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AjaxCFC is an Ajax Framework for ColdFusion from Rob Gonda. Well, my reaction after going through it was AWESOME and huge thanks to it, lately have been able to finish up a small Messaging System integrated inside one of a Rich Internet Application, Live Speed Dating.

With AjaxCFC, a generic ColdFusion Component using the facade pattern was created which contains all the methods for the Messaging System. It made it so easy for me that I had to just take care of the functionality of a single method; DWREngine._execute() with the respective arguments. This is the method which handles passing of the data and also the method calls to ColdFusion. The arguments required are also quite simple and easy even for a newbie to understand.

Looking at the method signature of the function;

DWREngine._execute(_ajaxConfig.cfscriptLocation, null, ‘CFmethodName’, args, callBackFunction);

Though you can pass multiple arguments, my preference is to use a value object instead. Let us look at some points in respect to the particular Module of the RIA which I am currently working.

1. The _ajaxConfig.cfscriptLocation is the actual path to the CFC which contains the methods I need to call for my mailing system.
2. The second argument is the script name to be executed. This argument is null most of the times.
3. The CFmethodName is the name of the method you want to call from the CFC.
4. The fourth parameter to this function is the arguments you wish to pass to the CFmethod. You can pass more than one arguments or even a value object.
5. The callBackFunction is the function in JavaScript in your CFM which will always take a single argument which is the return result you get from your CFC.

Well, the bottomline is that in order to use our CFC with the AjaxCFC framework, all I had to do was extend my CFC to the ajax.cfc which comes along with the framework.

Implementing AjaxCFC into my application, not only made things faster and easier for me but also enriched the end user experience for our module, the Messaging System. Thanks to Rob Gonda, now I am looking forward to incorporate AjaxCFC with the Model-Glue framework which I have used for Live Speed Dating.

Note:
The client side part of AjaxCFC was tackled by one of my colleague, Manaswinee. She will very soon be having an article on the same. Keep an eye on her article to get an insight on the callback functions and how the data is handled at the client side.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 17th, 2006 at 1:05 pm and is filed under Ajax, ColdFusion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.