Welcome to <cfmldeveloper> -redux

If you have been having performance problems with CFBuilder or CFEclipse on windows (slowness, high CPU usage) then you may find the following solution provided by Kevin Miller useful to help resolve your issues.

For those of you that continue to experience hangs and massive slowdowns running CFB on Windows 7 64bit, the one thing I found that made all the difference in the world is to have Eclipse use the jvm.dll rather than javaw.exe (the default).  I’m using the CFB plugin into Eclipse, but I suspect this may also apply to CFB standalone on Win7 64bit as well.  No amount of configuration changes, switching between 32 and 64bit JVM/Eclipse or disabling of features made any difference to the significant performance problems I was continuing to experience UNTIL I explicitly had Eclipse start up using the dll (forcing the JVM to load within the Eclipse process).

I also found that simply adding the –vm argument to the eclipse.ini apparently doesn’t work when trying to specify a specific JRE to use (at least on my machine); regardless of the existence of this argument in the ini file, it will still always fire up C:\Windows\System32\javaw.exe, which is where the problems I was seeing are (high CPU utilization, memory consumption).  Not sure why that argument is ignored, perhaps a path issue, but I found that the only way I could be certain that I could run Eclipse with a specific JRE was to invoke Eclipse with the –vm command line argument.

I removed all my old JRE installs and installed the most recent 64bit JRE to C:\Java\64bit\.

What didn’t work:

I first tried updating eclipse.ini with:

-vm C:\Java\64bit\jre6\bin\javaw.exe

but found that Eclipse was still invoking the C:\Windows\System32\javaw.exe for some reason.  Eclipse started of course, and the javaw.exe process started going bananas again every time I would try to edit a file and *change the value of an html input tag* of all things – as soon as I changed the input value by adding one letter (even before saving) the javaw.exe process would immediately start eating cpu and memory, and I could repeat this problem consistently across multiple files.  Eclipse would hang, and I’d have to forcibly kill it as it would never recover.

I then tried invoking Eclipse with the command line –vm argument, like so:

D:\eclipse\eclipse.exe -vm C:\Java\64bit\jre6\bin\javaw.exe

leaving all the other arguments alone in the ini file; now, I could see that it was definitely using this particular javaw.exe but had exactly the same behavior I described above, edit a file (local filesystem, not network just to clear that it isn’t network related) and javaw.exe freaked out and Eclipse hung until forcibly killed.

I then tried changing the –vm argument in the eclipse.ini file to:

-vm C:\Java\64bit\jre6\bin\server\jvm.dll 

When Eclipse started it still had fired up javaw.exe in the Windows system32 directory as above.  Whatever.

What worked:

Finally, I invoked Eclipse using the command line –vm argument pointing to the JRE’s jvm.dll, like so:

D:\eclipse\eclipse.exe -vm C:\Java\64bit\jre6\bin\server\jvm.dll  

and holy crap, it runs great.  Responsive, no appreciable sluggishness, I even turned a bunch of the code assist and insight features back on in light of how great it works now.  Because javaw.exe isn’t running I have seen none of the problems I had when using the default invocation.  I don’t understand why this option isn’t talked about more (I recall seeing only one reference to it in all the stuff I read), nor why it works better for me than the default javaw.exe but I’ve been running it all day now and it has been working terrific so far.

So, if you’re on Win7 (or maybe even Vista) 64bit, have a 64bit JVM and 64Bit Eclipse and are seeing crappy performance or stability, try this method and see if it doesn’t solve your problems.  Off now to uninstall IntelliJ and Komodo trials ….

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Some folks seem to having issues getting their head around this subject, so I thought I would do a quick post to explain it further.

Data Source Names

A DSN (Data Source Name) is required to connect your application to your database.

In HELM there was an option to setup a ColdFusion DSN, this doesn't exist in WebsitePanel, so you need to request Data Sources to be setup manually. NOTE: ODBC DSN's do not work with Coldfusion.
This is not required for RAILO, if you are using Railo then simply login to your Railo web admin to setup Data Sources.

RDS Access

RDS allows you to connect to your databases and use debugging tools directly from dreamweaver or CFbuilder. Again there is no way to do this automatically, you need to request RDS access to be setup for you. You only need to do this once though. Please refer to the ColdFusion documentation for mor einfo on RDS.
This also involves setitng up a security sandbox so that you cannot RDS into other users sites and databases, so once you start using RDS then you will also need to get any news sites or DSN's you setup added to your sandbox before you will be able to use RDS with them.

This applies only to Coldfusion, Railo does not have RDS.

To simplify this process I have created a new DSN/RDS Support form when you can submit your requests.

Go Here: http://www.cfmldeveloper.com/page.cfm/support/rds-dsn-support

This is only a temporary requirement as I am currently working on an application to allow users to manage their own DSN's, RDS users  and Sandboxes.

Latest news from Andy Allan RE SOTR 2012

Back in October we blogged about what was happening in regards 2012.

This news subsequently opened up communication on Twitter that led to the creation of a Google Group to discuss ideas, and ultimately a plan that would allow the 2012 conference to take place.

We then announced that we would make a decision on the conference based on feedback from two partner meetings at the end of November. Initial feedback was positive but we worried we wouldn't have a quick enough turnaround and so it looked like the conference would not happen.

We're delighted to say we are now pushing forward with Sotr2012, but we're looking for some feedback.

As we continuously push to bring in new attendees and sponsors, we've been discussing whether a move from Edinburgh to Amsterdam would help. Amsterdam is a central hub that would involve a direct flight for most people (whereas Edinburgh may involve a connection), it's an attractive location and it has the potential to attract more international interest.

We've opened up a simple one question survey for you to answer: Amsterdam or Edinburgh.You can vote here. We plan to have more details announced in January, but you can follow us on Twitter for more frequent titbits of information.

Thanks to the folks over at HeliconTech we now have a new configuration FREE IIS friendly installer of Railo, which I have now installed on the cfmldeveloper servers. To read more about the new installer see my blog.

Enabling Railo is really simple, just create your site as normal (if you are already using ColdFusion then disable it in the web site properties page first), then go into the file manager, navigate into the wwwroot and edit the web.config file.

now replace the contents of the file with the following.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  <configuration>
    <system.webServer>
      <heliconZoo>
        <application name="railo.project">
          <environmentVariables>
          </environmentVariables>
        </application>
      </heliconZoo>
      <handlers>
      <add name="railo.project#x86.cfm" scriptProcessor="railo" path="*.cfm" verb="*" modules="HeliconZoo_x86" preCondition="bitness32" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" />
      <add name="railo.project#x86.cfc" scriptProcessor="railo" path="*.cfc" verb="*" modules="HeliconZoo_x86" preCondition="bitness32" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" />
      <add name="railo.project#x86.cfml" scriptProcessor="railo" path="*.cfml" verb="*" modules="HeliconZoo_x86" preCondition="bitness32" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" />
      <add name="railo.project#x86.cfr" scriptProcessor="railo" path="*.cfr" verb="*" modules="HeliconZoo_x86" preCondition="bitness32" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" />
      <add name="railo.project#x86.cfswf" scriptProcessor="railo" path="*.cfswf" verb="*" modules="HeliconZoo_x86" preCondition="bitness32" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" />
     <add name="railo.project#x64.cfm" scriptProcessor="railo" path="*.cfm" verb="*" modules="HeliconZoo_x64" preCondition="bitness64" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" />
     <add name="railo.project#x64.cfc" scriptProcessor="railo" path="*.cfc" verb="*" modules="HeliconZoo_x64" preCondition="bitness64" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" />
     <add name="railo.project#x64.cfml" scriptProcessor="railo" path="*.cfml" verb="*" modules="HeliconZoo_x64" preCondition="bitness64" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" />
     <add name="railo.project#x64.cfr" scriptProcessor="railo" path="*.cfr" verb="*" modules="HeliconZoo_x64" preCondition="bitness64" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" />
      <add name="railo.project#x64.cfswf" scriptProcessor="railo" path="*.cfswf" verb="*" modules="HeliconZoo_x64" preCondition="bitness64" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" />
    </handlers>

  </system.webServer>
</configuration>

Now open your railo admin and set your password. DONE!
http://yoursite.cfmldeveloper.com/railo-context/admin/web.cfm

SEO Friendly URL's

If you need to use SEO friendly URL's for things like Mangoblog and MuraCMS, this doesn't work out of the box with railo.

in your web root you will have a "web-inf" folder which is created automatically the first time you run a CFM page, this contains your Railo context, inside this folder create a web.xml file and paste in the below contents fig 2. 
This will allow the most common SEO URL  "index.cfm/something" to work, I have also included the required filters for MangoBlog. Now you just need to modify this file within each of your sites and add any required url-filters.
The only caveat is that you need to restart your app server in order for the settings to take affect, This can be done via the website properties page in website panel, see Fig 1 below, or by making a change to your web.comfig file which causes the app pool to recycle, this must be a real change, not just adding spaces.

FIG 1

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<web-app
xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd"
metadata-complete="true"
version="2.5"
>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>CFMLServlet</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>index.cfm/*</url-pattern>
<url-pattern>/post.cfm/*</url-pattern>
<url-pattern>/archives.cfm/*</url-pattern>
<url-pattern>/page.cfm/*</url-pattern>
<url-pattern>/author.cfm/*</url-pattern>
<url-pattern>/feeds.cfm/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
</web-app>

Since the switch to WebsitePanel I have been busy updating a lot of the support docs and related pages.

If you look on the manu menu at the top of the site you will see there is now a "Support" menu and everything is now under here. the main support page now contains links to all the user guides and documentation you will need.
The FAQ's have been updated with more WebsitePanel specific info and common answers, and there is now a whole new support ticketing system. I was planning to use getSatisfaction as the sole support solution, which would be fine aside from the fact that all posts are public, so it is not ideal for requests that require the sharing of login details such as DSN and RDS setup. So I started searching around for an alternative FREE solution and came across Assistly.com in the google Apps marketplace, which is FREE for the first support agent (an agent is a person who logs into the ticket system).  If you only need a single support agent then the free version off Assistly is pretty good, it integrates automatically with gmail for your email support mailbox and has a fair amount of customisability if you know HTML, CSS and Jquery in the email templates. Unfortunately you can only use these customisations in the  widgets that you place on your own site and not directly on the support portal unless you pay $20 per month for the advanced editor.

So the current support options are :-

• for general questions, feedback, suggestions, praise please use getSatisfaction FEEDBACK button at the side of the site, but please do check the support pages and FAQ first.
• for account specific questions, login issues, RDS or DSN  requests please use the new "contact support" page in the support menu.