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We all know the importance of education...

Just a reminder that our 3 or 2 day ColdBox training is only 15 days away, so what are you waiting for, get registered and get the best out of professional training. Secret discount codes (cboxrulez) Check out some quotes from fellow CFer's

 

The Coldbox training raised my game in developing Coldfusion applications. It gave me a great understanding of the framework itself and vastly improved my original conceptions on OOP programming. Coldbox is a f...

This is a brief tutorial on how to install the ColdBox Sample Applications downloading from GitHub

Installing ColdBox Sample Applications from GitHub from Curt Gratz on Vimeo.

Again, all of the sample applications have been updated to ColdBox 3.0.0 standards including using the complete cfc configurations which makes them more portable and installing them easy. Hope you enjoy.

We are proud to announce that all of the ColdBox sample applications have been updated for the upcoming ColdBox 3.0 release. Sample applications are important as they increase the speed of entry into any development related task.

Give me a good sample and I can adopt it to my needs and be well on my way to learning the concept.

We believe so much in them, that there are over 20 of them covering a number of different techniques and tasks for ColdBox.

You can download the latest versions of our sample applications for ColdBox from http://github.com/ColdBox/coldbox-samples

Here is a quick run down of the sample applications.

Hello World

by Luis Majano

LightWire Sample

by Luis Majano

JavaLoader

by Luis Majano

News Web Service

by Luis Majano

Feed Reader Samples

by Ben Garrett

Feed Generator Samples

by Ben Garrett

Sample Login App

by Luis Majano

UDF Library Usage

by Luis Majano

i18N Sample Gallery

by Paul Hastings & Luis Majano

ColdBox Flex Tester

by Luis Majano

ColdBox cfcViewer Sample

by Luis Majano

ColdFusion 8 Ajax Sampler

by Sana Ullah & Luis Majano

Coldbox SES

by Sana Ullah & Luis Majano

Simple Blog

by Henrik Joreteg & Luis Majano

Ajax ColdBoxReader

by Oscar Arevalo

Transfer Sample

by Luis Majano
A very simple CRUD and Listing application using Mark Mandel's Transfer Library. This is a great example to learn how to tuse the Transfer Library and the ColdBox Framework.

Advanced Transfer Sample

by Ernst van der Linden
ColdBox-ColdSpring-Transfer

Security & Transfer Sample

by Ernst van der Linden & Luis Majano
ColdBox-LightWire-Transfer

Illidium cfc Code Generator

by Brian Rinaldi

This is a port of the actual application. It is by far specifically designed for ColdBox. It might contain unusual or redundant code.

In just 30 days we will be holding our 3 day ColdBox training marathon before Adobe Max.  We will have 2 days of intense training on the new ColdBox 3.0.0 release + a full day of hands on workshop, Q&A and just plain 'ol geek time.  Our early bird pricing ends October 1, so only a few days left. So hurry and get your tickets purchased.  We also have several discount codes floating around, but a little bird for some reason said "loveadobe...

I thought I would take a moment and explain some of the different ways you can use the BaseORMService and VirtualEntityService extras that are included in Coldbox 3.0 M5 and above.

Before I get into the different uses for each, lets define them both and hopefully that will help clarify the differences

Base ORM Service:

The BaseORMService is an amazing service layer tool that can be used in any project. The idea behind this support class is to provide a very good base service layer that can interact with hibernate and entities inspired by Spring's Hibernate Template support. It provides tons of methods for query executions, paging, transactions, session metadata, caching and much more. You can either use the class on its own or create more concrete service layers by inheriting from this class. We also have a virtual service layer that can be mapped to specific entities and create entity driven service layers virtually. ColdBox also offers several integrations to this class via plugins and the autowire DSL.

Virtual Entity Service:

The virtual entity service is another support class that can help you create virtual service layers that are bounded to a specific entity for convenience. This class inherits from our Base ORM Service and allows you to do everything the base class provides, except you do not need to specific which entityName you are working with. You can also use this class as a base class and template out its methods to more concrete usages.

BaseORMService/ORMService Plugin

So first, how might you use the Base ORM Service extra

First, you could use it to create a concrete service that has all the BaseORMService methods in it.  For example. UserService.cfc might look like this

 

Then you can call things like this

function list(event){
    var rc = event.getCollection();
    var UserService = getModel("UserService");

    //get a listing of all users with paging
    rc.users = UserService.list(entityName="User",sortBy="fname",offset=event.getValue("startrow",1),max=20);

    event.setView("user/list");
  }

 

Or any of the other available methods in the BaseORMSerivce.  Now with our UserService, we are free to add any of our own business logic to that service that is needed, but have a ton of really cool methods already available to us.

Another way to use the BaseORMService, and I think a simpler way if via the ORMService Plugin.  This plugin gives you access to all the methods in the BaseORMService.

Mainly, I don’t directly use the BaseORMService cfc.  I either create services based of the VirtualEntityService, via the AutowireDSL (which I will explain shortly), or use these features via the ORMService Plugin.

To use the ORMService plugin, we can modify our code above slightly and are ready to go.

function list(event){
    var rc = event.getCollection();

    //get a listing of all users with paging
    rc.users = getPlugin("ORMService").list(entityName="User",sortBy="fname",offset=event.getValue("startrow",1),max=20);

    event.setView("user/list");
  }

 

I find myself using the ORMService Plugin extensively, so I also always autowire it to my handler, making the code above even simpler.

// A handler
component{
  property name="ORMService" inject="coldbox:plugin:ORMService";

  function list(event){
    var rc = event.getCollection();

    //get a listing of all users with paging
    rc.users = ORMService.list(entityName="User",sortBy="fname",offset=event.getValue("startrow",1),max=20);

    event.setView("user/list");
  }
}

 

How easy is that.   Tons of functionality right at your fingertips.

VirtualEntityService /Autowire Entity DSL

Generally when creating a concrete service I want to base off of the BaseORMService, I extend the VirtualEntityService and initialize it using the name of the entity that the service concerns. 

Basically, the VirtualEntityService inherits from the BaseORMService and allows you to template out its methods to a specific entity for more concrete uses.  This eliminates the need to type entityName=”someEntity” in your calls, and anything that saves me typing, saves me time and is a GOOD thing.

So, if I was creating that same UserService from above using the VirtualEntityService, it would look like this.

import coldbox.system.orm.hibernate.*;
component extends="VirtualEntityService"{

  public any function init(){
      super.init( "User", true, "user.query.cache" );
      return this;
  }

  // Override or add methods as you see fit now.
}

 

Pretty cool huh?  Now my list function looks like this

function list(event){
    var rc = event.getCollection();
    var UserService = getModel("UserService");

    //get a listing of all users with paging
    rc.users = UserService .list(sortBy="fname",offset=event.getValue("startrow",1),max=20);

    event.setView("user/list");
  }

So, removing the entityName=”User” from the call, but if you had to call the service even 10 times, that’s a lot of typing saved.

 

Autowiring

There is also an autowiring DSL to quickly create services based on a specific entity that you can use if don’t need any additional methods or need to override any methods in your service layer.

Per the documentation

Type	Description
entityService	Inject a BaseORMService object for usage as a generic service layer
entityService:{entity}	Inject a VirtualEntityService object for usage as a service layer based off the name of the entity passed in.

 

// Generic ORM service layer
property name="genericService" inject="entityService";
// Virtual service layer based on the User entity
property name="userService" inject="entityService:User";

 

So, to implement our UserService and list function we have had in our examples we could have a handler like this

// A handler
component{
  property name="UserService" inject="entityService:User";

  function list(event){
    var rc = event.getCollection();

    //get a listing of all users with paging
    rc.users = UserService.list(sortBy="fname",offset=event.getValue("startrow",1),max=20);

    event.setView("user/list");
  }
}

 

For more information on the BaseORMService and VirtualEntityService, here are some links to the complete documentation.

http://wiki.coldbox.org/wiki/Extras:BaseORMService.cfm

http://wiki.coldbox.org/wiki/Extras:VirtualEntityService.cfm

Hopefully this post helps you understand how you can use these AWESOME extras in your environment.

 

We have just released our new training course 3 days before Adobe Max 2010 in Los Angeles, California (October 22,23,24).  This is a brand new course for CBOX-101 as it includes everything for ColdBox 3.0.0 + a 1 day workshop where we will do boot camp coding!  You have the option of either attending the 2 day train...

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