2020-11-03 Weekly News - Episode 77

Watch the video version on YouTube at https://youtu.be/bId0VvpWAYU

Hosts:

Gavin Pickin - Software Consultant for Ortus Solutions
Brad Wood - Software Consultant for Ortus Solutions


Thanks to our Sponsor - Ortus Solutions

 - Into the Box Latam Dec 3rd and 4th - English and Spanish
 - CFCasts is releasing new Free and Paid content every week


Patreon Support

We have 33 patreons providing 57% of the funding for our Modernize or Die Podcasts via our Patreon site: https://www.patreon.com/ortussolutions. If you love our podcasts and all we do for the #coldfusion #cfml community considers chipping in, we are almost there!
https://www.ortussolutions.com/blog/we-need-your-help



News and Events



CF Summit announcements

CF Summit Website now includes more speakers and the schedule.
Also looks like they have reduced the conference from 3 days, to 2 days.
I heard a birdie that more announcements to come
https://cfsummit.adobeevents.com/



Fixes in for Lucee Network Drop Issues

Brad posted a few days ago about networking drops causing hanging threads in Lucee using Azure's managed MSSQL & Microsoft's JDBC driver.  These two tickets have been put into 5.3.8 to help mitigate those issues:
https://luceeserver.atlassian.net/browse/LDEV-3124
https://luceeserver.atlassian.net/browse/LDEV-3126



Ben Nadel’s blog has approx 845 photos!!!

Yes, 845 Photos, you can click through, and the highest index is 845.
https://www.bennadel.com/?site-photo=1



Online CF Meetup - "Building great user interfaces fast with Kendo UI", with TJ VanToll

Thursday, November 5th, 2020
11:00 AM to 12:00 PM CST
Kendo UI is a suite of UI components that let you to build front-end apps fast. In this session, TJ VanToll will introduce you to Kendo UI by building a series of apps that solve some of the trickier modern web development problems, like forms, data grids, charts and graphs, and more. Come learn about Kendo UI, and how you can speed up your web development workflows.
Event: https://www.meetup.com/coldfusionmeetup/events/274271713/


POST PODCAST CHANGE - DOES NOT MATCH AUDIO

RESCHEDULED - Ortus October Webinar - ContentBox AMA with Luis Majano and Gavin Pickin

Friday, November 6th - 2pm CST
We had to change the Webinar after recording the podcast, so we're doing a ContentBox AMA with Luis Majano and Gavin Pickin
Register today: https://www.ortussolutions.com/events/webinars



POSTPONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE - Ortus October Webinar - From Mura to ContentBox - Staying on the Open Source Upgrade Track

In this session, we will walk you through some of the differences between Mura CMS and Contentbox - from administration to design and development. During the session we will demonstrate a full conversion of a Mura CMS site to Contentbox.
Hosted by Jon Clausen
 
 
 
 
Seattle CFUG - Hands-on deep-dive into interacting with the Thinkific API.

Wednesday, November 11, 2020
6:00 PM to 7:30 PM PST
Hosted by - William Frankhouser and Leon O'Daniel
This meeting features an hands-on deep-dive into interacting with the Thinkific API.
Thinkific is one of the top platforms for online course delivery. This meetup builds upon the concepts shared at the October 2020 Seattle ColdFusion User Group Meeting to provide a hands-on experience interacting with the Thinkific API.
https://www.meetup.com/Seattle-ColdFusion-User-Group/events/274050264/



ICYMI - Mid Michigan CFUG October Meetup - DevOps Evolution and ColdFusion by Nick Kwiatkowski
Recording is now live: https://youtu.be/51TaxqW5SM8



CFCasts Content Updates

CFCasts has now launched bite-sized Spanish language videos!

Configure your CFML Servers with CFConfig
  - Managing Mail Server Properties

Send your suggestions at https://cfcasts.com/support



Conferences and Training



Ortus Workshops - Virtual Live training - Quick Cancelled
Workshop cancelled, we will be running this in 2021.



Modern Applications Online Event

Wednesday - Thursday, November 4-5, 2020
Wed is focused on “Organizational Level Operations” and Thurs is focused on “Application Level Design”.
Cost: Free
https://pages.awscloud.com/GLOBAL-field-OE-Modern-Applications-Online-Event-2020-reg-event.html



Deploy - by Digital Ocean

DigitalOcean’s first virtual global 24‑hour community conference.
Starts November 10 at 10am EST
What to expect:
 - Over 80 tech-focused sessions
 - New product announcements
 - Developer-focused breakout rooms
 - Special keynotes
 - Hourly goody giveaways
 - Fun virtual rooms
 - Free and easy to RSVP
https://www.digitalocean.com/deploy/



Adobe ColdFusion Summit 2020 - Replaces CF Summit West

Date: November 17-18 (previously 17-19)
Location: Online
Admission: Free
Speakers and Schedule now on the website
https://cfsummit.adobeevents.com/



Adobe ColdFusion Certification now available Online

Adobe Certified Professional: Adobe ColdFusion is an industry-leading certification program from Adobe, for ColdFusion developers. The course consists of 50+ online videos and is designed for professionals who have basic to advanced level proficiency in any computer language and basic understanding of how web pages work. Successfully passing an assessment test at the end of the program will reward participants with a badge and certificate from Adobe.
Introductory Offer: $499
Blog: https://coldfusion.adobe.com/2020/07/coldfusion-certification-online-now/
Register: https://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion-family/certificate.html



AWS re:Invent

NOV. 30 – DEC. 18, 2020
Amazon’s Premium Conference is also virtual, and a free 3-week event:
https://reinvent.awsevents.com/



ITB Latam

December 3-4th
Live Virtual Conference in Spanish and English!!!
Price: $7.00
https://latam.intothebox.org/
https://www.ortussolutions.com/events

More conferences: https://confs.tech/



Blogs, Tweets and Videos of the Week



Blog - Ben Nadel - The Power Of Cascading Tag Attributes In Lucee CFML 5.3.7.43
The other week, when I was looking at using Postmark Tags to group related transactional emails in Lucee CFML, I used a ColdFusion Struct to apply common CFMail tag attributes to all of my outbound emails. This attributeCollection feature has been around in ColdFusion since forever. However, in more modern times, ColdFusion has also allowed us to define any tag's base attributes right within the Application.cfc file. Cascading tag attributes are super powerful; and, since I've never really talked about them before, I thought it would be worth a quick demo in Lucee CFML 5.3.7.43.
https://www.bennadel.com/blog/3919-the-power-of-cascading-tag-attributes-in-lucee-cfml-5-3-7-43.htm


Tweet - Brad Wood - CFConfig - list of Datasources
Someone asked how to get a human-readable list of datasource names on a server with CFConfig.  The simple answer is:
box> cfconfig datasource list
But if you want JUST the names, this will work great:
box> cfconfig show datasources | #structkeylist ", "
#CFML #ColdFusion
https://twitter.com/bdw429s/status/1323349631233916928
https://twitter.com/bdw429s


Blog - Ben Nadel - Generating A QR Code With iTextPDF 7 Barcodes In Lucee CFML 5.3.6.61
At InVision, my teammate Josh Siok has been experimenting with the use of QR Codes as a means to send prototypes to a user's mobile device. I know of QR Codes; but, I've never generated one before. As such, I wanted to see if I could generate a QR Code in ColdFusion. To this end, I came across Tim Cunningham's QRToad library which uses iTextPDF 5 under the hood. However, the latest version of iTextPDF is 7.1.13, which has a different API. As, I wanted to see if I could generate a QR Code with iTextPDF 7 in Lucee CFML 5.3.6.61.
Blog: https://www.bennadel.com/blog/3917-generating-a-qr-code-with-itextpdf-7-barcodes-in-lucee-cfml-5-3-6-61.htm
Twitter Discussion: https://twitter.com/BenNadel/status/1322148293141561350


Blog - Ben Nadel - Performing A Case-Sensitive Search On A Case-Insensitive Column Using COLLATE In MySQL 5.6.49
Applications evolve over time. And, when you've been working on an application for close to a decade, you can bet dollars-to-donuts that the database schema isn't optimal. Usually, old MySQL databases aren't using utf8mb4 character-sets; and, the column collations might not be appropriate for their use-case. Recently, I've been thinking about changing the way one column in particular is used, moving from a HEX-encoded value to a Base64-encoded value. The issue there being that HEX is not case-sensitive whereas Base64 is case-sensitive. And, I wanted to see if I could use the COLLATE clause to apply a case-sensitive search to a case-insensitive column in MySQL 5.6.49.
https://www.bennadel.com/blog/3918-performing-a-case-sensitive-search-on-a-case-insensitive-column-using-collate-in-mysql-5-6-49.htm


Blog - Fusion Reactor - How To Secure FusionReactor And JSP Applications In Tomcat Using LDAP
FusionReactor provides different types of user accounts (Administrators/Manager/Observer), however, if you would like to restrict access to FusionReactor for individual users, you can do this via LDAP authentication. This blog post will guide you through configuring tomcat to use LDAP authentication to restrict access to both FusionReactor and JSP Applications.
http://www.fusion-reactor.com/blog/technical-blogs/how-to-secure-fusionreactor-and-jsp-applications-in-tomcat-using-ldap/


Blog - Ben Nadel - Struct Iteration With CFLoop Includes Super Intuitive Aliases In Lucee CFML 5.3.6.61
A few months ago, I was excited to discover that CFLoop exposes both keys and values during Struct iteration in Lucee CFML. In that post, I demonstrated that the "key" could be accessed via index and the "value" could be accessed via item. Well, life just keeps getting better! Earlier this week, I discovered (in the Lucee documentation) that the CFLoop tag has even more intuitive aliases for Struct iteration! I'm not sure how I missed this before; but, apparently you can now use key, value, and struct in Lucee CFML 5.3.6.61.
https://www.bennadel.com/blog/3916-struct-iteration-with-cfloop-includes-super-intuitive-aliases-in-lucee-cfml-5-3-6-61.htm


Tweet - Zac Spitzer - Spaces vs Tabs
If you use #lucee and prefer spaces over tabs, sadly, you're going to be using more memory for your app coz the generated java classes include the source code. same goes for deep directory paths/complex component names. have a look at the files in /cfclasses #cfml
https://twitter.com/zackster/status/1321554837679591424
https://twitter.com/zackster



CFML Jobs

Several positions available on https://www.getcfmljobs.com/
Listing over 35 ColdFusion positions from 22 companies across 18 locations in 5 Countries since July 1st

0 new jobs this week.

Ortus is hiring:Senior ColdFusion CFML Developer

At Ortus you will be:
Modernizing web applications and helping companies move out of legacy hell
Teaming up with ColdFusion Experts in order to solve complex web development problems.
Testing and integrating new web technologies in order to create custom business implementations
Pushed to innovate constantly and create new solutions to web development problems
Leading project teams that deliver software that matters

US Timezone availability is a must
US Citizen or Resident or Work Visa is a must
https://www.ortussolutions.com/about-us/careers


ForgeBox Module of the Week

Elixir APP Template by Ortus Solutions

This advanced template leverages ColdBox and the ColdBox Elixir project for asset management and compilations. You can place all your static assets in the resources/assets folder and Elixir will combine, version, copy, and even babelify your code to their appropriate location in the includes folder.

Please check out the ColdBox Elixir documentation for further information: https://github.com/ColdBox/elixir/wiki

box install cbtemplate-elixir

https://www.forgebox.io/view/cbtemplate-elixir   



VS Code Hint Tips and Tricks of the Week

Trailing Spaces by Shardul Mahadik

A VS Code extension that allows you to…
highlight trailing spaces and delete them in a flash!
This extension is a port of the popular Sublime Text plugin Trailing Spaces

Usage:
 - Delete
 - Delete - Modified Lines Only
 - Highlight

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=shardulm94.trailing-spaces



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

Ben Nadel
Brett DeLine
Carl Von Stetten
Charlie Arehart
Da Li
Dan Card
Daniel Garcia
David Belanger
Didier Lesnicki
Don Bellamy
Edgardo Cabezas
Erick Hoffman
Gary Knight
Giancarlo Gomez
Jan Jannek
Jason Daiger
Jeff McClain
Jeremy Adams
Jonas Erickson
Jordan Clark
Joseph Lamoree
Kai Koenig
Laksma Tirtohadi
Mario Rodrigues
Matthew Darby
Matthew Clemente
Mingo Hagen
Ross Phillips
Scott Steinbeck
Shawn Oden
Steven Klotz
Synaptrix
Yogesh Mathur

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