I wish CFDumps showed the file and line where the dump came from. #coldfusion that would really help at times!

This is easy if you are using ColdFusion Builder and CFEclipse!

First setup a custom Task Tag.

In ColdFusion Builder navigate to ColdFusion > Profiles > Editor > Task Tags.

Click “New”, and enter CFDUMP for your task name. I set these to ‘high’ priority.

Now when you add a cfdump tag – add a CFDUMP comment with it.

<!--- CFDUMP: Debugging --->
<cfdump var="#myVar#" top=2 label="MyDump ( myVar)" abort="true">

You can do this through a snippet or I prefer to use AutoHotkey…

;-- Wrap selected text in CFDump/CFAbort ---

; whatever hot key combo you want - I use F1
  clipboard =

  send ^c

  clipwait, 1

  If ErrorLevel = 0

  {

    clipboard = <!--- CFDUMP: Debugging --->`n<cfdump var="#%clipboard%#" top=2 label="My Dump ( %clipboard% )" abort="true">`n

    send ^v

  }

return

So I simply select my text, hit F1 and the selected text is written to my clipboard, wrapped in the comment and cfdump and then printed out to the screen.

Once your comment is in place – simply open the Tasks view in Eclipse and your CFDUMPS should appear in the list along with a column that displays what line number!

Uses a virtual “pad” to arrange windows. Use the Numpad or your own custom layout to move and resize a window to fill the appropriate section of the screen.

What is neat is that this is actually an AutoHotkey script. So to run you can either run the .ahk (if you have AutoHotkey installed) or a compiled .exe file.  This is a great example of what you can do with AutoHotkey beyond simple text replacement.

I usually stuff the .exe in Dropbox. I have a directory setup in Dropbox where I store all my useful scripts and applications. Then I create a shortcut and drop that in my Startup folder. So either at home or work I have access to the script!

WindowPad is a simple utility – by using a hotkey and your keyboard numpad you can easily manipulate windows. Either one one screen, or if you have multiple monitors, between screens. All without leaving the comfort of your keyboard. No need to stop typing, grab the mouse, find the title bar, drag. Drag again because you lost focus. Double click to maximize, etc.

The shortcuts are simple, using a hot key (Windows key) and the number pad:

• Win + Numpad 1 – Move window to lower left of active monitor
• Win +Numpad 2 – Move window to bottom of active monitor
• Win +Numpad 3 – Move window to lower right of active monitor
• Win +Numpad 4 – Move window to far left
• Win +Numpad 5 – Center window
• Win +Numpad 6 – Move window to far right
• Win +Numpad 7 – Move window to upper left of active monitor
• Win +Numpad 8 – Move window to top of active monitor
• Win +Numpad 9 – Move window to upper right of active monitor
• Win +Numpad Add = Maximize Toggle
• Win +Numpad Enter = Window Screen Move

Window Pad Shortcuts

One thing I often do is pop open a Firefox and Selenium IDE window.  To get them tiled easily I can simply do a WIN+Numpad4 and WIN+Numpad6.  I know there are Windows shortcuts to tile things but I find WndowsPad a bit more intuitive.

Win + Numpad Enter is my favorite.  Clicking that will  quickly whip a window between multiple monitors. Great when you want to focus on something but it’s on your secondary monitor.

And if you are feeling adventurous you can add your own shortcuts using the included .ahk script!

Want to learn more about tools like this?  Come see me present at cf.Objective!   I will be talking about automation, AutoHotkey and other tools than can make your life as a developer easier.

We Need More Power Captain!

One issue was my computer at work.  It is really sloooooooow. There is a lot going on under the hood when Model-Glue is reloading and rescaffolding so the faster your computer the better.

Adding some RAM helped a bit.  Installing ColdFusion/MySQL directly on the PC instead of using a VM environment helped a bit as well.

The Default Event

I’m learning Model-Glue as well as a host of all the new stuff baked into CF8 and CF9 (my last job we were stuck on CF7). So I’m doing a lot of cfdumps and experimenting which means I’m reloading the same page over and over.  Instead of leaving the default event set to the default (duh) I set it to the event I’m working on…

<!-- Default event-handler  'default' -->
<property name="defaultEvent"><value>provider.list</value></property>

So when I reload the app with index.cfm?reload=true it immediately takes me to the particular section of the application I’m working on.

But I don’t like typing so…

AutoHotkey To The Rescue

I also got tired of typing the reload URL all the time and while I could setup a bookmark or button in my browser I didn’t want to have to click on anything (mouse = bad).

So I setup an AutoHotkey script to reload for me:

!r::
Send !d
SendInput, http://localhost/myproject/index.cfm?reload=true{enter}
return

If you have been following my AutoHotkey posts you should know what this does.

For the newbies I’ll step through it:
Remember all AutoHotkey does is manipulate the keyboard so to reload Model-Glue I need to go to the address bar (ALT+D), in the script that is “Send !d“.  Then I enter my reload URL (SendInput) and hit ENTER {ENTER}.

So with a quick keyboard shortcut of ALT+R (!r) my Model-Glue application reloads and since I’ve defined my default event I end up right where I need to be! No clicking through the application to get to a particular page.

I’ll be giving my “Digging Into The Developer Toolbox” presentation on the CFMeetup!

Link To Recording

Every developer has their basic toolset – a robust IDE, source control and a good bug tracker. But what else is in your toolbox?

In this presentation I’ll explore some additional tools that can increase your productivity and allow you to concentrate on developing applications.

Some of the tools we will explore include:

• Autohotkey – save time and type less! Autohotkey can do simple text replacements and well as complex GUIs!
• Keyboard Launchers – clean up that messy desktop and stop hunting for icons!
• Virtual desktops – Now that your desktop is clean – organize your applications into task focused areas.
• Cron – replace the unreliable Windows Scheduled task with a simple to use task scheduler.
• Clipboard managers – a clipboard manager can keep a long running history of what you type so you don’t have to. and more…

All of these are free, open-source and for the most part have similar equivalents available on all three platforms – Windows, Mac and Linux.

In this presentation we will focus on Windows.

CFUnited 2010 – Digging Into The Developer Toolbox

Thanks to all that attended! If you have any questions or suggestions for new software for me to check out please let me know!

I am looking forward to seeing everyone, meeting some new people and giving my first (and last) CFUnited presentation.

I’ll be talking about all the tools I use to work smarter/less/faster/lazier…

• Learn why I favor AutoHotkey over IDE snippets…
• Learn about tools that let the computer do the hard work
• Learn how to get organized and load/start/find things faster and more efficiently

The schedule still seems to be in a state of flux but right now I’m scheduled for Friday 3:15-4:15.

I guarantee you’ll learn something if you attend and I may just have a give away or two!

Doing this in AutoHotkey was a bit more involved…

There didn’t seem to be a way to directly get the file name. After another post on the forum someone suggested I look at WinGetTitle which will get the title of the active window.  Looking at CFEclipse the title does show the file name:

Eclipse Titlebar with Path

The path was there but also some extraneous text I didn’t want.  There is probably an easier way to do this with RegEx but I went for a quick and dirty replace:

WinGetTitle, Title
StringReplace, Title, Title, % " - Eclipse"
StringReplace, Title, Title, % "CFEclipse - "

So now I had a cleaned up path but I really just wanted the file name. Turns out AutoHotkey has a SplitPath command which you can use to return various bits of the path: drive, path, filename.

My initial attempts trying this didn’t work. Then I realized since AutoHotkey was a Windows program it was confused by the path returned by Eclipse.  I did another replace to flip the backslashes:

StringReplace, Title, Title, /, \, All
SplitPath, Title, Title

And this time I got just the file name!

I was tearing my hair out (I don’t have much left!) because I kept getting extraneous characters printing out after the script ran.  After quite a bit of trial and error it finally dawned on me what was happening.

I was using SendInput in AutoHotkey to print out characters and when running this in Eclipse the autocomplete was kicking in!  So if I entered “<”  it would throw in “>”.   I tested this by running the same script in Notepad and it printed out fine.

I was a bit stumped but someone on the AutoHotkey forum suggested using the clipboard instead!!  This morning I tinkered a bit and rewrote my script to instead append everything to the clipboard and then paste it.

First we need to setup our clipboard:

clipboard =

That was easy :)   Now we can simply append items to it.  The `r`n is a line break.

clipboard = %clipboard% <!--- `r`n
clipboard = %clipboard% `r`n
clipboard = %clipboard%    %fuseDocResponsibility%`r`n
...

Then finally we can dump it back to the screen by doing a CTRL+V:

...
clipboard = %clipboard% ---> `r`n
send ^v

By using the clipboard this pastes as one item into Eclipse and bypasses the autocomplete!  The full script is below:

:*:;fd::
FormatTime, TimeString, ShortDate
SetKeyDelay, 20 ;in millisceonds
InputBox, fuseDocResponsibility, Attribute Prompt, Responsibility..., , 300, 150
If ErrorLevel = 1 ; They clicked cancel
return
Sleep, 100

clipboard =
clipboard = %clipboard% <!--- `r`n
clipboard = %clipboard% `r`n
clipboard = %clipboard%    %fuseDocResponsibility%`r`n
clipboard = %clipboard% `r`n
clipboard = %clipboard%    `r`n
clipboard = %clipboard% `r`n
clipboard = %clipboard% `r`n
clipboard = %clipboard%    `r`n
clipboard = %clipboard%    `r`n
clipboard = %clipboard% `r`n
clipboard = %clipboard% `r`n
clipboard = %clipboard% ---> `r`n
send ^v
return

To make juggling your Autohotkey scripts easier take a look at Dropbox.  I’ve been keeping more and more stuff in Dropbox lately. It serves as a simple version control system, and best of all it’s truly cross platform so I can dual-boot my laptop into Windows or Linux and access the same files!

With Autohotkey you can drop your .ahk file in Dropbox and access your shortcuts from any computer (with Autohotkey installed of course).

Autohotkey

• Autohotkey: http://www.autohotkey.com/
• Quick start: http://www.autohotkey.com/docs/Tutorial.htm
• Sample scripts: http://www.autohotkey.com/docs/scripts/index.htm

Similar tools:

• Texter
• IronAHK (Autohotkey for .net/Mono)

More resources:

• Lifehacker has quite a few Autohotkey related posts as does Wikipedia

If YOU create a useful Autohotkey script please let me know.  I am planning on a opening a section on my wiki to store and share scripts!