Web Support

Get Started:

1. Learn About Dynamic Sites
2. Download and Install Macromedia ColdFusion and Dreamweaver MX
3. Multimedia Tutorials
4. Introduction to Dynamic Applications
5. Developing Dynamic Applications Using Macromedia ColdFusion Markup language (CFML) (pdf)

These steps have been taken from: From - ColdFusion Developer Center - Getting Started

What is ColdFusion MX?

ColdFusion MX is a powerful web application server that lets you create robust sites and applications without a long learning curve. ColdFusion MX does not require coding in traditional programming languages (for example, C/C++, Java, XML), although it supports these traditional programming languages.

The ColdFusion application server

The ColdFusion application server is a software program that resides on the same computer as your web server software. It is the program that parses (reads and interprets) and processes supplied instructions. These instructions are passed to ColdFusion through ColdFusion pages, which use a CFM or CFC file extension. A ColdFusion page looks like an HTML page but contains special tags that instruct the ColdFusion server to perform specific operations.

How ColdFusion processes pages

The following steps explain how the ColdFusion server processes a ColdFusion page:

1. The ColdFusion server looks at the content of the page and searches for the following ColdFusion instructions:
2. Tags that begin with cf.
3. Variables and functions that are always surrounded by pound signs (#).
4. If the Coldfusion server finds any HTML or plain text in the page, the ColdFusion server returns it to the web server untouched.
5. The ColdFusion server processes all the ColdFusion instructions found, and returns any remaining results to the web server. The web server then sends the entire output to the browser.

The ColdFusion Markup Language

ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML) is a a tag-based language similar to HTML that uses special tags and functions. With CFML you can enhance your standard HTML files with database commands, conditional operators, and high-level formatting functions, and rapidly produce easy-to-maintain web applications.

CFML looks similar to HTML: it includes start and end tags, and each tag is enclosed in angle brackets. All ending tags are preceded with a forward slash (/) and all tag names are preceded with cf; for example:

<cfstarttagname> </cfendtagname>

Interacting with data sources

ColdFusion applications can interact with any database that supports a JDBC technology-based driver. A JDBC technology-based driver uses an Application Programming Language (API) to execute SQL statements to databases on most platforms. However, ColdFusion is not limited to JDBC data sources. You can also interact with existing Open Database connectivity (ODBC) data sources by using ODBC Socket, a driver that interacts with an existing ODBC driver.

CFML Basics

This chapter introduces the basic elements of CFML, including how to create ColdFusion pages, and use variables, functions, conditional processing, and form processing.

• Working with ColdFusion pages
• Understanding CFML elements
• Working with CFML expressions
• Understanding conditional processing
• Processing form data
• Commenting your code

See the chapter on CFML Basics in CFML Getting Started (pdf)

ColdFusion Examples: (available on local ColdFusion development machine only)

• Example Applications
• Mailto application