarterly, etc.)

I realized this pattern was similar across all of the reports we wanted to generate. This made the queries so much easier to consolidate and reuse. Hopefully, it will make the reports section of our product so much more valuable and usable. Its too bad I probably won't get see the finished project.

I'll admit that I sometimes use hidden form fields in my web applications. I cringe every time I do, but I do it anyway. They're convenient and make it easy to track some elements in a web application.

The problem with hidden form fields is that users can manipulate them. This is done by simply saving the web page to disk, modifying the code, then opening the page on disk in a web browser and submitting the form. This is dangerous and can cause severe problems. Hence, securing forms is essential. This is how I do it:

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I recently needed to use ColdFusion to determine some properties of the operating system. This is easily done with the following code:

The getProperty() method is used to access several of the system properties. The parameter sent is the key to the property you want to access. A list of keys can be found on Sun's web site.

It should be noted that if you are in a shared hosting environment, you may not be able to use the CreateObject() method. Thus, you will not be able to access the java objects.

While developing a web site for a customer, I recently had the problem with evaluating a form field to retrieve that field's value. For example:

I had a form field as follows:

As you can see I'm using a GUID in the name. This helps me map the form back to another entity after processing.

In order for me to get the value of the field, I loop through the fieldnames and Evaluate() that field as follows:

However, when I submit the form and run the code, I received this CF error:

It looks like CF attempts to "subtract" the values between the "-" in the GUID. In other words, its attempting to subtract 4d404f55ed4c from 6332 which are the values at the end of my GUID.

After a few hours of attempting to resolve this issue I finally posted the issue on the Adobe Forums.

After just a half-hour a kind fellow by the name of Azadi (thanks Azadi, whoever you are) provided a fantastic solution: Array notation on the structure iteself instead of using evaluate! Duh.

I've used this solution before but not on a form structure. So, I changed the code that proceses the form as follows:

And it worked beautifully. Remember array notation instead of Evaluate() is a good option in this circumstance.

I consult for a local trucking company on developing ColdFusion reporting tools for an existing management system. Its a unique approach to development because I don't develop at all, I actually train their network admin to develop web-based applications. Its fun and I enjoy doing it very much.

Recently, we've reviewed some essentials to ColdFusion development (and possibly other languages). While its not an exhaustive list of what a programmer should know, I'm highlighting the elements that are somewhat difficult for beginners.

IF/ELSEIF/ELSE statements

Programs make decisions. Plain and simple. The basis for developing a program is so that it can make decisions for us quickly and much faster than mere humans. Albiet, those decisions are at a much lower level (a program usually gives us information so that we can make more informative major decisions) but the program still makes many small decisions based on the information it encounters. As a beginning developer, you must understand how to program those decisions using IF/ELSEIF/ELSE statements.

Components (CF), Classes and/or Objects, and OOP

ColdFusion components mimic objects and classes in other programming languages. They are powerful and provide for easier maintenance and much more modular code (can be ported to other applications). Additionally, using object-oriented code can make team-oriented development much more enjoyable. Also, understanding the fundamentals of methods and functions in components is essential to making those components work.

Frameworks

Frameworks allow faster development and also easier maintenance. Mach-II, Fusebox, and ColdSpring are all ColdFusion frameworks designed to assist ColdFusion developers in creating applications faster. If you can get started using one of these, mroe power to you. But remember, you can always develop your own framework (unless you don't want to reinvent the wheel).

Enjoy programming! While I tend to ColdFusion, its fun no matter what language you're using.