Understanding Progress Meters in ColdFusion 5

Structures are everywhere in the ColdFusion world. As of ColdFusion 4.5, form, application, session, server, request, and URL variables are stored in structures. Allaire Spectra makes extensive use of structures and associative arrays. But what are they and why should you care?

Macromedia ColdFusion MX includes a built-in web server that supports the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). SSL is a protocol to encrypt and decrypt page requests and the pages returned by the web server. This article describes how to enable and configure SSL with the built-in web server.

Macromedia ColdFusion MX includes a built-in web server. This article describes how to configure it for use in your application.

One of the most exciting new features of ColdFusion 5.0 is the introduction of the bundled Verity K2 Server. A very common hindrance to scalability of ColdFusion applications has historically been the search facility. K2 eliminates that problem by providing ColdFusion applications with a highly scalable search engine facility based on a TCP/IP client-server architecture. Additionally, Verity K2 Server provides considerable performance improvement over the basic, file-based Verity search functionality available with earlier versions.

A ColdFusion variable is created by assigning a value to it. Most commonly, you create variables by using the CFSet tag. You can also use the CFParam tag and assignment statements in CFScript. Tags that create data objects also create variables. For example, the cfquery tag creates a query object variable.

ColdFusion expressions consist of operands and operators. Constants and variables comprise the operands. Operators are the verbs that act on the operands; functions are a form of operator. This chapter first describes the operands and then describes the operators.

At the Washington D.C. ColdFusion Developer's Conference, the opening day keynote presentation featured a Macromedia ColdFusion Server 5 preview. ColdFusion Product Evangelist Ben Forta explained to the audience how many of version 5's features were inspired directly from feedback from developers.

Custom tags are a great tool for code reuse and portability. By developing a custom tag you not only make your current project easier but future ones as well. By providing the Developer Exchange, Macromedia provides a space for developers to share custom tags with thousands of other programmers and site builders.

No matter how well you build your Web applications, sometimes you will come across scripts that take a long time to process. No matter how much you optimize it, it still takes five, ten, maybe even 15 seconds for the page to display.