Making Full Use of the Tools at Hand (Part I) : Maximizing code re-use because we hate typing!

Written / Researched By:
Fred T. Sanders and Nat Papovich

The Tools We Never Think Of

In Part I, we will be dealing with "Document Templates," which are stored in the "New Document" section of the File menu in Studio. By the end of this article, we will have several starter templates for you to start off your collection of generic, reusable code. The author uses the Fusebox method, and as these examples are taken from his collection, most will conform to that methodology. This is in no way an attempt to sell you on the Fusebox method and is just a matter of personal taste. Hopefully, with a better understanding of Document Templates, they will become an integral part of your development style and increase the speed, accuracy, and consistency of the coding of your applications.

Why Do We Want To Use Document Templates?

A Little Planning Goes a Long Way These Days

You can make your own template directories under:

(Studio 4.0.1) "C:\Program Files\Allaire\ColdFusion Studio4\Wizards"
or
(Studio 4.5) " C:\Program Files\Allaire\ColdFusion Studio45\Wizards."

Once you "Save as Template," you will need to move them from the "Custom" folder into the subdirectory you have chosen. Hopefully, you can now see the importance of this tool, and will begin using it to its full potential.

Some Starter Templates

We will be using the Application.cfm template for the speed benefit, initial application documentation, and a little extra Fusebox-specific template security. You will need to define two things in this template.

The first variable you will need to define is "request.root." This is the root of the application, not necessarily of the entire site. Since Application.cfm is not used for session management, we will actually assign a separate request.root value for each sub-application (smaller applications that are called from parent applications) as well. As an example, if you have a fusebox application in its own subdirectory (i.e., www.my-site.com/myapp), then you'll want ("request.root") to be "myapp."

Request.root is used for, but not limited to, site security. For instance, one of the Fusebox conventions is to have all applications called through the index.cfm. Let's say someone was trying to call a template directly, rather than going through index.cfm. With code using this variable, you can tell the application to redirect this user in the following ways:

1. Find an index.cfm in the directory of the template being called.

2. If there isn't one, then find an index.cfm in the immediate parent directory (which is supposed to be defined by #request.root#.)

3. If there isn't one, then go to the absolute root of the website and call that index.cfm.

Now this code has a problem, in that it will redirect while you're in development and you may not want this. Therefore, we've encapsulated all this code in a few <CFIF> statements that are based on a variable we set called "#attributes.published#." This is set by default to "NO". When we are ready to publish the application to its permanent home, we will set this to "YES" to enable the template security. If you are not using the Fusebox application framework, you'll need to modify this a bit before saving it as a "Document Template."

<!--- app_globals.cfm --->

<CFSETTING ENABLECFOUTPUTONLY="Yes">

<!--- Change form and URL variables to attributes variables. --->
<!--- This is to keep with the Fusebox Standard --->
<CFIF NOT ISDEFINED("attributes.fuseaction")>
   <CF_FORMURL2ATTRIBUTES>
</CFIF>


<!--- Define Application name and turn on client and
      session management settings --->
<CFAPPLICATION NAME = "" <!--- Application Name --->
 CLIENTMANAGEMENT = "YES"
 SESSIONMANAGEMENT = "YES" 
 SETCLIENTCOOKIES = "NO">

<!--- Set some global variables --->
<CFSCRIPT>
   request.MainDSN        = ""; // Define Data Source Name
   request.MailServer      = ""; // Define Mail Server (optional)
   request.sysAdmin        = "<A HREF='MAILTO:WEBMASTER@THIS-SITE.COM'>Webmaster</A>"; // Define Administrator Email
   attributes.headerfile     = "dsp_header.cfm"; // Define our Application Header File
   attributes.footerfile      = "dsp_footer.cfm"; // Define our Application Footer File


   request.WeeklyCache    = CreateTimeSpan(7,0,0,0); // Define Cache time for queries that need updating weekly
   request.DailyCache     = CreateTimeSpan(0,1,0,0); // Define Cache time for queries that need updating daily
   request.HourlyCache    = CreateTimeSpan(0,0,1,0); // Define Cache time for queries that need updating hourly
</CFSCRIPT>

<!--- Fusebox tag for CFID and CFTOKEN in Search Engine Friendly URLs--->
<CF_FUSETOKEN>
<CFSETTING ENABLECFOUTPUTONLY="No">
<!--- end global variables --->

app_locals.cfm
This template is used for defining our application's local variables. You will have one for each application and one for each of (if any) sub applications. A good analogy for this template and the app_globals.cfm template would be to compare the differences between your driver's license and the owner's manual for your car. You need your driver's license to operate any car. This is like your "app_globals.cfm" template, which affects every application and sub-application. The owner's manual is what you need to know to drive a specific car. This is like the "app_locals.cfm" template, which is specific to only one application. In this template, we'll define our application's stylesheet. If you do not wish to do so, just delete or comment out the include. I've named it "app_style.cfm" in the template code below. If you have several stylesheets, I would just include them from "app_style.cfm," or if you have only one stylesheet, then store it there. The other four parameters to define will be the default values for your site's page title, keywords associated with the site, page description for, and possibly the search engine robot directives. We will change these settings dynamically within our fuseactions (located in our "index.cfm" template).

<!--- app_locals.cfm --->

<!--- Include Global Application Settings--->
<CFINCLUDE TEMPLATE = "app_globals.cfm">

<!--- Get Our Stylesheet --->
<!--- Optional --->
<CFINCLUDE TEMPLATE = "app_style.cfm"> 

<!--- Set Any Local Application Variables --->
<CFPARAM NAME = "request.title" DEFAULT = ""> <!--- Set Default Application Title--->
<CFPARAM NAME = "request.keywords" DEFAULT = ""> <!--- Application Keywords--->
<CFPARAM NAME = "request.description" DEFAULT = ""> <!--- Set Default Application Description--->
<CFPARAM NAME = "request.robots" DEFAULT="index,follow"> <!---(index, noindex; follow, nofollow)--->

<!--- end app_locals.cfm --->

app_layout.cfm
This is the default template used by the Fusebox BODYCONTENT tag. No changes need to be made to this template. It is simply added to the collection for convenience when starting a new project.

<!--- app_layout --->
<!--- Used In Conjuction With The Fusebox BODYCONTENT Custom Tag. --->

<CFPARAM NAME="attributes.headerfile">
<CFPARAM NAME="attributes.footerfile">
<CFPARAM NAME="request.bodycontent">
<CFPARAM NAME="attributes.showbody" DEFAULT="yes">
<CFIF LEN(ATTRIBUTES.HEADERFILE)><CFINCLUDE TEMPLATE = "#attributes.headerfile#"> </CFIF>
<CFIF ATTRIBUTES.SHOWBODY><CFOUTPUT>#request.bodycontent#</CFOUTPUT></CFIF>
<CFIF LEN(ATTRIBUTES.FOOTERFILE)><CFINCLUDE TEMPLATE = "#attributes.footerfile#"> </CFIF>

<!--- end app_layout--->
		

dsp_header.cfm
This template is just a header template. The only things you may want to change are the Meta Tags. You may also want to go ahead and fill out the HTML comment provided at the bottom with author information, etc. Remember: Only fill out what is unlikely to change. Leave all "#request.?????#" variable references alone, as we will change these dynamically within our fuseactions.

<!--- dsp_header.cfm --->
<!--- This template is used in conjunction with the BODYCONTENT Fusebox Custom Tag. --->
<CFOUTPUT>
 <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 TRANSITIONAL//EN">
 <META HTTP-EQUIV = "Content-type" CONTENT = "text/html; charset = US-ASCII">
 <!--- Help prevent Page Caching --->
 <META HTTP-EQUIV = "Expires" CONTENT = "Sun, 12 May 1996 00:36:05 GMT">
 <HTML>
 <HEAD>
 <TITLE>#request.title#</TITLE>
 <META NAME = "robots" CONTENT = "#request.robots#"> 
 <META NAME = "revisit-after" CONTENT = "5 days">
 <META NAME = "rating" CONTENT = "General">
 <META NAME = "DC.Language" SCHEME="RFC1766" CONTENT="EN">
 <META NAME = "Description" CONTENT="#request.description#">
 <META NAME = "Keywords" CONTENT="#request.keywords#">
 <LINK REL = "SHORTCUT ICON" HREF = "http://#request.domain#/favicon.ico">
 </HEAD>
 
<!-- 
Title: 
Company: 
Coded by: 
Web Address: http://www.your-site.com   <!--- replace --->
Email: webmaster@your-site.com  <!--- replace --->
-->
</CFOUTPUT>

<!--- end dsp_header.cfm --->
		

dsp_footer.cfm
This template, like the header template above, shouldn't really need changing, and this is the bare minimum required in it. What I will often do (once I've decided on a page layout) is to include everything from the end of the page body that isn't going to change, as well as the closing HTML tags for the entire document. I'm providing bare minimum here; modify any way you like.

<!--- dsp_footer.cfm --->
</HTML>
<!--- end dsp_footer.cfm--->

		

Index.cfm

This is probably one of the most important templates in this set. This is where everything comes together. All of the links in a Fusebox application point here. Other than defining your fuseactions, there is not much extra that needs to be done here. In Part II, we will build a "Fuseaction" Code Template (among others) to help speed this along.

<!--- index.cfm --->

<CFTRY>

<!--- Call Local Application Variables.--->
<CFINCLUDE TEMPLATE="app_locals.cfm">

<!--- Set our Default Fuseaction. --->
<CFPARAM NAME="attributes.fuseaction" DEFAULT="Main">

<!--- Call BODYCONTENT Fusebox Tag to define page layout. --->
<CF_BODYCONTENT>
	
<!--- 
      Set Allowable Fuseactions.
      The following CFSWITCH expression defines what fuseactions
      are allowed and what procedures to follow when a fuse-
      action is called. 
  --->
  
<CFSWITCH EXPRESSION="#attributes.fuseaction#">

  <CFCASE VALUE="Main">
     <!--- Be sure to change the following to call page layout template. We're using dsp_body.cfm. --->

     <CFINCLUDE TEMPLATE="dsp_body.cfm">
  </CFCASE>
  
  <!--- Insert Additional Fuseactions Here. --->  

<!--- Define What to do if an invalid action is called. --->  
  <CFDEFAULTCASE>
     <CFMODULE TEMPLATE="/#request.root#/index.cfm" FUSEACTION="#attributes.defaultfuseaction#">
  </CFDEFAULTCASE>

</CFSWITCH>
<!--- end of fuseaction definitions --->
</CF_BODYCONTENT>
<CFINCLUDE TEMPLATE="app_layout.cfm">
    <!--- Catch Page Errors and Display Message --->
	<CFCATCH TYPE="Any">
		<!--- You can have this do whatever you want it to do
			when an error occurs.--->
		<CFOUTPUT>#cfcatch.message#</CFOUTPUT>
	</CFCATCH>	
</CFTRY>
<!--- end of index.cfm --->

		

That's it for our Document Templates. Please stay tuned for Part II, "Code Templates," for another exciting but under-valued tool to help you on your way to faster application coding.

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