With the release of Macromedia ColdFusion 7 and the arrival of Flash Forms, developers were presented with an alternative to HTML forms that offered them additional functionality, such as full-featured controls not available in HTML and built-in validation. That alone made Flash Forms appealing—and with the addition of pieces of ActionScript code, developers were able to create truly responsive forms. But because they were meant to be compatible with HTML forms, they still shared the same submit-refresh model. What if you could "submit" the form and, without a page refresh, get feedback from the server?

Enter Flash Remoting. In this series of tutorials you will learn how to create an application that allows users to search and retrieve records from a database, and then edit, add, and remove them from the database—all in one screen. Those functions will be presented in the context of a sample application, a real state management system that administers listings of properties for sale.

In Part 1 of this series, you will build the search functionality in the application.

Requirements

To complete this tutorial you will need to install the following software and files:

ColdFusion MX 7.01

• Try
• Buy
• Get the updater

Database: Microsoft Access, SQL Server, or MySQL

Tutorials and sample files:

• realestate.zip (ZIP, 127K)

  To install the sample application on your computer, unzip the files, create a data source called realEstate in the ColdFusion Administrator, and then browse to the directory after you place the files. Read the full instructions in the Readme file.

Prerequisite Knowledge

• Basic knowledge of ColdFusion components and Flash Forms
• Ability to set up a data source and write simple SQL statements

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