Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 Demystified

Dreamweaver MX 2004 is designed to be a complete solution for developing coldfusion applications. Unlike other server models supported in Dreamweaver, ColdFusion is a " tag-based " language for developing dynamic applications. Rather than using a scripting language, like PHP, ColdFusion reads embedded custom tags in the page's regular HTML for the server to execute commands and return data to the browser. From within Dreamweaver, developers can access all the tags available in ColdFusion from the insertion bar.

Dreamweaver has several ways to access ColdFusion tags. The most basic way to work with ColdFusion is to use the built-in server behaviors and application objects that were covered in Chapter 22, "Creating Dynamic Pages." The server behaviors and application objects insert one or more ColdFusion tags into your code with one dialog box that makes it easy to create complete blocks of code to accomplish particular tasks , such as inserting a record into a database or protecting a page with user authentication. Dreamweaver also allows you to insert individual ColdFusion tags into the code so that you can include more-complex or customized commands for the ColdFusion server. Individual tasks also allow you to modify blocks of code that Dreamweaver inserts if you need to add additional commands or simply hand-code your own ColdFusion applications tag by tag.

Some of the tags available in this chapter have many attributes. This chapter details the most common attributes. If you want complete information on each tag, try using the Allaire CFML Reference, available from the Reference Panel.

Another ColdFusion feature available in Dreamweaver MX 2004 is the ability to create and consume (use) ColdFusion Components (CFCs). These are pieces of ColdFusion functionality that are broken out from your main application and that are available to multiple applications. CFCs make your applications more robust and reusable and are the preferred way to design applications professionally.