ColdFusion 9 on OS X Lion

The Lion Shipped Last Night, or this morning. Today we'll see if it Roars! I am downloading and installing OS X Lion on my older Mac Book Pro. I have ColdFusion 9 Developer edition as well as the rest of my developer tools on there. I plan to use the MBP as the guinea pig and if that works fine then to my main system, a much newer iMac. I'll update this post with details as I have them.

The Install Process

FIRST RUN YOUR SOFTWARE UPDATES! New updates came out for Snow Leopard in the past few days including and update to the Migration Assistant. Next, go the the App store. Lion if featured on the home page. Purchase Lion for $29 and wait while it downloads and installs. This is what's happening right now on the MBP. I hope everyone has a fast internet connection. This is 3.49GB.

The Results

So far I am running into an issue getting CF 9 server started. I don't have time right now to debug.

ColdFusion Builder 2 is running. This was installed already when I did the updated to Lion.

Flash Builder 4.5 is hanged in the install process. I hadn't installed it yet and it seems to be not working. The first issues was it could not communicate with Adobe to verify my Adobe ID. I don't have time to debug this either right now.

*UPDATE*
JRun is running, but I can't control starting or stopping of ColdFusion from CFBuilder or the ColdFusion Launcher. If I kill JRun then use the ColdFusion Launcher, I get the message "Server 'cfusion' failed to start." I'm not seeing anything in the logs indicating why it failed. I'm wondering if the connector to Apache is an issue. I remember that I had to redo that for ColdFusion 8 when I upgraded to Snow Leopard. Otherwise I'll reinstall ColdFusion 9 and see what happens.

  • Flash Builder 4.5 did install finally
  • ColdFusion Builder 2 is running.

*UPDATE 2*
There had to be something else wrong with my previous install. maybe I had the wrong connector or installed previously. I am not sure. This is a 3+ year old MacBook Pro that had Leopard installed originally and has had two OS upgrades since. None of these upgrades have been fresh clean installs. Plus ColdFusion 8 prior and now ColdFusion 9. So, I decided to uninstall ColdFusion and reinstall. That only took 5 minutes and now ColdFusion 9 is up and running. The good news about doing this way is we now know the installer works on Lion. Maybe this weekend I'll upgrade my iMac which is much newer and has not had so many previous upgrades. I'm feeling better about OS X Lion now.

*UPDATE 3*
Well, I tried to install the ColdFusion 9.0.1 update. That failed. I'm having all the same issues I had when I originally upgraded to OS X Lion. I usually stay up-to-date on these updates and hot fixes so I'm guess this may have been the issue all along. I'm posting the items from log files that may point to a clue. I'm not sure what the problem is at the moment.

view plain print about
1Apache error.log
2[Fri Jul 22 12:01:47 2011] [notice] jrApache[136: 59841] Couldn't initialize from remote server, JRun server(s) probably down.
3[Fri Jul 22 12:01:47 2011] [notice] jrApache[136: 59841] JRun will not accept request. Check JRun web server configuration and JRun mappings on JRun server.
4
5
6cfusion-event.log
707/22 12:02:08 info No JDBC data sources have been configured for this server (see jrun-resources.xml)
807/22 12:02:08 info JRun Web Server listening on *:8300
907/22 12:02:08 info JRun Proxy Server listening on *:51020
1007/22 12:02:08 info Deploying enterprise application "cfusion-ear" from: file:/Applications/JRun4/servers/cfusion/cfusion-ear/
1107/22 12:02:08 info Deploying web application "Adobe ColdFusion 9" from: file:/Applications/JRun4/servers/cfusion/cfusion-ear/
1207/22 12:02:09 user JSPServlet: init
1307/22 12:02:10 user ColdFusionStartUpServlet: init
1407/22 12:02:10 user ColdFusionStartUpServlet: ColdFusion: Starting application services
1507/22 12:02:10 user ColdFusionStartUpServlet: ColdFusion: VM version = 20.1-b02-383

*UPDATE 4*
A huge thanks to Marcin Szczepanski - see his comment below.

I could confirm his findings on my installation also. The new jpedal.jar is different. There are class files in the old one that are not in the new one. By replacing the new jpedal.jar file with the old one, ColdFusion 9.0.1 is up and running. Considering this was part of the update for 9.0.1 I wonder what else will break because of using the old file?

Another ColdFusion Builder 2 bug fixed

I am just getting fully into code for today with the ColdFusion Builder 2 HotFix 1 applied. I had to edit some JavaScript and I noticed that it appears another bug was fixed that wasn't documented in the HotFix documentation. It used to be that when editing JavaScript files "name.js" that if JavaDoc style comments were used the syntax coloring would break. Now it's working. Can anyone else confirm this?

This had been reported as bug # 2824457 to Adobe back in March of 2011 and attributed as a "third-party" issue.

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1/**
2 * File name: myJsFile.js
3 * Date: 07/19/2011
4 *
5 * @param int
6 * This function does something
7 *
8 */

9 function testMeNow(myInt) {
10 if (myint == 0) {
11 alert("Too Small");
12 } else {
13 alert("too big");
14 }
15}

ColdFusion Builder 2 Hotfix 1

Adobe released the ColdFusion Builder 2 HotFix 1 today. Three bugs have been fix related to searching files.

2918913 If you select multiple files in the navigator and perform search, ColdFusion Builder Search scope does not display the option Selected Resources.

2918906 If you select multiple files or folders and perform search, ColdFusion Builder Search does not provide the option to specify file extensions to narrow down the search.

2918920 At times, ColdFusion Builder Search becomes unresponsive if you perform search on large number of files.

Hopefully this is a sign that Adobe will be releasing HotFixes more often than was done with ColdFusion builder 1, because there are still more bugs to be resolved.

ColdFusion Builder 2 and the Subversive Plugin

One of the first things you may need to do after installing ColdFusion Builder (or Flash Builder) in setup SVN. My personal preference is the Subversive Plugin. Prior to importing any projects I recommend installing the Subversive plug in and getting it setup with an SVN connector. Doing this first will make importing any existing previous version CFBuilder projects or existing SVN Checkouts much easier to import and get re-connected.

I am blogging this because the great Ray Camden, the ColdFusionJedi, was tweeting for help today with this subject and the Subversive plugin. This is what we figured out. Not all SVN Connectors are equal, use SVNKit. Below is how to install Subversive and the SVNKit connector and why you should choose this connector.

You need to install the plugin first. On the Standalone version of ColdFusion Builder do the following:

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SVN Clients For OS X

I do a lot of work with version control on the Mac. Typically I only use the Subversive plug-in for ColdFusion Builder or Eclipse. However some clients of ours at CFWebtools are using Versions , so I had to install and learn Versions to help them out. The download and install is typical "Mac easy". However, I find the way Versions works is a bit more confusing than it should be. Also, unless I am not seeing them, Versions only has a subset of the SVN commands. I am not seeing merging, branching and tagging. I don't know how you're supposed to merge branches and tag using Versions. To me this is a severe shortcoming.

Also I found the UI to be confusing. Repository Bookmarks? What are those? I've never heard bookmarks used in terms of SVN with exception to how tags are sometimes explained. When you look at the top level in the Bookmarks pane you get the view of the server. In other SVN clients this is called the Repository Browser mode. In the subfolder level of the Bookmarks pane you see the code checkouts. I can see how is it very easy to get the two views, which are blended together into the same window, confused. As far as functionality goes, I can checkout, commit, update and view differences etc. However I cannot merge two branches or merge a branch back into the trunk. I can checkout the trunk and a branch for the same repository at the same time and see them both but I can't do a merge. If this was a freeware product I suppose it would be acceptable that wasn't full-featured but this is commercial-ware and as I see it, it's missing critical features.

So I started downloading other SVN standalone clients. There is RapidSVN and SmartSVN that I found and they both looked like they have a decent UI to work with. First I tried RapidSVN and it required Rosetta to install so I said "the heck with it", and deleted it. SmartSVN did install and what struck me was it had a more intuitive interface than Versions. The first thing it did was to ask if I wanted to connect to an existing check out of code. Not, ask if I wanted to create a new Repository Bookmark. Of course I did, I have code for about a dozen projects checked out. I also found that SmartSVN has a more complete set of version control commands, including merging and branching and tagging. Also the UI does not try to blend or hide the difference between the repository browser and your local check out. If I need to browse the repository it does so in a new window just like every other SVN client I've used on Windows and Mac.

SmartSVN clearly, without any customization, identifies changed files. And I believe the default sort order was by changed files on top but don't remember if I change that right away or not. It is very easy to change the way you sort your files with SmartSVN. I found that the ignore feature works like other advanced SVN clients and lets me set wildcard patterns. This is something that I noticed I could not do in Versions.

Overall the look the feel and the flow of usage of SmartSVN was very intuitive and useful. If I needed to use a standalone SVN client I would definitely purchase SmartSVN even though the price tag is a bit hefty at $80. Which is why I prefer using the Subversive plug-in for ColdFusion Builder.

Of course OS X already has command line SVN commands available at your fingertips if you so choose to use them. Enjoy!

RegEx and ColdFusion Builder Helps Upgrade Old CFML Code

This is just a short note about how to use RegEx in ColdFusion Builder to help with code migration. Today I am working with an old ColdFusion 4.5 site and I'm putting it on CF8. At CFWebtools, we believe in helping ColdFusion stay ColdFusion by upgrading to newer versions! The good news is there are no C++ CFX tags to worry about. However, there is a lot of code using the deprecated "ParameterExists()" function. This should be updated to isDefined("...").

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Getting Started ColdFusion Builder 2

Now that ColdFusion Builder 2 on in public beta I see more people asking about how do I use or get started with ColdFusion Builder?

The answer is easy and hard at the same time. ColdFusion Builder is built on the Eclipse Foundation. Here is a quick blurb from the Eclipse About page.

Eclipse is an open source community, whose projects are focused on building an open development platform comprised of extensible frameworks, tools and runtimes for building, deploying and managing software across the lifecycle.
If you are not familiar with Eclipse at all then one good place to start in this video from the Eclipse Foundation on use the Workbench. The Workbench is where you write your fabulous code.

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ColdFusion Builder 2 Public Beta Released

Adobe just released the Public Beta of ColdFusion Builder 2!

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/coldfusionbuilder2/

I'm just demoing it now for the first time.  First of all, I already own CFBuilder 1  installed in stand alone mode. My first concern was to make sure that the beta did not overwrite my lincensed version.  I have way too much work to do this week to have that copy wiped out. I was happy to see it install in a new folder "/Applications/Adobe ColdFusion Builder 2 Beta" I also recomend using a different workspace than your existing CFBuilder. 

Some details:

Eclipse Platform Version: 3.6.1 Helios

Update site for Eclipse plugins:  

http://download.eclipse.org/releases/helios

The Subversive plugin did install, but I could not get the SVN Connectors to install at first. CFBuilder 2 Beta hung a few times and I had to force quit it a few times. But it did finally install the SVN connectors. Also, the install was slower than on a plain Eclipse install. Not sure why.

Project imports: I imported a couple of my huge projects and those imported fast (VERY FAST) and connected to the SVN without issues.

More to come as I put it through it's paces today.

Enjoy!

ColdFusion Builder 2 Video

A video of new features in ColdFusion Builder 2 has been released. [http://blogs.adobe.com/anand/2011/02/take-a-look-at-the-editor-enhancements-in-cf-builder.html] The new features shown in the video focus heavily on Code Assist. If you have ever used Eclipse to code Java, you see how Code Assist should work. This is the direction that ColdFusion Builder 2 is heading. I am really excited to see the next version of ColdFusion Builder.

ColdFusion logs in Living Color

There's been a lot of talk on the House of Fusion forums the past few days about ColdFusion Builder and is it worth the cost. Part of the answer I gave basically said if it helps you do your job more efficiently then yes. Well, here is just one more feature that ColdFusion Builder has that helps me do my job. 

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