When you are creating an instance of a cfc using the <cfobject> tag or createObject() method you need to specify the path to the desired component via a dot-notation file path.  All-in-all this is little more than a file path where the back-slashes are replaced with periods.  However, these paths are not full local paths like when using an absolute path for an image for example.  So the file path will not begin with ‘/Applications’ (if on a mac) or ‘C:/’ (if on windows).  Instead the path begins in the server root, which for Coldfusion is the ‘wwwroot’ directory.

If you are running a package of cfcs or are creating instances from different parts of your application I would recommend creating a mapping to the package or directory containing the cfc(s).  This will save you some work in the future if, say, the application directory structure changes.  You can get the full dot-notation path by introspecting the cfc you are creating an instance of.  I’ve created a short video showing a few ways of getting this file path pretty quickly.  Watch the video.

Quick post on refreshing the Services Browser in the new Coldfusion Builder. I found it to be a little frustrating that the Services Browser does not contain a refresh button. The problem only occurs when you have Coldfusion Builder open, create a cfc method, and then try to access it through the Services Browser. If you would like more info on using the services browser I’ve posted on it here with a video.

Anyways, if you create a cfc method you’ll notice that it obviously doesn’t immediately show up in the Services Browser pane.  To refresh the browser you need to scroll all the way to the top and find the top level called whatever the name of the server you’re working off of is named.  Whatever it’s named, rest assured that it is the top level of the Services Browser.  To refresh, find this top level, right-click and choose to refresh.

So, it’s not the most intuitive thing I’ve encountered, but once you know it it’s pretty simple to refresh.

I’ve been using Coldfusion Builder now since the first beta and have to admit that I’ve been converted. I come out of the Dreamweaver world, which still has some features that I’m still very fond of that I don’t find in the Eclipse build. Before Coldfusion Builder was released I did download Eclipse and install the Coldfusion extensions, played with it little bit, and then went back to Dreamweaver to never return. That is until Coldfusion Builder was released. An IDE just for me I thought, how special.

Anyways, I’ve been using Coldfusion Builder ever since.  So while using the Services Browser may sound repetitive for the seasoned Eclipse user, I wanted to post about it anyways to make life easier for those like me.  So when you open Coldfusion Builder you get a set of panels with tabs on the bottom.  One of these tabs is called ‘Services Browser’.  If you don’t see it you can go to the Windows > Show View > Services Browser.

Once you have the panel open you should see a list of all the cfc packages on your server that is configured for Coldfusion Builder.  You can further expand each package to show the individual cfcs in each package, and then each function in an individual cfc, and on to each argument required by each function.  You can right click these options to insert cfobject tags or script or cfinvoke tags.  This is a huge timesaver as it writes everything except for the value of the arguments to be passed to the given function.

I’ve included a short video to help better demonstrate this feature. Click here to watch.