First Thoughts on CFMX 7

ColdFusion MX 7 has been out for a few weeks now, but I've just had the chance over the last few days to start playing with some of the new features. My first reaction is simply "Wow." ColdFusion MX offered a lot of great enhancements, but most of them were under the hood; the conversion to the Java engine and introduction of CFCs completely changed the way I develop ColdFusion applications and introduced object oriented capabilities to the language. MX 7 builds upon that solid foundation by adding functionality that is very visible to end users, and that can have an immediate beneficial effect on business.

I think that the reporting functionality is the best enhancement. I've worked with the ColdFusion Reoprt Builder for a few days, and though I've run into a couple bugs (mostly inconvenient things instead of showstoppers, like disabling whatever field gets focus in the options pallette), the Report Builder is basically like having Crystal Reports built directly into the application server.

It's amazing to see some of the output that the Report Builder can generate...stuff that absolutely blows management away. I can see us having to go back to tons of legacy applications to add this reporting functionality, it's that compelling.

The cfform enhancements look good as well. I ran into an issue today where the cursor turns into a clock and wouldn't ever go away, and I couldn't get cfselect to work when cfform format="flash" (it works fine with the old HTML format). I think there may be something wrong with the configuration of the Flash Remoting connector, but the ability to quickly render tabs and accordians in Flash is strong.

Any time you use functionality that shields you from the guts of the code (I'm thinking of some Microsoft products here, too), you run the risk that you will box yourself in and be unable to do the one thing that you need to, and while I'm aware of that risk, the flipside benefits are just too seductive.

Based on what I've seen so far, I would agree with Macromedia's marketing line that CFMX 7 represents the most feature-rich upgrade yet.

Comments

[Allan]

"The cfform enhancements look good as well. I ran into an issue today where the cursor turns into a clock and wouldn't ever go away, and I couldn't get cfselect to work when cfform format="flash" (it works fine with the old HTML format). I think there may be something wrong with the configuration of the Flash Remoting connector, but the ability to quickly render tabs and accordians in Flash is strong."
I am experiencing the same issue. Have you been able to resolve it? Thanks.

[Charlie]

Allan,
We were able to resolve it. I asked our server Admin about it, and he said that the issue was related to either the ISAPI filter being installed incorrectly or ColdFusion processing .cfswf files.
Charlie