Coldfussion ?

jutah · October 5th, 2002, 02:29 PM

Hi everybody

I downloaded a trail version of Cold Fussion 4.5 and started to play around with it. The questions I have are:

1. Does Cold Fussion support mysql? If not are there any other free dbs that I could use?

2. What is the difference between Dreamweaver and CF I saw a lot of posts on DW and it looks interesting. Does it support mysql?

3. What can I do with the free version of DW? Is it limited?

Thanks,

jutah

willy_ph · October 5th, 2002, 02:51 PM

Dreamweaver is just an wysiwyg editor. Helpful for creating webpages. It supports php, jsp, asp, html and some other webpage formats. Try it out.

Scott Tiger · October 5th, 2002, 02:53 PM

The company that makes DW is Macromedia - the company that makes CF is/ was Allaire. Macromedia bought Allaire and they've been integrating the products ever since. That's all I can help you with I'm afraid.

Shawn

vass0922 · October 5th, 2002, 03:05 PM

I would think (logically) that cold fusion doesn't really care what the back end is as long as you can create an ODBC connection so you should be good to go

PostGreSQL is also free, but not sure if htey have a windows version just yet.. but MySQL is more popular for smaller tasks (faster)

jutah · October 5th, 2002, 07:12 PM

Thanks for the replies

Is DW for free or is there a free version out there? BTW what is Fireworks?

Thanks,

jutah

tenor_david · October 5th, 2002, 08:04 PM

Fireworks is a graphics editor, geared more toward graphics used on the web. You can slice images, create hotspots, do all things web realted very easily.

For information on all of these products and more, why don't you take a look here:

http://www.macromedia.com

LinuxNewbie · October 6th, 2002, 01:27 AM

DW is not free, you can probably pickup an education version if you can just prove you're a student... or if your kid is.....

oh btw, why did you choose cold fusion? there's virtually no support for it.....

jkrohn · October 6th, 2002, 01:51 AM

1) Coldfusion CAN use mySQL. I've personally seen it done, and interviewed at a job that required it.

2) DW is a WYSIWYG editor (like frontpage). It has the capibility to do the ColdFusion scripting for you though.

Jkrohn

willy_ph · October 6th, 2002, 01:58 AM

You can get a (free) trial version from the Macromedia website.

rh71 · October 6th, 2002, 02:48 AM

I'm a ColdFusion developer. Question 1 has been answered... ODBC connections... that's all you really need to worry about.

Question 2... ColdFusion is an application server. It interprets CFML (CF language) that you use tools to write. DreamweaverMX can be one of those tools... and it is moreso for CFMX (the latest ColdFusion release version). Question 3... DreamweaverMX trial is available as a 30-day limited version... and that's the only way it is limited. All the functionality remains intact on the trial version.

CF developers used ColdFusion Studio for coding before it became integrated into DreamweaverMX. Macromedia also offers Homesite+ as CF Studio's replacement, but that tool offers no enhancements as far as I've seen. You should stick with DreamweaverMX for the sake of intuitiveness at your level.

And about not using CF because it isn't "supported"... this shouldn't be a reason to avoid it. If there's any reason to avoid using CF for your application, it should be cost. Otherwise, CF is extremely robust and simple at the same time. I work with it on a daily basis and I'm still amazed how the original developers of CF (Allaire) were so far ahead of their time. CF support exists on the Macromedia forums (in which MM employees participate) and also CFUG (CF user groups).

I also wanted to mention how CF can easily be integrated with Flash. I've been playing with this since Flash 5 ( see http://www.rh71.com )and FlashMX + CFMX only made it easier. It is remarkable what kind of applications you can come up with by integrating these two... just check out http://www.ihotelier.com/onescreen to see what I mean. CF is not a highly sought-after skill today, but it is certainly a good skill to pick up on. About 2-3 months is all you need to get a solid foundation. You may find a free developer's edition of CFServer 4.51 on Macromedia's site to practice with. DreamweaverMX's trial, on the other hand, you'll have to deal with the time-limitation. Good luck!