Speaking at the Boston CFUG Tonight
I'll be speaking at the Boston CFUG tonight about FarCry 4.0 (6:00pm ET). If interested and you're in the area stop by to see what's new in FarCry (Sorry, it will not be broadcast via Breeze/Connect).
FarCry 4.0 Training Course Released Under Creative Commons License
Head on over to the Daemonite blog to get your hands on the latest release of the FarCry training course in PDF format.
Now released under the Creative Commons license for personal use, readers will have can indulge themselves in 122 pages of FarCry goodness.
ColdFusion Art? Fun with CF8
After working on the FarCry CFImage plugin for ColdFusion 8 I decided to try something fun. I wanted to see if I could generate a Pacman image in less than 5 minutes.
While doing it I was reminded of the days when ASCII art was fun (for me). Thus the title "ColdFusion Art" (I couldn't combine "CF" and "Art" together without too many childish jokes coming to mind :)).
I'd love to see what others can do with CF8's new image functionality. Can you make ColdFusion Art? ...A cartoon perhaps (hopefully one better than mine :) )? Maybe a comic strip? I don't care if it's based off of your favorite video game or a childhood cartoon memory, but I think it would be a lot of fun to see what people come up with (even if it has no real value).
I don't know about you, but the new image tools in CF8 have really gotten me excited enough to try new things.
1<!--- Create the image variable --->
2<cfset myImage = imageNew("",500,250) />
3<!--- Set the drawing color to yellow. --->
4<cfset ImageSetDrawingColor(myImage,"yellow") />
5<!--- Turn on antialiasing to improve image quality. --->
6<cfset ImageSetAntialiasing(myImage,"on") />
7<!--- Draw Pacman --->
8<cfset ImageDrawArc(myImage,25,25,200,200,30,300,true) />
9<!--- Draw pelets --->
10<cfset ImageDrawArc(myImage,230,105,40,40,0,365,true) />
11<cfset ImageDrawArc(myImage,340,105,40,40,0,365,true) />
12<cfset ImageDrawArc(myImage,450,105,40,40,0,365,true) />
13<!--- Draw the text --->
14<cfset stAtrCollection = structNew() />
15<cfset stAtrCollection.font = "arial" />
16<cfset stAtrCollection.size = 50 />
17<cfset stAtrCollection.style = "bold" />
18<cfset ImageDrawText(myImage,"Pacman",250,50,stAtrCollection) />
19<!--- Display the image in a browser. --->
20<cfimage action="writeToBrowser" source="#myImage#" />
2<cfset myImage = imageNew("",500,250) />
3<!--- Set the drawing color to yellow. --->
4<cfset ImageSetDrawingColor(myImage,"yellow") />
5<!--- Turn on antialiasing to improve image quality. --->
6<cfset ImageSetAntialiasing(myImage,"on") />
7<!--- Draw Pacman --->
8<cfset ImageDrawArc(myImage,25,25,200,200,30,300,true) />
9<!--- Draw pelets --->
10<cfset ImageDrawArc(myImage,230,105,40,40,0,365,true) />
11<cfset ImageDrawArc(myImage,340,105,40,40,0,365,true) />
12<cfset ImageDrawArc(myImage,450,105,40,40,0,365,true) />
13<!--- Draw the text --->
14<cfset stAtrCollection = structNew() />
15<cfset stAtrCollection.font = "arial" />
16<cfset stAtrCollection.size = 50 />
17<cfset stAtrCollection.style = "bold" />
18<cfset ImageDrawText(myImage,"Pacman",250,50,stAtrCollection) />
19<!--- Display the image in a browser. --->
20<cfimage action="writeToBrowser" source="#myImage#" />
FarCry - Two New Plugins for CF8 Image Manipulation
I've just released 2 new plugins for FarCry 4 that take advantage of ColdFusion 8's new cfimage features.
I tried to make this as extensible as possible so that you can easily add your own effects.
The second tag requires FarCry Core v4.0.7. If you can't wait for v4.0.7 to be released, then you are welcome to grab the latest core from SVN and get branch p400 (you'll need at least 1957 or greater). You can get a zipped copy of the core from my website at the nightly builds download page. Please be aware that it is not yet labeled as stable (although I use it in production).
The FarCry Image Effects plugin was inspired by Pete Freitag's Image-Effects Component and the base code to reflect() and gradientMask() are thanks to Jon Hartmann
Download and enjoy :)
New FMRP Website Using FarCry 4
A few days ago I launched a new website for Middlesex Hospital FMRP (www.middlesexfmrp.org).
The site is not fairly large, but does take advantage of custom types, form tools, object broker, and more.
We really had to rush this site out the door to meet a tight deadline. From the imitial meetings, to content gathering and graphic design... we had only one month to design and make this site.
To make matters worse, I didn't have the final CSS+XHTML in my lap until a few days before launch. So I wrote all of the FarCry code in record time. Unfortunately I had to code about 20+ hours a day and 2 days into my holiday/vacation, but I'm happy we met the deadline and got the site up and running in time for the FMRP recruiting event.
FarCry Core 4.0.4 Released
Early this morning FarCry Core version 4.0.4 was released. This is just the core/framework (not the CMS plugin). Although many plugins (including the FarCry CMS plugin) will benefit from this update.
There were many updates in this release, but I'll highlight a few that interested me.
A Few Highlights
- TinyMCE updated to version 2.1.1
- Better Safari support
- Ajax updates/fixes
- dmCron updates
- DB updates for PostgreSQL and Oracle
Changelog/Release Notes
Download
Subversion Tag
Special thanks again to Daemon Internet Consultants for another great release.
Another FarCry 4 Website Launched
Today I wrapped up the final code pieces for a new website (www.acmeautosales.com).
Upon viewing the site we aimed at making the user experience quick and painless; getting the user right to the point (viewing the vehicles that are currently on the lot and for sale).
However, behind the scenes there is much more going on. We're of course using many new features in FarCry 4.0 (formtools, object broker, extended arrays, etc), but there are a few extra tidbits in there to help make things easier for the client.
When the client came to me originally they just wanted the website and a management tool to create and maintain the vehicle data. So we created a normalized database with many relational tables allowing for future growth (ie. A possible Advanced Search in a future release which can use the normalized DB for search filtering).
Then shortly before the initial launch date they asked if it was possible to auto-import the vehicle data daily using limited CSV data.
Long-story-short there is a massive import script in the backend which runs nightly. It takes the CSV file (with only limited data), runs it through a VIN decoding service (web service) and returns the data I need. Any images for the vehicles are uploaded and 5 different sizes are created for each vehicle (used throughout the site for various marking purposes).
Whew, its been a fun site :). We are already planning Phase II for the site and couldn't be more happy (Phase II will incorporate more functionality and update some functionality we couldn't get into Phase I).
FarCry 4.01 Officially Released
Its official. FarCry 4.01 is officially released. Version 4.0 was quietly released a little over a month ago (A couple of the plugins weren't ready for their 1.0.0 release yet).
Go to the downloads page and get the 4.01 suite which includes the following:
- core (4.0.1)
- plugins/farcrycms (1.0.0)
- plugins/farcrycfximage (1.0.0)
- plugins/googleMaps (1.0.0)
A special thanks to Geoff Bowers and his team and Daemon Internet Consultants for another great FarCry release.
And for those of you documentation nuts, Geoff and his team have been hard at work. Much has already been published in the last few weeks and more is on the way.
I'll Be Speaking at CF.Objective 2007
I'll once again be speaking at the ColdFusion conference CF.Objective this year (last year was a blast).
This year I'll be covering the new (yet ot be released) FarCry 4.0. A list of some of the sessions was posted earlier tonight on the CF.Objective Sessions Page as well as a mini description of my session.
My session will be convering some of the new features in FarCry 4.0 including the new object broker, "formtools" technology, instant wizards and more.
New FarCry 4.0 Site Launched
Without further ado I am finally able to show the new website for Lowell General Hospital in Lowell Massachusetts (http://www.lowellgeneral.org) outside of Boston.
As the title suggests this site is using FarCry 4.0 (beta).
The website technically has been in development for almost two years, however the majority of that time has been content gathering and multiple meetings (it's quite a content-heavy site). The ColdFusion coding portion started in the beginning of December 2006 and launched February 12, 2007 (just over two months).
Unfortunately the site was rushed (it was originally scheduled to be a 6-month development project) so there are a few quirks here and there that we're working out last-minute, but overall I am very pleased with the final result. And FarCry 4.0 made it possible.
I didn't get here alone. Many people know that during the past 2+ months I've been working on this site pretty much 8am to 5am (including weekends... and yes I worked the holidays as well). A few people I'd like to thank are:
- Mat Bryant (the brains behind most of the new features in FarCry 4 and who put up with my constant daily/evening/night owl questions)
- Stephen Moretti (while the both of us continue to learn and feed off each other's ideas for FarCry 4)
- The content team/editors at LGH (thanks for bearing with me as I broke the site code several times during development)
- My family (who had a running joke about "Rare Jeff Sightings" because I was locked away in my office most of the time)
- And many others.
Previous Entries / More Entries
