Reuse makes coding easier, faster, and more manageable. We find that the same benefits are possible with the browser side of building websites. In this chapter, we will learn about the basics of custom tags through an example of skinning websites. Skins give us the ability to change the appearance of a website without the need to touch the application code running on the site. We will learn how to create and manage the look-and-feel of our website by combining CSS and content containers—technology that has become the most popular standard. We will also learn how to write and understand custom tags in ColdFusion. Custom tags have some advantages that CFC objects do not have. In this chapter, we will cover the following:
Varying forms of code reuse in ColdFusion
Passing information to a custom tag
Reuse of concepts such as skins with custom tags
Different methods of storing and accessing tags and tag libraries