Mark Drew (Redux)- cf_etc...

I just wanted to post a note that this morning I did a release of CFEclipse 1.3.1.6. This is a bug-fix release, and has no extra features and is geared at some specific bugs:

• 332 (File Explorer Doesn't Show Sub-Folders after upgrading to 1.3.1.5)
• 368 (Passive FTP is not enabled)
• CFEclipse has now been compiled to comply with Java 1.4 (so if you are getting odd errors about major minor versions this should do the trick)

Its a very small release but people have been complaining about the FileExplorer so I thought I would get this version out. There are no other changes, so if these issues do not affect you, you do not need to upgrade.

Jim Priest has had a a fantastic article on CFEclipse and ColdFusion Development using Eclipse published over at IBM Developer Works, It is definitely worth a read! Read it here By the way, Jim does a *LOT* of work on the CFEclipse Wiki and Trac site, keeping it up to date and he is also is the guardian at the door, keeping the little spammers at bay, so a big thanks for all his work!

It has been a while since I blogged, basically I have been so busy I forget to breathe sometimes. Anyway, the good news is that I am heading to Adobe MAX Europe in Barcelona on Sunday! I think this is going to be an awesome conference, one that I am very much looking forward to, especially since I am a MAX virgin! Apart from trying to attend as many presentations as possible on Flex and AJAX, I shall (surprise! surprise!) also be a speaker! My presentation is on using Eclipse for ColdFusion development, which is a slightly different take on my usual presentation (ok, ok, you caught me, I will be mentioning CFEclipse) as it will cover a lot more ground that I usually do! One of the important decisions that I have left now is whether I shall be doing the presentation in English or in Spanish, not sure what the rule is here? When in Rome?...

I just wanted to note down some public SnipEx server addresses that are out there just to remind myself as well as hopefully helping others:

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Hello, yes, I am back, from outer space, well, not exactly. I have taken a month or so away from development of CFEclipse and my other projects (including this blog!) which has been great. Of course one of the reasons for this has been that I have been very busy at work, and that kind of takes it out of you. This is normal for me, but the work has been rather oppressive rather than creative so my brain needed a bit of space. Some news: I shall be speaking at Adobe MAX in Barcelona in October! I am very excited about this as I shall be demonstrating not only CFEclipse but the ColdFusion Extensions for CF8 (something I love using by the way) as well as hopefully the debugging capabilities that you now have with CF8. With regards to CFEclipse, I am currently taking a bit of a hard look at features and fixes that will make it into the next version. I am working on a complete re-design of the interface, basically following the rule of making actions available (no more hidden menus etc) so that access stuff easier. Apart from that, I am looking at re-compiling and coding the plugin so its compatible with Java 1.4.x since, even though I much prefer Java 5, it seems that is the most common error that people are getting (by looking at the Trac bugs!) On a final side-note: I have started a course each week in Film Directing! I did my first class last night and its absolutely awesome! We read a number of screenplays (Thelma and Louise and Brazil being the main ones) and dissected them to get a feel for the responsibility of a Director with regards to examining and expanding on the ideas within a script. Don't worry tho, Hollywood is still safe (after all, I only have done one class so far!) Well, that is it for the moment, I hear there has been lots of exciting news in the community whilst I have been away (I havent been reading blogs or news) but I just like to state that I took this vacation away from development without consulting the ColdFusion Weekly guys, it seems they have started up again after the summer!

Last week I was delighted to be invited to do a presentation to the Cleveland CFUG. The presentation was about CFEclipse and luckily enough they recoreded the Adobe Connecto (still cant get used to that name... I didnt mind Breezo, but Connecto??) which, if you are interested, you can check out here: http://adobechats.adobe.acrobat.com/p51917266/

I just thought I would post this before people started getting worried about advances in CFEclipse over the next month or so. I have decided to do the Spanish thing and take August off. I have been working very hard in the lead up to the "conference season" as well as releasing a number of features in the meantime, on top of which I have had a very busy time at work which is actually leaving me grumpy most of the time. I dont want to loose interest in the project and I think a month apart will probably be good, as they say "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" and all that. So, this weekend I shall try and squash a couple of bugs and maybe get a release out next week and then take a break until September. I might even get good at flying now that I got Microsoft Flight Simulator!

Do you need someone to present at your CFUG? Well, I have been doing a lot of presentations lately, which can be seen over in my Presentations page, which means I have a lot of content I can present on. If you have a specific topic (including CFEclipse of course!) Why not email me with your proposal and I shall see what I can do. I am based in London, England so unless there is a nice budget to fly me out, I can also do remote presentations using Adobe Connect. I am available in the evenings mostly so let me know if you ever need an extra presenter at your CFUG or company.

Following Charlie Arehart's great list of CFEclipse blogs and resources, I thought I would mention to the world at large the new (and old) mailing lists that are available for CFEclipsers.

• CFEclipse Users: This is the main place to ask questions and provide support to people using CFEclipse
• CFEclipse Developers: This is for developers that are writing or want to write code for CFEclipse itself.
• CFEclipse Testers: This is a closed group for people that want to regularly test features of CFEclipse. Joining this group means you want to actively be a tester, so no support questions, but submissions of test results etc.
• And finally, CFEclipse SnipEx: This is a group for developers of SnipEx services. If you like SnipEx and want to talk about how to code it or integrate it, here is the place to go to.

EDIT: I forgot to mention the House of Fusion's General CFEclipse mailing list! If you are still subscribed to a group in tigris.org, then you shall soon be unsubscribed as those groups will be deleted soon.

I noticed, that even though our blurb a while back for the CFEclipse project said it was one of the top rated plugins on http://www.eclipseplugincentral.com/, our rating has dropped quite a lot. To stop this tragic state of affairs, I wonder if user's of CFEclipse would mind voting on it at the following sites: http://www.eclipseplugincentral.com/ and http://www.ohloh.net/ It would be great to give it a good ranking wouldn't it? (just a suggestion you understand)