BlueDragon Blog
Here you'll find tips and information about making the most of BlueDragon, which offers several compelling implementation alternatives for your CFML applications. This blog was created originally by Charlie Arehart, who was New Atlanta CTO from 2003-2006.,He has since moved on to become an independent consultant but continues to answer comments raised in existing blog entries. BlueDragon continues, and you should look to the newer BlueDragon blog, from New Atlanta president, Vince Bonfanti, for more updated information.

Another new Ajax library for CFML, JSMX, works with BlueDragon

« H E For All CFers--not just BD :: BlueDragon Evangelism :: Charlie Arehart :: email
posted Sunday, 18 December 2005

Though Ajax doesn't technically need to be tied to any backend, there have still been various attempts to create CFML-integrated libraries. A new one is JSMX, from Todd Kingham, and it works fine with BlueDragon.

You can read about and download the engine and some example code:

http://www.lalabird.com/jsmx/

I haven't had a chance to check out all the others, but I'll provide another entry in a moment listing them.

Note, as well, that on his downloads page he also offers links to a few HTTP Sniffers. As he so rightly points out, you can't do effective Ajax development without one. If your ajax client code is expecting some XML or even some simple string, it will choke if it gets HTML--as may come if an error occurs in the CFML page, or if you forget that you have debugging turned on. I've recommended that he add Fiddler from Microsoft


comments (4)


1. Rajeev left...
Monday, 19 December 2005 7:17 am

how do u handle cfhttp where you are behind a firewall?.. dont u need to pass in the userId and psswrd in plain text?.. any workarounds? thanx -rajeev


2. Charlie Arehart left...
Monday, 19 December 2005 8:56 am

Rajeev, I'm not sure what that has to do with the subject of this posting (the JSMX Ajax library). CFHTTP isn't typically a player in AJAX communications. Are you asking this randomly? And are you asking it with regard to BlueDragon, or to CF5, MX, or 7?

In brief, you can certainly pass USERNAME and PASSWORD attributes on CFHTTP, though that isn't to address firewall issues but rather is used for authentication on the destination server.

Similarly, and perhaps closer to your need, if you need to provide proxy information in order to perform a CFHTTP, there are available PROXYSERVER and PROXYPORT attributes since CF5, and PROXYUSER and PROXYPASSWORD added in CFMX 6.1.

As for any challenges with getting around a firewall, since those are typically based on ports, and most CFHTTP requests are for URLs on port 80 (as a browser would make), and most firewalls permit port 80, I really don't see what firewall issues you can hit, let alone any mechanism in CFHTTP itself to resolve them.

Of course, if your CFHTTP is requesting a URL on other than port 80, then yes you may well need to modofy the firewall of your server (where CF or BD is installed) to permit the outgoing request over that port. Just because you can browse some URL on your local PC doesn't mean it will work from the CFHTTP running from the server. This is a common cause of confusion, for many reasons (including lack of cookies in the server-based request compared to your local browser-based request, or inability of CFHTTP to do digest or "windows" authentication, even though your browser can).

Even so, I would say that since it doesn't seem related to the subject of AJAX and this particular library, it doesn't seem best to carry on this dialogue here.

If there is some BlueDragon-specific aspect to your question, we'd welcome it on the BlueDragon Interest list. Otherwise, if it's a CF-specific question, I'd recommend that you bring it up on either the Macromedia/Adobe CF forums or the mailing list of a CF user group.

Unless there's some connection to this posting or BlueDragon, I'm afraid I don't see any more insight I can offer to your challenge. Good luck with it.


3. Student Organizations Guy left...
Saturday, 19 August 2006 8:19 pm :: http://tuggle.it

I'm very skeptical on the concept of backend integration with AJAX, preferring to not interfere with a classic MVC architecture. As for an HTTP sniffers, all you need is FF with the Firebug extension. You can get HTTP headers too with LiveHTTPHeaders.


4. Charlie Arehart left...
Monday, 21 August 2006 8:29 am

Daniel, I'll leave the point of whether to integrate a backend with Ajax for others to debate. As for Firebug and livehttpheaders, sure, those are great solution for FF users and worth mentioning. Even as an occasional Firefox user I still find value in Fiddler, though it's indeed a windows-only solution as far as I know. Thanks for your thoughts.