Advanced ColdFusion Training Course

Topics include using the Application Framework, creating advanced queries, manipulating complex data in arrays and structures, structuring your code with ColdFusion Components, gracefully handling errors and exceptions, encapsulating your user-interface with custom tags, leveraging external Java code libraries, and creating highly interactive interfaces using Flash Forms. It includes optional content on exposing and reusing application functionality as web services and working with XML documents.

This course focuses on creating and delivering scalable and well-performing applications.

Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

• Architect a secure, robust, scalable, and maintainable web application using best practices
• Understand, create, and manipulate complex data using ColdFusion data types
• Develop code that can be reused throughout the same application and shared among multiple applications by using the appropriate framework
• Create a robust error-handling framework for your application
• Understand the division of labor between included code, UDFs, CFML Custom tags, and CFCs
• Secure your application from intrusion and reduce development times by authenticating against a shared repository
• Create applications that perform well and scale to user demands

This course is for developers with prior ColdFusion experience.

To take this course, you should have:

• Completed the Fast Track to ColdFusion course, or other equivalent experience building ColdFusion applications.
• Experience developing web applications using ColdFusion for at least three months upon completion of the Fast Track to ColdFusion MX 7 course.
• Practical experience using CFML tags, functions, and variables.
• Practical experience with the SQL command set, including SELECT, INSERT, and UPDATE.

Configuring your Application

• Using the Application Framework
• Introducing CFC syntax
• Configuring application settings
• Handling application events
• Handling request events
• Locking shared scope variables
• Handling session events

Manipulating Lists and Queries

• Using lists
• Manipulating queries
• Summarizing and grouping data
• Transaction processing
• Querying a query

Manipulating Data with Arrays and Structures

• Using arrays
• Using structures
• Using built-in ColdFusion data structures
• Dynamically evaluating variables
• Combining data structures
• Accessing data by value or by reference

Building ColdFusion Components

• Reviewing ColdFusion Components
• Creating a static component
• Defining functions in components
• Invoking static CFC methods
• Using CFC self-generating documentation
• Creating instance based components
• Persisting CFC instances
• Using built-in components
• Inheriting methods, properties, and data between components
• Restricting access to component methods

Handling Errors and Exceptions

• Introducing error handling
• Customizing application error messages
• Understanding the try/catch methodology
• Learning about exception handling frameworks

Leveraging Code Reuse

• Writing code using <cfscript>
• Creating custom tags
• Nesting custom tags
• Using JSP tag libraries
• Calling a Java library

Creating Flash Forms

• Understanding Flash Forms
• Laying out Flash Forms
• Using data binding
• Working with a dynamic number of elements
• Setting default values for form fields
• Extending Flash Form interactivity with ActionScript
• Using <cfgrid>
• Controlling form appearance
• Extending Flash Forms with custom components

Scaling Applications

• Understanding performance, robustness, and scalability
• Effectively configuring the ColdFusion server
• Identifying scalability bottlenecks in your code
• Caching recordsets
• Using <cf_Accelerate> to cache generated page contents
• Caching entire page results
• Using asynchronous processes to improve performance
• Supporting concurrency

Interfacing with External Systems (optional)

• Retrieving data from web pages
• Retrieving external text
• Importing text into a query object
• Creating web services
• Calling external web services

Using XML (optional)

• Introducing XML
• Creating XML documents
• Application of XML: Really Simple Syndication (RSS)
• Retrieving XML data from XML documents
• Validating an XML document
• Referencing data from an XML Document object
• Transforming XML to HTML