Mark Cyzyk

You're familiar with the rudiments of ColdFusion development. You know how to set and read local, session and client variables. You have input, updated and deleted data from a database. You've created drill-down "Master/Detail" templates by passing values in a URL string and you've created dynamic, data-driven SELECT boxes. Your forms look spiffy and everything is working fine, just like it did with Microsoft Access...well, almost. Your Access application included an input form that contained a "subform" and allowed you to update two tables simultaneously. They were linked by a one-to-many relationship so for every record in your main table there could be a variable number of linked records in the secondary table. But you can't figure out how to accomplish this same layout and functionality within the restrictions of HTML. Luckily, the ColdFusion Markup Language cont... (more)

Creating Subforms

In the June issue of ColdFusion Developer's Journal (Vol. 1, issue 3), I hinted there might be a way to create subforms using inline frames. This article shows how - using a combination of inline frames, JavaScript, WDDX and, of course, CF. Right now, inline frames are supported only by Internet Explorer, but because they're part of the official HTML specification it's hoped that the other main browser platforms will soon support them. Essentially, inline frames allow a developer to create a space on the screen that acts like a content island - a separate frame surrounded on all... (more)

Everything You Need to Know about XML

What an excellent little book! In a scant 96 pages, Eckstein and Casabianca have managed to present everything you need to know to get up and running with XML. After the obligatory review of what XML is and why it's needed, as well as definitions of some of the key concepts of XML technology, the authors launch into a concise, though comprehensive, discussion of DTD (Document Type Definition) design and construction. A DTD specifies the overall structure and content of a valid XML document; it specifies the elements a document can contain as well as the allowed attributes of tho... (more)

Recursive Custom Tags

I have a confession to make: I wasn't a computer science major in college - I was a philosophy major. While the two disciplines have much in common (conceptual acrobatics, a high degree of abstraction, logical and analytical rigor, obtuse and convoluted texts), I'm finding now that, as a Web applications developer, a study of the basic tenets of computer science can help me create more sophisticated applications. Case in point: the study of data structures and algorithms. I recently had a programming problem to solve, one that lent itself perfectly to a solution offered in any dat... (more)

Programming ColdFusion

As the author points out in the introduction: "[Y]ou'll find this book loaded with strategies, hints, tips, and tricks that you can apply to your own projects. I've tried to include all the useful ColdFusion tidbits that I've discovered over the years so that you can benefit from my experience." And Brooks-Bilson, one of the ColdFusion community's most senior developers and a frequent contributor to the Allaire Forums, comes through. For instance, on page 135 we find a short example of how to include a small chunk of JavaScript to force confirmation before form data is posted - an... (more)