About
The official blog of Team Mach-II and is the best place to stay up to date on all things Mach-II.
Blog Search
Categories
Config File Reference is Ready for Action
I won't lie to you... in fact I'll be the first to tell you that when I first started using the Mach-II framework, it was a little daunting trying to remember the names all of the xml elements available for use within my applications. Of course, it posed an even greater challenge remembering exactly what each one did! Now, with the addition of built in caching, logging, modules, includes, message/subscriber listener notifications, and the rest of the powerful features that have been introduced in versions 1.5 and 1.6 of the framework, how does anyone keep track of it all?
Mach-II 1.6.0 Beta Released
Team Mach-II is proud to release Mach-II 1.6.0 into an official Beta (zip download). Without furth ado, here's a short outline of what our goals were and the new features in 1.6.
Mach-II 1.6 Goals
In addition to the introduction of new features that Mach-II developers have requested, we had several other goals during the development of Mach-II 1.6.
- Maintain backwards compatibility. Mach-II 1.6 is 100% compatible with existing Mach-II applications currently running on earlier versions of Mach-II.
- Introduce caching at the controller level and build an extensible caching package that can be used independently from the MVC core of the framework.
- Introduce logging to replace the TracePlugin and build an extensible logging package that can be used independently from the MVC core of the framework.
- Provide a way to asynchronously 'broadcast' a 'message' and have multiple listeners respond
- Keep the framework true to its mission. The mission of Mach-II is to provide CFML developers with a powerful, easy-to-use MVC framework that is extensible through its plugin and filter architecture. We are always extremely cautious when we add new features to Mach-II, and we weighed the inclusion of each of the new Mach-II 1.6 features very carefully. We feel that the features introduced in Mach-II 1.6 represent a logical evolution without diluting the framework through the addition of ancillary features directly into the framework core.
- Set the stage for Mach-II 2.0. We made several behind-the-scenes changes that will enable functionality we have planned for Mach-II 2.0, which we are currently targeting for early 2009.
Mach-II 1.6 Feature Overview
Although in terms of version numbering Mach-II 1.6 is only a "point release" over Mach-II 1.5, numerous new features are introduced in Mach-II 1.6. In addition to bug fixes and general performance improvements, the new features in Mach-II 1.6 are as follows:
- Caching Package, allowing for flexible, granular caching of data and rendered HTML content in Mach-II applications
- Logging Package, allowing for multiple logging types, channels, and levels
- Publish/Subscribe Listener Method Invocation, which allows for multiple listener methods to be invoked via the broadcast of a single message
- Improved Application.cfc bootstrapper, enabling the use of onSessionStart() and onSessionEnd() events, eliminating the boilerplate code previously contained in Application.cfc, and other improvements
- ColdSpring Property, which is a replacement for the deprecated ColdSpring Plugin. Please note that unlike the ColdSpring Plugin, which is maintained by the ColdSpring Project and distributed with ColdSpring as opposed to with Mach-II, the new ColdSpring Property is maintained by the Mach-II developers and is distributed as part of the Mach-II framework.
- New onSessionStart and onSessionEnd plugin points
- Utility Connector
For an overview of new features, read our What's New in Mach-II 1.6 - A Quickstart for Current Mach-II Developers. For in-depth documentation on Mach-II 1.6, check out the 1.6 section on our wiki.
Posted 9/22/08 @ 5:45 PM by Peter J. Farrell
A Warm Team Mach-II Welcome to Brian FitzGerald
Lately, we've been disussing on adding a couple new members to Team Mach-II in order to spread the work load out to more people as our ambitions grow for better documentation, tutorials and a more frequent release schedule.
We're happy to announce the addition of Brian FitzGerald to Team Mach-II as our Wiki Manager (although you'll probably see him doing more than just managing the wiki). If you've been on the wiki lately, you've noticed that Brian has spent a lot of time working on improving and adding new material to the wiki. For those who don't know him, here is a short bio of Brian:
Before shifting gears to earn an Associates of Audio Engineering, Brian FitzGerald completed a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Then, after a two year stint as a Multimedia Developer for Goelst USA specializing in client side Web technologies, Adobe Flash and the Creative Suite, he decided to focus on CFML. Since then, he has concentrated on Object Oriented architecture and design, specifically in the field of Educational Technology, as he works toward the release of a Spanish language learning platform due out early next year.
He and his wife Cinthia are both travel enthusiasts, and currently live in Greensboro, North Carolina.
We hope to see Brian making some post on the blog in the near future. We're glad to have you aboard Brian!
Posted 9/22/08 @ 2:15 PM by Peter J. Farrell
New Mach-II Workshops (Feedback Needed)
Before the cf.Objective() 2008 conference in May, Team Mach-II offered two days of workshops that helped 40 developers to enhance their knowledge about object-oriented programming and to learn how to build enterprise-level applications in Mach-II.
Mach-II Workshops Have Been Redesigned and Improved
Sometime in February, 2009 we are planning on offering the new and improved Mach-II workshops either in the Baltimore, MD/Washington, D.C. area, Bloomington (IN), Minneapolis (MN), or Seattle (WA).
We are trying to determine which dates and locations people are most interested in. Please complete the Mach-II Workshops Survey to find out more about our workshops and to tell us what you think.
Your responses to this survey will help us determine the feasibility of offering these workshops sometime in February at one of the locations we've identified. If you complete our survey, we will send you a FREE Mach-II (Version 1.6) quick reference poster! We are really are going to send these out very soon. :)
Mach-II Dashboard Updated
Kurt and I have been working on the new Mach-II Dashboard which we released into an alpha a week or so ago. We've released several nightly zips since then, but wanted to blog again since we've improved the look and feel of the dashboard and added in a basic login page so it can be deployed on production system. One of the improvements is the addition of charts for the caching stats on the cache page. We're working on getting information about the CFML server memory use and a debugging page that will offer recent snapshots of exceptions which will help developers see recent errors in real time on a production application without downloading and searching through logs files. I'm sure this will help those pesky errors that people call you about.
What's New in Mach-II 1.6 Quickstart Available
It's been a summer of documentation for Mach-II, so if you haven't checked out the Mach-II wiki recently-- you should.
Just wanted to announce that in anticipation of Mach-II 1.6 beta release, I wanted let everybody know that we've completed the What's New in Mach-II 1.6 - A Quickstart for Current Mach-II Developers. It's a nice quickstart to get you up to speed on all the new goodies we've introduced in the next version of the framework.
Posted 9/10/08 @ 12:25 PM by Peter J. Farrell
CFC Primer Parts 3, 4 and 5 Published
As mentioned by Kurt in a previous post, the Mach-II team has published a CFC Primer written by Matt Woodward. This CFC Primer was created to give developers some background and history of the CFML language from the standpoint of enabling modular application development. The primer introduces developers to the power of CFCs and why it is important to take advantage of CFCs in building applications. We have now published the remaining parts 3 through 5 of the primer for your reading enjoyment.
- Part 1 - Definition and History
- Part 2 - Structure of CFCs
- Part 3 - Variable Scopes
- Part 4 - Encapsulation and Information Hiding
- Part 5 - Using the Person CFC and Summary
Learning about object orientated programming is the key in becoming a better developer. We originally created this primer as a introduction to CFCs for our Mach II training students to read before the class starts.
CFC Primer Parts 1 and 2 Published
The Mach II team has published a new section in our Mach II Quickstart Guide. This new section is a CFC Primer written by Matt Woodward. This CFC Primer was created to give developers some background and history of the CFML language from the standpoint of enabling modular application development. The primer also intends to introduce developers to the power of CFCs and why it is important to take advantage of CFCs in building applications. We will be publishing the parts 3 through 5 soon.
We think that having developers learn about object orientated programming is key in having them become better developers. We originally created this primer as a introduction to CFCs for our Mach II training students to read before the class starts.
Mach-II Dashboard Module - Development Helper Application
Well, we've been talking about the dashboard coming for quite some time and we're happy that an alpha version of the dashboard is here! Kurt and I have been working on an alpha for the past month. We're happy to open up the repository now that we have a simple working version committed. This is the functionality that's currently available:
- Reload base application or individual modules
- Reload base ColdSpring bean factory or individual child factories
- Manage logging
- Manage caching
Remember this is at an alpha version and there is functionality and features we haven't added yet. Check out the Dashboard Home for screenshots and additional information.
By the way, the Dashboard requires the BER or latest nightly of the Mach-II 1.6.0.
How to Install
- Unzip the dashboard to your web root.
- For example, on Windows the default web root is [DRIVE]:\Inetpub\wwwroot, or if you are using your CFML server's built-in web server, your web root is likely [DRIVE]:\CFusionMX\wwwroot. If you are on a Unix system, your web root will vary.
- The end result of this step is that you should have the directory MachIIDashboard (no hyphen) in your web root. Inside this directory you will find the dashboard files.
- If you wish to place the core Mach-II Dashboard files in a location that is different from your webroot, just create a mapping called MachIIDashboard in the CFML administrator / control panel that points this mapping to the location where you placed the dashboard files.
- Add the dashboard as a module in your Mach-II application configuration file:
<modules>
<module name="dashboard" file="/MachIIDashboard/config/mach-ii_dashboard.xml"/>
</modules> - Reload your Mach-II application and navigate to:
http://www.example.com/index.cfm?go=dashboard:index
