9/16/2000 Nat Papovich – Putting It All Together Putting It All Together: Developing Web Applications Using Fusebox and Frames Presented by Nat Papovich GeoAgents.com 9/16/2000

Nat Papovich – Putting It All Together What is a Web Application?  A Web application is a collection of scripts, run from a Web server designed to perform a specific function directly for the user or, in some cases, for another application. Examples of Web applications include programs such as Hotmail, communication programs such as chat forums, contact manager systems like a Yahoo address book, and stock trading tools like Datek.

9/16/2000 Nat Papovich – Putting It All Together Why Use Web Applications?  Speed of development  Application Service Provider Model  Ease of updates and patches  Portability - establish requirements for use  Users can access from anywhere  Revenue from advertisers, not users  More…

9/16/2000 Nat Papovich – Putting It All Together WWW vs. Win32  Stateless  Server-side processing  Server response times  COM and ActiveX  Need Web access  Request-based  Centralized data  Stateful  Client-side processing  Client speed  Local system access  No Web access needed  Client initiates changes  Individualized data

9/16/2000 Nat Papovich – Putting It All Together Frames vs. Single Page  Magic display updates  Multiple processes  Fast, concise updates  Less server load  Track sessions better  The Dark Side  Users lose control  Hard to perform  Whole page reloads  More server load  Are they still there?  No target worries

9/16/2000 Nat Papovich – Putting It All Together Now You’re Convinced!

9/16/2000 Nat Papovich – Putting It All Together Quick Fusebox Review  All form and URL links go to index.cfm THEREFORE  All frame sources go to index.cfm  The frameset gets loaded via the index.cfm Fusebox =login

9/16/2000 Nat Papovich – Putting It All Together Loading the Frameset  The default Fuseaction loads the frameset.

9/16/2000 Nat Papovich – Putting It All Together The Frameset Page  Here’s a look at fra_Mother.cfm, called from index.cfm.

9/16/2000 Nat Papovich – Putting It All Together Calling the Frames  The fra_Mother.cfm frameset had frames that called the index.cfm to get their sources. Here are the Fuseactions to load the frames.

9/16/2000 Nat Papovich – Putting It All Together That’s All There Is To It!

9/16/2000 Nat Papovich – Putting It All Together Frame Buster  CFStudio’s “Frame Buster” doesn’t work.  Include this script in your main frameset page (fra_Mother.cfm). It will prevent the page from being loaded inside another frame.

9/16/2000 Nat Papovich – Putting It All Together Guarantee Framing of Frames  Add this script at the top of each page that is framed.  It will reload the master frameset around the existing frame.

9/16/2000 Nat Papovich – Putting It All Together Dynamic Frame Sources  Upgraded fra_Mother.cfm (main frameset page):

9/16/2000 Nat Papovich – Putting It All Together Cross-Frame Posting  Remember, link and form actions go to index.cfm.  The content of the form will not change during cross-frame postings.  You will have to update the page with JavaScript.

9/16/2000 Nat Papovich – Putting It All Together Multiple Framesets

9/16/2000 Nat Papovich – Putting It All Together Nested Fuseboxes and Nested Framesets  With a well-planned frame naming scheme, you can nest many framesets and frames.  The more frames you have, the cooler your application will be.

9/16/2000 Nat Papovich – Putting It All Together Hidden Frames  Keep them on the highest frameset level.  Used to auto-update other frames.

9/16/2000 Nat Papovich – Putting It All Together Dynamic Form Selects  First, populate the array in ColdFusion by defining the arrays, looping through a recordset (in this case “CmListAll”), and populating the array elements.  Do this as many times as you have select boxes.

9/16/2000 Nat Papovich – Putting It All Together Dynamic Selects Step 2  Load the select box with the first set of options.  These options are not dynamic on the page.  The onChange event for the select box runs the function to populate the second select list.

9/16/2000 Nat Papovich – Putting It All Together Dynamic Selects Step 3  When the page loads, the CF array is looped through and the matching values in the second query are built into JavaScript arrays.  The function used to load the dynamic select box chooses which JavaScript array to use.

9/16/2000 Nat Papovich – Putting It All Together Bookmarking Frame Elements  Good luck  No, seriously…

9/16/2000 Nat Papovich – Putting It All Together Bookmarking Frame Elements  Remember the “Guarantee Framing of Frames” script?  Use it to place a physical link on each frame for users to bookmark.

9/16/2000 Nat Papovich – Putting It All Together Fusebox and Frames Rule!