cfPadawan.com - ColdFusion

Hit me baby one more time (MySQL Style)

Tue, 11 May 2010 12:38:00 -0500

So yesterday I blogged on how to create a T-SQL custom scalar function in SQL Server to clean up a DATETIME and output it like this... 05/11/2010 11:37 AM. So for anyone who is primarily using MySQL (most of our clients use SQL Server but we also take care of some MySQL driven CF apps too) here is the same code for creating and calling your very own inline function on the MySQL platform. [More]

Date/Time formatting trick for SQL Server

Mon, 10 May 2010 17:22:00 -0500

As we all know, ColdFusion has a stellar line up of date and time formatting functions. But what happens when you need to do this at the database query level in a CFC or a Stored Procedure? Plus a FREE Scalar function! [More]

MASS EFFECT checkboxes with jQuery and CF!

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 17:20:00 -0500

If you've struggled with emulating GMail or Yahoo style Select All functionality for tabular forms and you're in love (or just curious) about jQuery and ColdFusion then this post is for you! If you love MASS EFFECT and you just want to see where someone has come up with a legitimate reason to use the words MASS EFFECT in code then this post if for you too! [More]

A stupid JavaScript mistake...

Wed, 07 Apr 2010 15:01:00 -0500

Have you ever spent an hour on something that was so simple that upon solving it you wonder how you possess enough brain power to have ever learned to write a simple statement? Well I did and I'm writing this entry for anyone else who has ever felt like they should be immediately de-rezzed! Yeah - I just went TRON on you... [More]

JavaScript Fall Through Switch Statements

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:17:00 -0500

Someone recently asked me if it were possible to easily execute the same code for two or more possible case values in a JavaScript switch statement. [More]

Dynamically Changing jQuery UI Accordion Tab Headings

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 13:50:00 -0500

If you're into using jQuery UI (and who's not?) then this is an easy way to change the heading of a jQuery accordion tab style heading to reflect user focus. [More]

HELP! Have you ever successfully output a cfchart within a cfdocument?

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:04:00 -0500

I have a cfchart (flash format) that works great within a normal cfm page. I'm running CF 8 so I should be able to embed the cfchart within a cfdocument but for whatever reason I cannot. If I change the chart format to png or jpg then I get a red x and if I run it as a flash format I get nothing. Has anyone out there ran into this and lived to tell the tale? UPDATE: Outputting the cfchart in png format will work if the localUrl attribute is removed (or set to false).

Getting Started with jQuery UI Dialogs

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:10:00 -0500

So I've been slowly learning jQuery over the last two weeks and today I wanted to see how I could duplicate the cool overlay style and functionality of a cfwindow. As it turns out, jQuery UI makes this super simple with Dialogs. [More]

Looking for a MySQL equivalent for SQL Server's ISNULL function?

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:59:00 -0500

SQL Server has a well known and widely used ISNULL function that actually replaces a null column value or null subquery value with whatever you specify. For example, if you were to write


SELECT  ISNULL(UnitPrice,0)
FROM    InventoryItem

then you would have zeros returned in your result set for all InventoryItem table records that had a NULL value for the UnitPrice field. Ever tried to do that in MySQL? It doesn't work because MySQL's ISNULL function simply returns a value telling you whether or not the argument to the ISNULL function was NULL or not. Not as cool when compared to SQL Server's nifty replace type of functionality now is it? But wait, no need to talk smack about MySQL - for there is another great and easy to use command in MySQL that will give us the same result! [More]

Using jQuery load in place of a cfdiv

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:57:00 -0500

As many of you know, yesterday I ventured into the world of jQuery for the first time. I'm a little late to the party so I've decided that in order to get proficient with jQuery before the apocalypse I'm going to have to use it in my everyday client development tasks. To give you some background, I have a long, on-going project where I'm creating a warehouse management/manufacturing application using ColdFusion 8 and SQL Server 2005. The app is huge and I've been using lots of out of the box cfajax widgets and cfajaxproxy to do cool things. I wanted to see how tough it would be to make jQuery do the same type of thing that I would normally use a cfdiv to accomplish. The quick answer? Easy, easy, easy - so easy that I couldn't believe it and had to ask Ray Camden if it were truly that easy or if I had made some sort of lucky mistake. I said, "Ray - it's too fast and too easy" and he said "Is that even AIR that you're breathing???" so here we go! [More]

Using CFAJAXPROXY to Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself!

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:37:00 -0500

Many web apps that are used for CRUD activities (INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE statements) employ tables that simply have what is often referred to as a manufactured key. Most people more commonly know this as an auto-increment or auto-numbered identity style of primary key and it is typically stored as a data type that's an integer of some sort. This is great until you're working on something a bit bigger, say a business app, and you want the key to a subsidiary table to hold meaning to the end user throughout the app. Perhaps you're setting up location codes or category codes for instance, the value 5 will probably not mean a lot to an end user when filtering inventory reports by location code and it unfortunately forces the user to perform mental lookups to remember that 5 truly means a location of 'Chicago'. So let's say that you make the decision to structure lookup tables using user defined key values - would you know how to use CF to help maintain referential integrity in your database while not endlessly frustrating your end users? [More]

Using CF and AJAX to dynamically show and hide divs based on database values

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 13:48:00 -0500

Showing and hiding form and document elements on a page can be pretty useful when you're trying to walk a user through a process and you only want them to interact with controls that are geared towards to the task at hand. [More]

Delivering Event Driven Notifications to Users with AJAX

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 00:01:00 -0500

Have you ever wanted to notify a group of users that an event has taken place using a cfwindow or some other type of alert? Well here's a way! [More]

A quick and easy way to customize ColdFusion's default loading message for cfdivs and cflayoutareas.

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 18:10:00 -0500

Have you ever wanted to juice up or possibly hide the default loading message for your cfdivs or cflayoutareas? [More]