Thanks John, I am going to think on this one some more...appreciate your response. I think I was right, this is going to be painful :-)...however, if I am going to do it once or twice, might as well try to think of a way it can be done more generally.
I will let you know what I come up with. Doug -----Original Message----- From: John Beynon [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2005 8:06 AM To: CF-Talk Subject: Re: Integrating CF applications... Hi doug, It's something i've been looking into myself. Whilst we've not built our own CMS we have a CF based commercial CMS. It identifies pages using an articleID passed in the URL so you end up with index?articleID=27 in your URLs. The existing 'plugged' in applications have made heavy use of the CMS and it's framework so they're difficult to unhook and hook into another CMS should the need arise. Also you end up with considerable amounts of logic within templates. For example, when you request articleID=27 it has an associated template, within that template the previous applications have used a cfswitch statement on an additional URL parameter, articleAction so articleID=27 default case might so a login form whilst articleID=27&articleAction=changepassword would present a change password form - etc etc. It's fine for smaller sites but when you start building enterprise level applications it all starts getting very complicated! Building applications so closely tied to the underlying CMS framework didn't appeal to me - being as my preferred framework for my applications is Fusebox4.1. So now what I've built is a CFC facade to the CMS API (which is entirely custom tag based). My applications call public methods of my facade layer which inturn call private methods which interacts with the custom tag based API. So if (and there is always a chance) the CMS is changed then i can tweak the API, unit test the CFCs and applications would still operate. I've now got a way to plug my fusebox41 applications into the CMS, they live in their own folder but pull layouts in from common include folders ( technique discussed in the MM coding guidelines doc) and utilise application.cfm files above them so they operate in harmony with the main site hope that helps, john. >Maybe I am just tired, but need some help. I have puttered around a bit, and >can't figure an easy way on this one. I am interested in figuring out how to >integrate existing applications inside each other without using frames. For >example, I have built a simple content management solution, and I want to be >able to integrate a discussion board system I have downloaded, both built in >CF, and both with separate application.cfm ...from the user's perspective, >the content management serves up the general content, but one link within >this content could trigger on the discussion board for them. For an example, >goto http://www.naturenetwork.ca/novascotia and click on "discuss" - this is >where I would like the board to appear. Another example would be to drop in >a blogging tool. Might be good to be able to pass some variables from one to >the next (use xml, or for simple applications, url variables?)... > >I know about and have developed one application in fusebox, but I don't want >to rebuild every application that has already been tried and tested - it >takes time to build a good, functional, bug free application. > >I hope I am just being thick...thoughts on how to free me from my pain? I am >dreading a long development process. > >Thanks. > >Doug ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Discover CFTicket - The leading ColdFusion Help Desk and Trouble Ticket application http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=48 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:4:193016 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
