Building a Social Networking Site Using ColdFusion on Wheels

Screencast Series

In this screencast series, Chris Peters builds a fake social networking site and demonstrates how ColdFusion on Wheels streamlines your CFML development. He also shows how the framework makes CFML development even more enjoyable than it already is.

Episode 1: Setting up ColdFusion on Wheels

Chris Peters starts the webcast series by demonstrating how to set up ColdFusion on Wheels. He shows how to configure a data source and test that it's working.

Episode 2: Form Helpers

Chris Peters demonstrates how to bind a Wheels model object to a form through the use of form helpers. He then shows how a model object interacts with the database through the model object's save() method.

Episode 3: Object Validation and Showing Errors

Chris Peters adds data validation to the user registration form. He then demonstrates how this ties in nicely with the form helpers to show friendly errors caught by the validation.

Episode 4: Redirects and the Flash

Chris Peters finishes the "success" portion of the registration functionality by adding a success message to the Flash and redirecting the user to their home screen.

Episode 5: Object Validation

Chris Peters teaches you about more validation options and how you can add them to the registration form quickly and easily.

Episode 6: Styling Forms

Chris Peters stylizes form markup globally using a Wheels feature called global helpers. He then applies a simple style sheet in the application's default layout.

Episode 7: Authentication with Filters

Learn how to set up simple user authentication on a website by using a Wheels feature called filters.

Episode 8: Reading and Displaying a Single Record

Learn the mechanics of reading a single record from the database and displaying its data in the view. This example covers building a simple public user profile page.

Episode 9: Adding a Route for User Profiles

Creating custom URL patterns is a breeze in ColdFusion on Wheels. Learn how to build URL patterns using a feature called routes.

Episode 10: Displaying Sets of Records

Learn how to fetch multiple records from your model with findAll() and then display them to the user using ColdFusion on Wheels.

Episode 11: Custom View Helpers

Learn how to factor out logic in your view templates into custom helper functions in ColdFusion on Wheels. Keep your view templates lean and DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself).

Episode 12: Joining Models with Associations

Chris Peters demonstrates joining data together with model associations using ColdFusion on Wheels. No more need to write annoying SQL JOIN syntax!

Episode 13: Pagination

All it takes to offer pagination is two extra arguments to <code>findAll()</code> and a call to a view helper called <code>paginationLinks()</code>. Watch as Chris Peters demonstrates this powerful functionality that's sure to save you some major time.