Introduction

This book provides you with a head start for creating interactive Web sites. You'll use your existing HTML skills and polish them further to create some real-life applications using ColdFusion Markup Language. This book will be useful if you've already worked with earlier versions of ColdFusion. At a minimum, you should have a working knowledge of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and Structured Query Language (SQL). This book explains basic concepts such as variables and datatypes in ColdFusion MX, as well as advanced concepts such as working with XML and creating ColdFusion components. This is done through a series of professional projects to make sure that you understand these concepts well.

The book starts with an overview of ColdFusion MX, giving basic information and introducing the development environment. It also explains how ColdFusion MX interacts with databases and talks about security. Security is a major issue when you're developing Web sites, and ColdFusion MX provides it extensively. Many different technologies are available today, and it's important to learn how ColdFusion integrates with other platforms such as .NET, Java, and Flash.

The next part of the book implements the concepts that were mentioned in the initial chapters of the book. In this part, several professional projects are created after proper analysis and design. Before each professional project, some relevant conceptual information is given in separate chapters. These projects are smaller versions of real-life applications. We've tried to present these case studies so that you get a feel for how the projects are done in real life. The professional projects presented in the book are just the beginning. You can work on them further to increase their scope and increase your confidence while working on different projects. Dreamweaver MX has been used as an authoring tool for creating these projects.

The professional projects in this book cover areas such as migrating from ColdFusion 5.0 to MX, managing files on a Web server through ColdFusion applications, creating search engines, creating ColdFusion components and Web services, working with XML documents, creating charts, and sending e-mails through applications. The projects demonstrate how these concepts can be applied to real-life scenarios.

Apart from the overview chapters and the professional projects, this book also includes several appendixes, providing an overview of how to create ColdFusion custom tags. You'll also learn about the scripting concepts in ColdFusion by using the <cfscript> tag. Other appendixes cover the use of Dreamweaver MX, using Java objects in ColdFusion MX, and Microsoft .NET.

To facilitate learning, this book uses specific aids such as Notes, Tips, and Cautions. Any additional or related information about concepts is covered in Notes, and Tips provide useful information or shortcuts so that you can perform tasks more efficiently. Cautions state warnings that are related to procedures or facts.