Before we get into the tags, I’d first like to mention I firmly believe SES URLs need to somehow make their way into ColdFusion.  The root of ColdFusion is making development life simple, and there is nothing simple about setting up SES URLs, particularly if you don’t know regular expressions.  I think this should be enabled/disabled at the application scope level and be a well thought out, simple process that doesn’t require IIS or Apache URL rewriting… it’s all done seamlessly in CFX.

With that said, here are some new tags I’d like to see:

• CFTRAIL – This will leave a breadcrumb trail.  I initially thought this would be a feature that would require the use of SES URLs in the application scope, but thinking further, I think it could still be done with the developer providing parameters.
• CFBROWSER – Web browser detection baby!

And while we’re at it lets add some parameters to CFLOCATION to allow delayed cflocating:

<CFLOCATION from="now()" delay="dd:hh:mm:ss" />

Lets also add a parameter to CFDIV to allow that loading icon to be customized:

<CFDIV icon="/images/yourAnimatedIcon.gif" />

This being ideal for loading user custom-created pages from a database, I think one of the features I would use the most is the ability to loop over cfcase in a cfswitch:

<CFSWITCH expression="#whatever#">
<cfloop query="yourQuery">
<cfcase value="#query.Column#"></cfcase>
</cfloop>
<cfdefaultcase></cfdefaultcase>
</cfswitch>

And finally some new functions I’d also like to see:

• dollarformat() – oops!  Already exists.
• encryptStruct()
• encryptArray()
• queryToArray(my.query,[dimension])

Coming next week
CFX: Feature Requests Part 3 – Everything Else

Even though I was unable to attend, Max 2011 produced some good things in the way of announcements for ColdFusion 10 (I like CFX better).  Most of what was announced though seemed like obvious steps forward of things that needed to be addressed, and not necessarily features that will make you jump out of your seat to line up and buy the product the second it’s released.  And I don’t really want to cover these features which can be easily found via Google.

Seeing as I’m not part of the alpha/beta of Zeus, what I do want to cover are some things that I believe would make CFX the product that would make you get in line and a product you can’t live without.

Today’s software and programming world is plagued with modularization. It is no longer just the language that is chosen for a project, but also the framework on which it’s built.

I am an anti-framework guy.  I honestly don’t get the buzz or see the benefit.  Inheriting someone else’s mistakes and relying on them because I’m too lazy to code the features myself isn’t a blessing for me or any of my clients.  It may save time to slap together a site in a few minutes, but does it really save time in the long run (and then have to keep that framework up-to-date… no thanks)?  Having jumped from framework to framework I’ve become a naysayer.  However, for the world of framework-lovers and the fact that ColdFusion is for everyone, lets modularize: Read more