Railo Server is one of the quickest ways to start developing complex web applications. Widely considered as the fastest CFML (ColdFusion Markup Language) engine, Railo Server allows you to create dynamic web pages that can change depending on the user input, database lookups, or even the time of day.
Railo 3 Beginner's Guide will show you how to get up and running with Railo Server, as well as enabling you to develop your web applications with ease. You will learn how to install Railo Server and the basics of CFML as the book progresses to allow you to gradually build up your knowledge and your dynamic web applications.
Using Packt's Beginner's Guide approach, this book will guide you with step-by-step instructions, through installing the Railo Server on various environments. You will learn how to use caches, resources, event gateways, and special scripting functions that will allow you to create web pages with limitless functionality. You will even explore methods of extending Railo by adding your own tags to the server and building custom extensions. Railo 3 Beginner's Guide is a must for anyone getting to grips with Railo Server.
Chapter 1, Introducing Railo Server, gives an introduction to Railo Server and also shows us an overview of how it is a breeze to develop web applications.
Chapter 2, Installing Railo Server, describes how to install Railo Server under a number of operating systems as well as using different servlet containers.
Chapter 3, CFML Language, provides a foundation for using the CFML Language to develop sites in Railo Server. This chapter also covers object-oriented programming with components as well as functions and tags.
Chapter 4, Railo Server Administration, details the functionality in the server and web context. It also explains how different settings affect the behavior of the server and cover a number of other topics, such as Extension , Archives and Resources, and Security.
Chapter 5, Developing Applications with Railo Server, looks at how applications can be defined programmatically, the Application.cfc lifecycle, and also how components interact with the database and even looks into various caching techniques.
Chapter 6, Advanced CFML Functionality, looks at the scripting formats available in CFML, while investigating the CFScript language. It also looks at the built-in components available in Railo Server.
Chapter 7, Multimedia and AJAX, this practical chapter goes through converting and displaying video, as well as communicating between the browser and the server using the AJAX functionality of Railo Server.
Chapter 8, Resources and Mappings, describes how to use local and remote resources via the use of mappings within Railo Server. It also looks at how we can use ZIP and TAR files, using RAM as a handy resource and saving our files out in the Cloud using Amazon S3.
Chapter 9, Extending Railo Server, looks at how we can create new tags and functions for Railo Server and create an extension so that we can share our changes to the core server with other Railo Server users via our own Extension Provider.
Chapter 10, Creating a Video-sharing Application, brings together all your skills into a single application, setting up the Object Relational Model (ORM), creating security, converting your videos, and displaying your videos for everyone to use!
You can run Railo server on a PC or a Mac, under Windows, OS X, and Linux.
To edit the code snippets described in the book, you will need a text editor, such as TextMate on OS X or Textpad on Windows. As long as you are able to edit text files the choice of software is up to you.
If you want to develop your own dynamic web applications using CFML, then this book is for you. No prior experience with Railo or CFML is required, although you are expected to have some experience in web application development and the knowledge of HTML, basically, how websites work in general.
In this book, you will find several headings appearing frequently.
To give clear instructions of how to complete a procedure or task, we use:
1. Action 1
2. Action 2
3. Action 3
Instructions often need some extra explanation so that they make sense, so they are followed with:
This heading explains the working of tasks or instructions that you have just completed.
You will also find some other learning aids in the book, including:
These are short multiple choice questions intended to help you test your own understanding.
These set practical challenges and give you ideas for experimenting with what you have learned.
You will also find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text are shown as follows: " Using the <cfvideo> tag, we are able to convert to a number of formats."
A block of code is set as follows:
<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8">
onError = function(code,message){
alert(code + ' - ' + message);
}
displayTodos = function (data){
document.getElementById('taskname').value = "";
Railo.Ajax.refresh('displayTodos');
}
</script>
When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="main.css" type="text/css">
<title>Todo</title>
<cfajaxproxy bind="cfc:todo.TaskService.addTodo({taskname})"
onSuccess="displayTodos"
onError="onError"/>
<cfajaxproxy cfc="todo.TaskService"" jsclassname="TaskService">
Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
sudo vi /etc/default/jetty
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Go to Members ¦ Login and use your new username and password to log in to the website."
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