My third presentation (2 minutes) covers how to save a custom sort order from a comma-delimited list using DataMgr.
This presentation is the third in a series of short presentations on DataMgr.
Watch the presentation.
Feel free to download DataMgr and give it a try. It is free and open-source.
A just read a comment arguing against output CFCs as more difficult to maintain than Custom Tags. As this differs somewhat from my experience, I wanted to explore the idea.
In a comment to blog entry by Terrence Ryan, Sean Corfield said that he thought designers could edit Custom Tags easier than CFCs. This because they could use their WYSIWYG editors on the custom tags.
I agree if the output is limited to a small widget. If the output is the for the layout (the overall design) of the page, however, I would disagree.
My problem with using Custom Tags for layout comes from the need to have different parts of the design in different custom tags (or using an awkward "action" attribute).
Using Output CFCs allows me to have the layout in only one file - which just like an HTML file of the design (once you ignore the cffunction tags - easy to do). This is easy to edit for anyone that knows HTML. For others, you could save it as a .html file for WYSIWYG editing and back again (though I have yet to have that need).
This is far outweighed by the advantages of this approach. Among them having all of the layout in one file, the ability to easily switch between different layouts, the ability to easily switch to different output formats (PDF,Word,etc), and the ability to easily gain control over the <head> for any page.
Since I am too lazy to rehash these benefits completely, I will just point you to my article on Handling Layouts with Components. Feel free to download some example layout components as well.
Note that if you are worried about the performance implications of this approach, Terrence Ryan's blog entry covers that pretty well. Of course, he isn't using the exact approach that I am, but I think the point remains valid.
Google has just released Google Trends which allows you to see the relative number of searches for phrases over time and in different areas.
The interface is similar to Google Finance, with less interactivity. The tool doesn't provide exact numbers of searches, but does let you see the popularity of search phrases over time and by geography. You can even put in multiple search terms (separated by commas) and see these same measurements side-by-side for different search phrases.
If you look at the select boxes on the right side of the page, you will find that you can also limit the results by region and time-frame.
It looks like a really interesting tool. In a little bit of experimentation I have found that I often try to look up data for which Google doesn't have enough data to make a graph (or so they tell me).
Overall, it is a pretty nice tool (even if I haven't thought of a practical use for it yet).
Check it out.
I was recently asked how to show a record for the current user before the record for other users - in one query. Here is my solution.
My second presentation (1.5 min this time) covers switching from CFINSERT/CFUPDATE to DataMgr and some of the advantages of doing so.
This presentation is the second in a series of short presentations on DataMgr.
Watch the presentation.
Feel free to download DataMgr and give it a try. It is free and open-source.
