ColdFusion
MX 7.0.1 Hosting
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About
Cold Fusion MX 7.0.1 Hosting |
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Part of the
Basic Hosting Plan
($9/month)
Still the fastest way to build and deploy powerful Internet applications, ColdFusion MX 7 introduces
powerful new application services including rich Flash forms generation,
structured reports, and dynamic generation of printable documents. It opens up
a new world of applications beyond the browser.
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Solve Business Reporting Problems
Powerful integrated business reporting capabilities added
to ColdFusion MX 7
Design well-structured, repeating-group report templates quickly and easily
with the ColdFusion
Report Builder tool included with ColdFusion MX 7. Generate reports
within applications in PDF or FlashPaper 2 format, built specifically for
viewing documents on the web. Whether creating standard, batch-oriented
reports or enabling users to generate reports on the fly, ColdFusion MX 7 reporting offers
users unparalleled, structured business reporting power, otherwise only
possible using expensive, third-party reporting products.
Design Pixel-Perfect Reports Quickly and Easily
- Use the powerful
ColdFusion Report Builder to design crisp, well-formatted reports.
Include charts and graphs, automatically generate subtotals and totals, and
much more.
- Manipulate report data within report definitions using ColdFusion
expressions and functions.
- Easily test reports within Report Builder by accessing ColdFusion data
sources on ColdFusion
servers.
Dynamically Generate Integrated Reports within
ColdFusion Applications
- Provide users a fully integrated reporting experience by invoking
reports within the context of an application.
- Use ColdFusion
queries to create exactly the data needed for a dynamic report. Pull data
from anything ColdFusion
can access, including UDFs, CFCs, web services, XML, databases, and more.
Deliver Reports in Useful, Familiar Formats
- Create reports in the familiar PDF format or generate reports in
FlashPaper 2 format, providing a lightweight, portable format for web users
to view documents easily in any browser using only Flash Player.
- Generate and save reports to disk for reuse and portability. Easily add
the ability to e-mail reports from within applications.
Get ColdFusion
Report Builder
ColdFusion Report
Builder is a free, easy-to-use tool whose familiar, banded report writer
interface enables developers to design structured, repeating-region reports
for ColdFusion MX 7 applications.
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Create crisp, printable versions of web
content with a single tag
The ability to print
well-formatted content from the browser is poor today at best. Margins are
chopped off, page breaks interfere with graphics, and headers and footers
are nonexistent for repeating group information. And there is no simple way
to save print-formatted web content for offline viewing or to share content
by e-mail attachment.
ColdFusion MX 7 changes all that
by allowing you to transform existing HTML content dynamically into Adobe
PDF or Macromedia FlashPaper 2 formats to produce print-quality output,
including headers and footers, multiple page sizes, orientations, ability to
save output to disk or e-mail, and more.
Advanced Formatting Support
The CFDOCUMENT tag has over 20 customizable parameters to allow fine-grain
control over page types, orientation, margins, password security, and more.
Additional tags allow the insertion of page breaks, headers and footers, and
sections, each of which can have their own unique headers, footers, and page
numbers. Documents created with ColdFusion MX 7 even support
clickable hyperlinks when viewed online.
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Build rich forms quickly and easily
For many ColdFusion
developers, creating HTML forms is one of the most time-consuming and
difficult parts of their job. ColdFusion MX 7 allows
developers to create accessible, high-quality forms in minutes using the
new Rich Flash and XML forms capabilities.
Using familiar CFML tags, easily create complex, multistep forms with
tabbed or accordion interfaces. Applications can use Macromedia Flash
controls that are unavailable in regular HTML, such as data grids, tree
controls, and calendar date pickers. Best of all, forms will look good
and be intuitive for end users without requiring developers to spend
extra effort coding presentation-tier information.
XML Skins Make Design Simple
ColdFusion MX 7 can generate
HTML forms based on XML and CSS styles to remove presentation logic from ColdFusion
templates. By using form groups, developers define the placement of inputs
and labels with tags;
ColdFusion takes care of rendering HTML forms that are well laid out
and look professional.
Flash Forms Deliver Richer Controls
HTML forms are limited to very basic inputs: text fields, radio buttons,
pop-up menus, and so on. With ColdFusion MX 7, forms can
use Flash as the format for forms, allowing developers to easily offer
users rich data grids, tree controls, calendars, and more. Complex,
multistep forms can be broken up into multiple pages with tabbed or
accordion navigators to provide a cleaner, more intuitive experience for
users.
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Move beyond the web to mobile phones,
instant messaging, and more
ColdFusion MX 7 introduces
event gateways, a powerful new feature that allows ColdFusion
applications to interact with more than just web browsers and web
services. Using the same, easy-to-use CFML for creating web applications
today, developers can now build gateway applications that interact with a
host of other protocols that are common in today's networked world.
Developers can create their own gateways or build applications using the
several prebuilt gateways available in the product.
Short Message Service
Included in ColdFusion MX 7 is a Short
Message Service (SMS) application gateway. SMS is a way to send short text
messages to and from wireless devices, such as mobile phones, PDAs, and
pagers. The Associated Press reported in September 2004 that the world will
have almost two billion mobile telephone users by 2006. In China alone, the
number of new subscribers is rising by four to five million each month.
ColdFusion SMS
applications let end users use cell phones to interact with applications such
as the following:
- SMS banking, where customers receive alerts, perform account transfers,
pay bills, and more
- Notification of events such as package shipments or restaurant table
availability
- Voting, such as popularity voting for reality television shows
- Remote interaction with traditional web applications, such as approving
a purchase order when out of the office
SMS applications are secure. Traffic between the server and the mobile
device is encrypted as part of the technology's standard, and it features
built-in authentication verification. Finally, SMS works with the devices that
users already own; there is nothing to install on the client.
A ColdFusion SMS
application involves the
ColdFusion server, a carrier's short message service center (SMSC), and
the user's device, such as a mobile phone.
Instant Messaging
ColdFusion MX 7 includes two
ready-to-use Instant Messaging (IM) gateways, including an XMPP (Extensible
Messaging and Presence Protocol) gateway and a Lotus Sametime gateway,
enabling connectivity to IBM's popular Lotus Sametime IM product.
Building applications that interact with IM can take advantage of IM
presence services, enabling an application to be aware of an IM user's
state—whether a user is online, active, inactive, and so on. This useful piece
of information can help developers build process-flow applications that route
transactions to people based on their current availability. Another useful IM
capability is the ability to push a message to a user. This data-push
capability enables applications to be able to notify users upon selected
events.
A simple example may help clarify the IM application opportunity better.
Today the use of telephone IVR systems enable callers to be routed to call
queues based on a selection of IVR menu choices. A new breed of customer
interaction applications can emerge using IM to perform similar functions as
today's IVR systems.
Using ColdFusion MX 7, developers can
create IM applications that enable customers to select from simple menu trees,
routing a customer service interaction to an available, qualified service
representative. Such an application provides an improved customer experience—a
faster way to get connected to a service rep. The application also improves
companies' interactions with customers by allowing a service rep to interact
with multiple customers simultaneously.
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