CFUG Presentation Files : Enhancing User Interfaces with AJAX and Coldfusion

Here's the Powerpoint slides and supporting code from last nights presentation.

Enhancing User Interfaces with AJAX and Coldfusion - powerpoint

AJAX search suggest example code

I have to say, Niklas' presentation on Flash Forms was a pleasant surprise - I'm one of those guys who looked at CFFORM in about version 4.5, didn't like what I saw, so never looked at them again. I hadn't realised that they'd come on so much - maybe I'll look into them myself at some point.

Niklas says that there will be free beer after the next CFUG meeting, so get yourself down there!

Reflections on Tortoise SVN

Eric D's post Subversion on the PC just reminded me howintegral TortoiseSVN has become in our team.

I introduced SVN/Tortoise SVN to our team earlier this year, and I have to say it's been fantastic - saved our butts on numerous occasions, especially when we've three simultaneous branches of development on the same system, plus live bug-fixes.

The only issues I have with it are

1) merging branches can be very counter-intuitive - I've done it numerous times, and I *still* need the help docs open while I fill in the form

2) it's a bit too easy to to get a working copy into a state where you can't commit, can't update, and can't clean up. The only thing you can do in that case is checkout an entirely new copy, manually port across your revisions, and junk the old copy.

3) terminology - if the "Update" and "Commit" menu options were just a bit more expansive (e.g. something like "Update this copy from repository" and "Check changes back in") it would save a fair amount of confusion amongst the less-technical team members.

All in all though, it is a great piece of software - if you haven't tried version control, or if you've only used something like Visual Source Safe or WinCVS, I thoroughly recommend giving Subversion + TortoiseSVN a try.

CFUG Presentation : Enhancing User Interfaces with AJAX and Coldfusion

I'm going to be speaking at the CFUG meeting in London on Thursday, on the topic of Enhancing User Interfaces with AJAX and Coldfusion.

The meeting is at:

Room U214,
City University,
Northampton Square,
(main campus entrance),
London
EC1V 0HB.
(map)

Doors open at 6pm, and the first talk starts at 6:30.

It's been a while since I presented at a CFUG, so I'm looking forward to it. I'll be running through some AJAX tricks, going through a simple Google Suggest kind of interface at a code level, and also giving a tour of how we've used AJAX on a couple of recent projects.

The other topic I'd like to cover (if time allows) is how a good CFC architecture on the back-end can help you achieve a more powerful front-end interface that emulates desktop functionality..... but there's a lot of stuff to get through, so I may end up cutting this bit short -we'll see...

Hope to see you there.

IE CSS Bugs make me feel like this...

....bleh....