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Amy Wong

Amy Wong

Adobe

Created:
15 April 2004
User Level:
Beginner, Intermediate
Products:
Coldfusion

Getting Started Guide to ColdFusion MX 7 and Its Resources

The ColdFusion community offers a plethora of resources to assist developers at every level. However, if you're new to ColdFusion, it can be hard to know where to start. In light of that, we've created the Getting Started area in the ColdFusion Developer Center to help new users coming from any background. As you use the Getting Started area and this article, I want to know if it's useful to you. Send me your feedback.

Follow the steps below to get started using ColdFusion.

  1. Get started with ColdFusion in 30 minutes.

    Before you install ColdFusion, check out this newest resource, filled with multimedia overviews, tutorials, sample apps, and code snippets. We brought this in-product experience out to you, so that you can see what you can do with ColdFusion, before you install it.

  2. Download the ColdFusion MX 7 Developer Edition for free!

    The ColdFusion MX 7 Developer Edition is a free, perpetual license with complete functional capabilities but is limited to access from the machine on which it’s installed and cannot be used in a production environment. Notice that this page also gives you the option of downloading the ColdFusion Trial Edition. The Trial Edition does not have the single machine access limitation, but times out 30 days after installation; after that, the Trial Edition becomes the Developer Edition.

  3. Install ColdFusion.

    You can use step 1 to get a preview of the install options available to you. To check out the new gateway offerings, install the multiserver option!

  4. Test the installation.

    To test your installation, go to the ColdFusion sample applications page on your local web server at http://localhost:8500/cfdocs/exampleapps/ (your port may vary based on the installation option you chose in step 3).

    Note: The above URL is local to your machine and will only work if you have installed ColdFusion.

    Browse the ColdFusion examples to test your installation of ColdFusion. If you encounter any issues with your installation, you can:

  5. Learn about CFML, the ColdFusion Markup Language.

    CFML pages consist of tags and functions. You can think of tags as commands that you use to instruct ColdFusion server to perform operations, such as selecting data from a database, reading a file that resides on the server, or showing the results of processing. Functions act on data. You use functions to perform the following actions: manipulate data and time values, examine a value or variable, display and format information, manipulate string data, retrieve system information and resources, and perform mathematical operations.

    • Read the section on CFML Basics section in the Getting Started LiveDocs. LiveDocs is the online version of the documentation.
    • As you create your first ColdFusion pages, keep the CFML Reference documentation handy to find the right syntax for the tags and functions that you're using.

  6. How to write and edit your CFML files.

    1. Open a text editor. If you don't have one, download the trial version of Macromedia Dreamweaver, which has CFML elements in its authoring environment to help you easily create CFML pages.
    2. Create a Site in Dreamweaver. This multimedia presentation is the first tutorial in a six-part series on building your first ColdFusion MX 7 database application.
    3. Save your CFML file with a CFM extension in the web root associated with ColdFusion server. With the default ColdFusion installation and built-in web server, the web root for Windows is C:\cfusionmx\wwwroot and for UNIX is /opt/coldfusionmx.

    4. Browse the CFML file. If you put the file at c:\cfusionmx\wwwroot\myApp\myfirstfile.cfm, for instance, type: http://localhost:8500/myApp/myfirstfile.cfm in your browser and press Enter.
      Note: If you place the file outside of your web root, the web server will be unable to find the file.

    If you already know other programming languages, check out Switching from Other Technologies to compare your language to ColdFusion and to see where the similarities and differences exist.

  7. Connect to a database.

    1. Learn database fundamentals.

      A database is a large collection of data organized especially for rapid search and retrieval. With programming languages, you typically use SQL (Structured Query Language) to add, update, select, or delete information in databases. Although you don't need to be a database expert to use ColdFusion, you should be familiar with database fundamentals. I recommend you read the following resources:

      • Ben Forta's Databases and SQL chapter in his book, ColdFusion MX Web Application Construction Kit.
      • The Database Fundamentals section in the Getting Started documentation.

      Now that you understand database basics, you can set up a data source for your database in the ColdFusion Administrator. A data source is a definition that specifies the database type, location (or database server name), driver type, and so forth for ColdFusion server. Once you add a data source to the ColdFusion Administrator, you access the data source by name in any CFML tag that establishes database connections, such as the cfquery tag, for example. During a query, the data source specifies to ColdFusion which database to connect to and what parameters to use for the connection.

    2. Connect to a Database. This multimedia presentation is the second tutorial in a six-part series on building your first ColdFusion MX 7 database application.

    3. For other getting started tutorials, check out the database articles on the Getting Started page.

    4. Once you feel comfortable with those tutorials, check out the ColdFusion Databases topic page.

  8. Build your first ColdFusion application.

    Follow along with the six-part multimedia tutorial series, Build Your First Database Application with ColdFusion MX 7. Updated for ColdFusion MX 7, with audio and captions, this tutorial series will give you step-by-step instructions on building your first application with ColdFusion MX 7. I've referred to a few of these tutorials already, but following along with the entire series is a great way to get started. You'll learn how about:

    • Tutorial 1: Creating a Site with Dreamweaver
    • Tutorial 2: Connecting to a Database
    • Tutorial 3: Writing Database Records on a Web Page
    • Tutorial 4: Drilling Down into Data
    • Tutorial 5: Using ColdFusion Components (part 1)

    • Tutorial 6: Using ColdFusion Components (part 2)

    I could try to introduce ColdFusion components (CFCs) to you, but Ben Forta does a much better job of explaining it in Introduction to CFCs.

  9. What's next ?

    The learning doesn't stop here. You'll quickly outgrow the topics in the Getting Started area, but I hope it's given you a good starting point. If there's anything I can do to improve your experience of getting started with ColdFusion, I want to know. Send me your feedback. In the meantime, check out the following:

About the author

Amy Wong is the manager for content community and applications on the Adobe Developer Connection working specifically with the Flex Cookbook, as well as the technical editor for content in the ColdFusion, Adobe Captivate, and RoboHelp Developer Centers. She started developing ColdFusion applications with version 1.5, loving the language so much that she came to Allaire in 1999 to work in the ColdFusion support forums and helping customers where she first went for help. From being a support engineer to TechNote editor to working on the Adobe Developer Connection, she is happy to be strongly connected to the developer community. When she is not online, she is usually outdoors telemark skiing, hiking, or surfing and running rivers in her whitewater boat in the rivers and mountains of New England and Canada.