Chris Peters: Web Developer

The guys at ColdFusion Podcast recently suggested that ColdFusion developers look into using CFEclipse in order to get ahead of the curve of what’s to come. With Adobe’s claiming that the IDEs for ColdFusion 8 and Flex 2 will be Eclipse-based, the podcast guys make a good point. After using CFEclipse for a couple weeks, I must say that it is a great way to author object-oriented ColdFusion applications.

If you’re a fan of Dreamweaver and don’t use ColdFusion components (CFCs) much, then you may want to stay right where you are.

I’ve grown quite accustomed to writing pseudo object oriented code using CFCs for the past year or so. The benefits brought forth by CFCs’ self-documentation alone have justified the extra time it takes to write JavaBean-like CFCs and data access objects (DAOs). CFEclipse does a few things more cleanly than Dreamweaver when dealing with CFCs.

Code Collapsing

I am a huge fan of CFEclipse’s code-collapsing feature. Little expander and contractor icons appear in the left margin next to large blocks of code (cffunction declarations, cfif blocks, cfquery blocks, etc.). This allows you to get whole methods, queries, and other large blocks of code out of the way so you need to scroll less and can worry more about the task at hand.

Methods View panel

The Methods View panel lets you get a quick snapshot of the methods within a given CFC. You can even tack a CFC so that it will stay within the panel when you switch to another file.

Other pluses

I’ll quickly rattle off some of the other features I’m pleased with. For one, Snippets are nice in that you can parameterize them (ala Homesite) and auto-generate some of the more mundane things like today’s date for a version history area, and the current file’s name.

CFEclipse’s code completion works similarly to Dreamweaver’s, if not a tad too slow in response. But it’s doable. The hints that pop up about tags and functions are also very helpful.

CFEclipse remembers what files you had open and how your workspace was set up, even after you close the program. Pretty nice.

And since CFEclipse is a plug-in for the popular Eclipse development environment, there are a wealth of other plug-ins you can download for free. I’m hoping to get more into finding some cool plug-ins for CSS and PHP soon.

When not to use CFEclipse

Like with any other technology, there are times when you wouldn’t really benefit from using CFEclipse. This plug-in has no WYSIWYG features, so it is all straight-up Code View. I’ve also seen many posts on the Web about poor FTP support within Eclipse, so I’ve found myself using Eclipse to edit my CFML and Dreamweaver to upload the files to the development server. I also depend on using Dreamweaver for checking files in and out to keep the communication with Dreamweaver and Contribute users within my organization. So obviously the Eclipse workflow wouldn’t be very suitable for quick updates of a few words or lines of code.

All you have to spend is time

If none of this has convinced you to try CFEclipse yet, I’ll mention that it is a free download, as is the Eclipse IDE. Go to www.cfeclipse.org for more information. What do you have to lose other than a few hours of playtime? You never know; you just may like it.