2020-03-10 Weekly News - Episode 44

Watch the video version on YouTube at https://youtu.be/SneDj9bEtjw

Hosts:

Eric Peterson - Senior Developer for Ortus Solutions
Gavin Pickin - Software Consultant for Ortus Solutions


Thanks to our Sponsor - Ortus Solutions

Get trained by the actual makers of the ColdBox Platform, CommandBox, TestBox and ContentBox Modular CMS. We offer on-site training, regional training seminars and virtual live training as well. We have several professional training courses from where to choose from and we can also cater to a-la-carte trainings as well.


Thanks to our Patreon Supporters

We are at the 39% mark for fully funding all of our Modernize or Die Podcasts via our Patreon site: patreon.com/ortussolutions . If you love our podcasts and all we do for the #coldfusion #cfml community consider chipping in, we are almost there!
https://www.ortussolutions.com/blog/we-need-your-help



News and Events


Big News - CoronaVirus is affecting ColdFusion Conferences too.

Adobe CF Summit East has been cancelled, along with the Certification program and Ortus’s Pre Conference Workshop.

Into The Box is still going ahead at this time, but Ortus Solutions is thinking about the best interests of everyone involved, is monitoring the situation, and will make an announcement when decisions are made. We are all hoping this situation improves for everyone's sake.


CommandBox 5.0.0 Released!

We are pleased to announce the release of CommandBox 5.0.0.  This is a major release of our CLI package manager, REPL, and server tool. In this version are many library updates, new features, and bug fixes.  All in all, there were 77 tickets closed for this release.
https://www.ortussolutions.com/blog/commandbox-500-released


ForgeBox has EVERY version of Lucee available same day its published

New Lucee snapshots are already flowing into Forgebox from my new automation.  If you want to "live on the edge" in your local dev just do this:
start cfengine=lucee@be
And you'll always be on the very latest build of Lucee every time you restart.
Lucee ForgeBox publishing is now fully automated & will run daily via travis CI
https://travis-ci.org/Ortus-Solutions/forgebox-cfengine-publisher/builds/657946038
Here's the repo/Task Runner https://github.com/Ortus-Solutions/forgebox-cfengine-publisher #CFML #CommandBox

https://www.forgebox.io/view/lucee#versions



Adobe Webinar - Adobe ColdFusion for the Next Decade: All About the Buzzworthy ColdFusion 2020

Hosted By: Adobe & Carahsoft
Date: Thursday, March 19, 2020
Time: 11:00am ET; 8:00am PT
Duration: 60 minutes
Location: Online

Right from its inception, Adobe ColdFusion has successfully pivoted and adapted at regular intervals – making it a progressive, reliable, and successful platform for the current and future landscape of the web application industry. With very few technologies managing to stay in the game for so long, there is plenty for the Adobe ColdFusion community to be proud of and look ahead to!

Join our complimentary webinar for a sneak peak of the much anticipated release of Adobe ColdFusion 2020 – slated for later this year! Rakshith Naresh, Adobe ColdFusion Product Manager, will unravel the overarching vision of the newest ColdFusion release as the industry’s modernized platform of choice for building cloud-native micro service applications, with optimal ease of use through multi-cloud compatibility features in efforts to avoid getting locked to a particular cloud vendor.

https://www.carahsoft.com/learn/event/22616-Adobe-ColdFusion-for-the-Next-Decade--All-About-the-Buzzworthy-ColdFusion-2020


Fusion Reactor Webinar - Installing FusionReactor in dynamic environments

This session will cover how to automate the installation of FusionReactor via Docker and CommandBox as well as answer any questions you may have related to the install of FusionReactor.
25 March - 3PM EST - 7PM UTC
Register now - https://www.fusion-reactor.com/news/installing-fusionreactor-in-dynamic-environments-live-stream-support/


Next Ortus Webinar - CBElasticSearch with Michael Born

March 27th at 11:00 AM EST (GMT -5:00)
with Michael Born
More information and registration link coming soon: https://www.ortussolutions.com/events/webinars


Reminder: State of the CF Union 2020 Survey

VOTE FOR OUR PODCASTS

Help us find out the state of the CF Union – what versions of CFML Engine do people use, what frameworks, tools etc. We will share the summary results with everyone who completes the survey so that you can see how you compare with other CF developers.
Most questions are multiple choice checkboxes that are fast to answer. Thanks for your time completing this survey!
https://teratech.com/state-of-the-cf-union-2020/


Modernize or Die ® Podcast - Conference Edition - Now on Itunes

In this podcast we spotlight upcoming ColdFusion Conferences, and talk to organizers, workshop trainers and speakers to uncover all the information you and your company needs to decide what conferences and workshops to attend, and what sessions you need to see.

Several more workshop interviews were released, and more on the way, and speakers coming up after that.

Modernize or Die® Conference - Luis Majano - ColdBox Hero to Superhero - API - ITB2020 - Episode 6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmG-wKej230

Modernize or Die® Conference - Jon Clausen - Containerizing CFML Applications - ITB2020 - Episode 7
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt0NnfzPVM0

Michael Born’s episode will be coming out in the next week on his workshops, as well as sponsors and speakers

Website: https://conference.modernizeordie.io/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNE-ZbNnndB9qkyJd6mHb8qrKp3Z5jDQU



Conferences


Adobe CF Summit East 2020 - Cancelled
https://carahevents.carahsoft.com/CFSummit2020/


Adobe - ColdFusion Specialist Certification POST Conference - CANCELLED
https://carahevents.carahsoft.com/CFSummit2020/Custom?id=3408


Ortus Solutions - Build Secure MVC ColdFusion Applications - Pre Conference - Cancelled
https://www.ortussolutions.com/blog/ortus-solutions-dc-workshop-is-cancelled-due-to-covid-19-concerns


Into the Box 2020

May 5-8, 2020 | Texas - 2 Days of Workshops
Hyatt Place The Woodlands
1909 Research Forest Dr., The Woodlands, TX 77380

Register now: https://intothebox.org/
Call for Speakers: CLOSED - Announcing speakers soon
Buy 2019 Videos: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/itb2019/

Pricing
4 Days - 2 Day workshops + 2 Day Conference = $899 Early Bird ( normally $999 )
3 Days - 1 Day workshops + 2 Day Conference = $699 Early Bird ( normally $799 )
2 Days workshops only - $599 Early Bird
1 Day workshop only = $399 Early Bird
2 Day Conference = $399 Early Bird
Into the Box 2020 Workshops
Keep an ear out for Modernize or Die Podcast - Conference Edition, Gavin is interviewing all of the workshop trainers so you can find out more about the workshops.

We announced last week we were offering 2 days of workshops so now you have options.

You can take one of our offered 2 day workshops:
ColdBox Zero to Hero - Gavin Pickin
ColdBox Hero to SuperHero - API Edition - Luis Majano
Or you could take 1 day workshops on both days or just 1 day.
Day one:
Intro to BDD - Brad Wood
Containerizing CFML Applications - Jon Clausen
Intro to Quick ORM - Eric Peterson
Day Two:
Intro to BDD - Brad Wood
Containerizing CFML Applications - Jon Clausen
CBElastic Search - Michael Born - Eric Peterson
Troubleshooting Common CF/Lucee Server Challenges - Charlie Arehart

CF Summit West
Late October, October Wed and Thurs 28 & 29th.
Pre Conference Certification Tuesday October 27th.
More information coming soon.

CF Camp
Dates Coming Soon - Probably looking at Oct/Nov

More conferences: https://confs.tech/



Blogs, Tweets and Videos of the Week


Blog - Ortus - Ortus Solutions’ D.C. Workshop is Cancelled Due to COVID-19 Concerns
Ortus Solutions took the difficult but necessary decision to cancel the D.C. workshop titled “Build Secure MVC ColdFusion Applications,” amidst growing concerns over coronavirus. The two-day workshop was scheduled for April 20th and 21st at the Regus in Washington, D.C.
https://www.ortussolutions.com/blog/ortus-solutions-dc-workshop-is-cancelled-due-to-covid-19-concerns


Blog - Ben Nadel - Replacing Transparent Image Backgrounds With GraphicsMagick And Lucee CFML 5.2.9.31
At InVision, one of the things that we do when generating thumbnails is replacing transparent image backgrounds with a solid color (typically white). We do this because the design of the page that renders thumbnails is almost never designed to expect any image transparency. As such, I wanted to take a quick look at how I would replace (or color-in) a transparent background using GraphicsMagick and Lucee CFML 5.2.9.31.
https://www.bennadel.com/blog/3784-replacing-transparent-image-backgrounds-with-graphicsmagick-and-lucee-cfml-5-2-9-31.htm


Tweet - Seattle ColdFusion User Group
We are looking for our next topics and presenters! Want to share about your last @coldfusion project with the #SeattleCFUG? Contact us! #CFUG #ColdFusion #CFML
https://twitter.com/seattlecfug/status/1236778748692721664
https://twitter.com/seattlecfug


Blog - Ben Nadel - Centering An Image Annotating Using GraphicsMagick And Lucee CFML 5.2.9.31
At InVision, when a user leaves a comment in a prototype, we generate a "context image" for that comment to use in the header of an outgoing notification email. Currently, that context image is generated using ColdFusion's native CFImage functionality. In an effort to see if I can move all of our native ColdFusion image manipulation over to GraphicsMagick, I wanted to see if I can recreate this annotation on the command-line. This requires centering, clipping, annotating, and compositing an image using GraphicsMagick and Lucee CFML 5.2.9.31.
https://www.bennadel.com/blog/3783-centering-an-image-annotating-using-graphicsmagick-and-lucee-cfml-5-2-9-31.htm


Blog - Brad Wood - Ortus Solutions - CommandBox 5.0.0 Released!
We are pleased to announce the release of CommandBox 5.0.0.  This is a major release of our CLI package manager, REPL, and server tool. In this version are many library updates, new features, and bug fixes.  All in all, there were 77 tickets closed for this release.
https://www.ortussolutions.com/blog/commandbox-500-released


Blog - Charlie Arehart - CF Portal - The page for CF-related downloads has a problem, hopefully fixed soon
The page’s content is there, if you page down to find it. Problem has been reported to Adobe..
https://coldfusion.adobe.com/2020/03/page-cf-related-downloads-problem-hopefully-fixed-soon/


Blog - Grae Desmond - CF Portal - Don’t forget that query results are also arrays
Thought I’d post on a page I recently had to revisit and how it used array notation to help display a query I was using.  In this page I was displaying a listing which contains a list of parents with x number of children each.  In a university for accreditation purposes you have to assess all of your programs.  This is done by creating a plan which is a list of Objectives which can have multiple Outcomes underneath that are being assessed.  Put all of this together and you get the Master Assessment Plan which people need to be able to view, PDF, edit, etc.  So I needed to display this.
https://coldfusion.adobe.com/2020/03/dont-forget-query-results-also-arrays/


Blog - Tom King - CFWheels - Debugging plugin performance in CFWheels 2.x with FusionReactor
Shortly after the release of CFWheels 2.0, we started to get reports of slower running requests under certain conditions. For instance, a page which might have had 1000 calls to `linkTo()` could take anything from 1-2ms to 5-6ms a call, which, after 1000 iterations, is one hell of a performance bottle neck. In 1.x, the same call would be between 0-1ms, usually with a total execution time of sub 200ms.
We approached FusionReactor, who were kind enough to give us a temporary licence to help debug the issue (it’s great when companies support open-source!). So next up were some tests to help diagnose the issue.
https://cfwheels.org/blog/debugging-plugin-performance-in-cfwheels-2-x-with-fusionreactor/


Blog - Ben Nadel - Annotating An Image Point Using GraphicsMagick And Lucee CFML 5.2.9.31
Continuing my exploration of GraphicsMagick in Lucee CFML, this morning, I wanted to see how I might go about annotating an image. That is, labeling a point on the image with a marker and an annotation index. I suspect that this can be achieved in several ways; however, the first approach that jumps to mind involves drawing Circle and Text primitives using GraphicsMagick and Lucee CFML 5.2.9.31.
https://www.bennadel.com/blog/3782-annotating-an-image-point-using-graphicsmagick-and-lucee-cfml-5-2-9-31.htm


Tweet - James Moberg - Feature Request for CFML Support in WebHintio
Hey @webhintio The new VSCode extension is pretty slick. ow.ly/VkOY50yDcr9 Can it be configured to globally work with #ColdFusion files?  (The extension works after saving #CFML files to use an HTM extension.)
https://twitter.com/gamesover/status/1235347093671333890
https://twitter.com/gamesover

AND

Perform on-demand webhint linting in @code (regardless of file extension)
github.com/webhintio/hint… (to support #cfml #coldFusion)
https://github.com/webhintio/hint/issues/3592
https://twitter.com/gamesover/status/1235598882748448771
https://twitter.com/gamesover


Blog - Pete Freitag - Do you ¿ UTF-8? It's easier than you think
Understanding how UTF-8 works is one of those things that most programmers are a little fuzzy on. I know I often have to look up specific on it when dealing with a problem.
One of the most common UTF-8 related issues that I've seen has to do with MySQL's UTF8 encoding. Also known as how do I insert emoji into mysql?
The TLDR answer to that question is that you have to use the utf8mb4 (up to 4 bytes) encoding, because MySQL's utf8 encoding won't hold an emoji, it only stores up to 3 bytes. But the longer answer is sort of of interesting and not as hard as you might think to understand.
https://www.petefreitag.com/item/895.cfm


Tweet - Jay is Painting - Part of the CFML State of the Union Survey was amusing
Just did the #cfml #lucee SOTU survey. This amused me. :)
[Image from the Survey]
https://twitter.com/JayIsPainting/status/1235212133194817536
https://twitter.com/JayIsPainting


Tweet - Ben Nadel - Ocean Powered Search Engine
First off, super interesting business -- an ocean-powered search engine. That's really cool!
But now I'm curious, you must have all sorts of interesting user-behavior stats re: search - do you publish that anywhere?
https://twitter.com/BenNadel/status/1235197033847418880
https://twitter.com/BenNadel


Tweet reply - Ati Bakush - Lucee Powered Ocean Powered Search Engine
It's actually 100% powered by @lucee_server as well as hydro! Our privacy policy doesn't allow the IP or query text to touch our hard disks - all in memory transactions. But we do have other basic data analytics which we can use for inference. Nothing published I'm afraid…
https://twitter.com/ati_bakush/status/1235200872751042560
https://twitter.com/ati_bakush


Blog - Ben Nadel - Getting Image Width And Height Using GraphicsMagick And Lucee CFML 5.2.9.31
Yesterday, I looked at how to get the RGB/HEX color of a pixel using GraphicsMagick and Lucee CFML. Continuing my exploration of how I might use GraphicsMagick to replace ColdFusion's native CFImage functionality, I wanted to look at how I might read an image's Width and Height attributes using Lucee CFML 5.2.9.31.
CAUTION: I am very much a novice when it comes to GraphicsMagick. As such, please take the following as an exploration, not an explanation.
https://www.bennadel.com/blog/3781-getting-image-width-and-height-using-graphicsmagick-and-lucee-cfml-5-2-9-31.htm


Blog - Getting Started with CommandBox Custom Commands
I posted a video, walking through the process of building your first CommandBox Custom Command. If you’re not familiar with this aspect of CommandBox, I think you may be surprised how quickly you can build your own CLI commands.
https://blog.mattclemente.com/2020/03/02/building-commandbox-custom-commands.html


Tweet - Aubrey Fletcher - Exercism
@exercism_io Is a good tool. I have been teaching myself #CFML a little bit that way, plus working with it at work.
https://twitter.com/MrAubreyCodes/status/1234975907074338817
https://twitter.com/MrAubreyCodes


Tweet - Grae Desmond - Carl Von Stetten on the Front Page
Look at @cfvonner making the front page of the redesigned #ColdFusion community portal with his shiny Adobe ColdFusion Certified Professional Certificate.
Coldfusion.adobe.com
Now i'll feel silly if the pic is randomly pulled and he's not shown for everyone.
https://twitter.com/dakuwan/status/1235590291932889088
https://twitter.com/dakuwan



Coding Challenge of the Month - March 2020

$25 each for 2 lucky winners.
We’ll announce next in episode 45.


CFML Jobs

Several positions available on https://www.getcfmljobs.com/
Listing over 30 ColdFusion positions from 24 companies across 22 locations in 5 Countries

Only 1 new job this week.
Full-Time - Application Developer (Cold Fusion) at Arlington, VA - United States
Posted Mar 09
https://www.getcfmljobs.com/jobs/index.cfm/united-states/CFAppDev-at-Arlington-VA/11033



ForgeBox Module of the Week

RedirectBack by Eric Peterson

Caches the last request in the flash scope to give easy redirects back
Uses the ColdBox's flash storage to store the last request. If there is no last request, redirects to "" (empty string).

box install redirectBack

https://www.forgebox.io/view/redirectBack



VS Code Hint Tips and Tricks of the Week

Code Tour by Live Share Contrib

Vsls-contrib.codetour - 345 installs - 5 stars

Code Tour is a Visual Studio Code extension, which allows you to record and playback guided walkthroughs of your codebases. It's like a virtual brownbag, that can make it easier to onboard to a new project/feature area, visualize bug reports, or understand the context of a code review/PR change. A "code tour" is simply a series of interactive steps, each of which are associated with a specific file/line, and include a description of the respective code. This allows developers to clone a repo, and then immediately start learning it, without needing to refer to a CONTRIBUTING.md file and/or rely on help from others.

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=vsls-contrib.codetour



Thank you to all of our Patreon Supporters

These individuals are personally supporting our open source initiatives to ensure the great toolings like CommandBox, ForgeBox, ColdBox, ContentBox, TestBox and all the other boxes keep getting the continuous development they need, and funds the cloud infrastructure at our community relies on like ForgeBox for our Package Management with CommandBox.

You can support us on Patreon here https://www.patreon.com/ortussolutions

Andrew  Davis
Brian  White
Carl  Von Stetten
Da Li
Dan  Card
Daniel Garcia
David  Belanger
Didier  Lesnicki
Don  Bellamy
Erick Hoffman
Gary  Knight
Jan  Jannek
Jeremy Adams
John  Farrar
Jordan Clark
Joseph  Lamoree
Laksma  Tirtohadi
Matthew Clemente
Mingo Hagen
Richard  Herbert
Samuel  Knowlton
Scott Steinbeck
VJ
Yogesh  Mathur

You can see an up to date list of all sponsors on Ortus Solutions' Website
https://ortussolutions.com/about-us/sponsors