CF newbie...

taff's picture

They have: 956 posts

Joined: Jun 2001

One of my clients has just been moved to a new server that uses CF. I need to make some conversions. Namely, some basic cgi mailto forms need to be converted.

I have never even TOUCHED ColdFusion but this looks like a good time to start. I figured that a trial version would suffice for this small project but which one? I'm guessing ColdFusion Studio but thought I'd check in to make sure.

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taff's picture

They have: 956 posts

Joined: Jun 2001

I went ahead and downloaded the CF Studio demo. Wow! As a HomeSite user, I'm very much at home with this app - the interface is identical.

I've already managed the mailto forms and am eager to play more Smiling

Does anyone know of a free host offhand that supports CF?

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They have: 601 posts

Joined: Nov 2001

Quote: Originally posted by taff

Does anyone know of a free host offhand that supports CF?

You are joking, right?!

mairving's picture

They have: 2,256 posts

Joined: Feb 2001

Yeah, not a lot of hosts, free or not, support ColdFusion, just because it is so expensive to setup on the server. Not a huge fan of CF myself, had one too many bad experiences.

Mark Irving
I have a mind like a steel trap; it is rusty and illegal in 47 states

taff's picture

They have: 956 posts

Joined: Jun 2001

Quote: Originally posted by mairving
Yeah, not a lot of hosts, free or not, support ColdFusion, just because it is so expensive to setup on the server. Not a huge fan of CF myself, had one too many bad experiences.

My host included - at my package level anyway. I could upgrade but it would be hardly worth it for just a little experimentation. What sort of "bad experiences" have you had?

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mairving's picture

They have: 2,256 posts

Joined: Feb 2001

Most of my bad experience was working for a company that used CF for it's E-commerce site. The problem was not neccessarily CF but the idiot webmaster that we had. I ran the customer service end of the website.

Here is a typical conversation with the webmaster;
Me: "Webmaster, I just received an order without a name, address and phone number on it."
Webmaster: "So, what is your problem?"
Me: "I just received an order without a name, address and phone number on it. Kind of hard to ship it don't you think."
Webmaster: "I don't really have time right now to look at".
Me (after hanging up): "Wanna bet?"
Me (calling webmaster's boss) : "I have a problem with an order..."

Plus this idiot was pulling down about 120K a year. I guess that I saw so many CF errors, I really didn't want to see CF again.

I have also heard that CF is not very scalable.

Mark Irving
I have a mind like a steel trap; it is rusty and illegal in 47 states

They have: 601 posts

Joined: Nov 2001

Hmm. Surely that's the fault of the 'idiot' webmaster for not running any error checking on the information sent.
I wouldn't blame CF for that.

Anyway, what I would do is to download a copy of the ColdFusion server...

http://www.macromedia.com/software/coldfusion/

And set this up on your local machine. If it's just testing, playing or developmnet you're interested in, there's no need to shell out for a full blown hosting provider. Just install a copy on any of your local machine and go from there.

- wil

They have: 601 posts

Joined: Nov 2001

... but if you really want to dive straight in and opt for a hosting provider, try reading through the information found here first:

http://www.hostindex.com/showcases/coldfusion/showcase.asp

- wil

openmind's picture

He has: 945 posts

Joined: Aug 2001

Coupla things,

Thera IS ONE free host that I have found & used. It is CFM-resources. They are OK for "cutting your teeth" on ColdFusion but don't expect too much support for the free sites and the server is a bit unreliable. Saying that it is free and will give a good oppurtunity to try out your CF site.

My site is entirely written using CF and is hosted by ExpertHost.com. Reliable, good support and cheap at $15/month.

The best way I learnt ColdFusion is to do as Wil suggested and download ColdFusion 5. Its a whopping 80MB but worth the wait. The beauty is after the 30-day trial it becomes a local server only mening you can't use your machine as a public web server. Not many people do this anyway and it makes a great development server.

Last thing, sending mail in ColdFusion is a piece of cake. See below:

<cfmail to = "[email protected]"
   from = "[email protected]"
   subject = "Your Subject"
   server = "smtp.yourserver.com"
   port = "25">

Your msg body here

</cfmail>
'

You can add cc, bcc have it looping over queries for a mailing list, anything you like to the above and its is all very simple...

I'm no expert in CF but if you have any questions I'll try to help!

taff's picture

They have: 956 posts

Joined: Jun 2001

ColdFusion? That's so... last week! Smiling

I actually got the mail forms working and haven't taken another look at CF since. Thanks for the tip on hosting though.

Now I'm trying to see how much trouble I can get into with PHP/mySQL! mwuhahaha!

taff
- a little knowledge is a dangerous thing!

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