My First ColdBox Application
The
coldbox create app command enables you to create application skeletons using one of our official skeletons or your own. Here are the names of the common ones you can find in our Github Organization:- Default: The default app template
- Rest: A RESTFul services template
- Rest-hmvc: A RESTFul service built with modules
- SuperSimple : The bare-bones template
- Vite: The default template using VITE for asset bundling
Introduction
ColdBox Elixir
ColdBox Elixir Docs
So let's create our first app using the default template skeleton:
coldbox create app Quickstart
Here are some of the major files and directory conventions you should know about:
Directory | Convention | Mandatory | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
.vscode | Mappings and build tasks for VSCode | ||
build | Docker helpers | ||
coldbox | The framework library | ||
config | Configurations and module configurations | ||
handlers | Event handler controllers | ||
includes | i18n, JavaScript, helpers, CSS | ||
interceptors | Event driven listeners go here | ||
layouts | Application CFML layouts | ||
lib | Java libraries or third party libraries | ||
models | Model objects | ||
modules | CommandBox driven dependencies | ||
modules_app | Custom applicaiton modules | ||
tests | Your application specs | ||
views | Application CFML views |
Here are the major files you should know about:
File | Convention | Mandatory | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
.cfconfig.json | Loads the CFML Engine settings | ||
.cfformat.json | Formatting rules | ||
.cflintrc | Linting rules | ||
.env | Environment variables (Never commit) | ||
.env.example | Example env file | ||
Application.cfc | Your application bootstrap | ||
box.json | Your CommandBox package descriptor | ||
index.cfm | Front placeholder file | ||
server.json | CommandBox server control |
Now let's start a server so we can see our application running:
server start
This will start up a Lucee 5 open-source CFML engine. If you would like an Adobe ColdFusion server then add to the command:
cfengine=adobe@{version} where {version} can be: 2021,2018,2016.This command will start a server with URL rewrites enabled, open a web browser for you, and execute the
index.cfm which in turn executes the default event by convention in a ColdBox application: main.index. This is now our first runtime convention!Instead of executing pages like in a traditional application, we always execute the same page but distinguish the event we want via URL routing. When no mappings are present, we execute the default event by convention.
Tip: ColdBox Events map to handlers (cfc) and appropriate actions (functions)
Tip: The default event can also be changed in the configuration file:
config/Coldbox.cfc
Hooray, we have scaffolded our first application, started a server, and executed the default event. Explore the application template generated, which contains useful information about your application.
Tip: Type
coldbox create app help to get help on all the options for creating ColdBox applications.Let's open the handler and see the code, so open
handlers/main.cfccomponent extends="coldbox.system.EventHandler" {
/**
* Default Action
*/
function index( event, rc, prc ){
prc.welcomeMessage = "Welcome to ColdBox!";
event.setView( "main/index" );
}
/**
* Produce some restfulf data
*/
function data( event, rc, prc ){
return [
{ "id" : createUUID(), "name" : "Luis" },
{ "id" : createUUID(), "name" : "Joe" },
{ "id" : createUUID(), "name" : "Bob" },
{ "id" : createUUID(), "name" : "Darth" }
];
}
/**
* Relocation example
*/
function doSomething( event, rc, prc ){
relocate( "main.index" );
}
/**
* --------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Implicit Actions
* --------------------------------------------------------------------------
* All the implicit actions below MUST be declared in the config/Coldbox.cfc in order to fire.
* https://coldbox.ortusbooks.com/getting-started/configuration/coldbox.cfc/configuration-directives/coldbox#implicit-event-settings
*/
function onAppInit( event, rc, prc ){
}
function onRequestStart( event, rc, prc ){
}
function onRequestEnd( event, rc, prc ){
}
function onSessionStart( event, rc, prc ){
}
function onSessionEnd( event, rc, prc ){
var sessionScope = event.getValue( "sessionReference" );
var applicationScope = event.getValue( "applicationReference" );
}
function onException( event, rc, prc ){
event.setHTTPHeader( statusCode = 500 );
// Grab Exception From private request collection, placed by ColdBox Exception Handling
var exception = prc.exception;
// Place exception handler below:
}
}
The action (function) we are interested in is the
index() function.function index( event, rc, prc ){
prc.welcomeMessage = "Welcome to ColdBox!";
event.setView( "main/index" );
}
It sets a message in an incoming
prc argument and then calls a method in the incoming event argument to set a view for rendering. We will discover these arguments in the next section. For now, we need to understand that handler actions are in place of traditional CFML pages. Depending on the incoming URL route, we execute the appropriate handler and action function.There will be times when you make configuration or metadata/singleton code changes that are not reflected immediately in the application due to caching. You can tell the framework to reinit or restart the application for you via the URL by leveraging the special URL variable
fwreinit.http://localhost:{port}/?fwreinit=1
You can also use CommandBox to reinit the application:
coldbox reinit
Tip: You can add a password to the reinit procedures for further security, please see the configuration section.
Last modified 4mo ago