Installation

With the completion of the demonstration, FlashFusion met with Simpleton's network administrator to discuss moving the application to the production server. Simpleton recently purchased a license for ColdFusion MX on Linux, so CF will need to be installed before the email application is moved over. Macromedia provides a good install script to make the move to Linux relatively simple. During the install there is also an option to install a startup script for Red Hat users. This will allow the CF services to be started when the server is booted or rebooted.

The application's development took place in a Windows environment since that's where Simpleton's developers feel most comfortable. For the most part this isn't a major issue, and many shops prefer developing Flash/CF applications on Windows and deploying to a Linux server. As the application was developed and tested on a Windows machine, FlashFusion pointed out a few things that needed to be addressed before the Linux install:

• Filenames are case sensitive.

• Apache needs to be configured to run with CF

• The filename application.cfm should be changed to Application.cfm.

These are very important points to note because many developers coming from a Windows background struggle with these issues. Addressing these issues before developing an application can save much time and frustration. FlashFusion has made sure to accommodate these issues, so the move from the test server to production should be seamless.

After the CFMX install is complete, the next task is to replicate the directory structure on the Linux machine. Since the directory structure is relative to the root directory (wwwroot) of the Web server, this relative path will be identical on both Windows and Linux.

NOTE Initially the ColdFusion MX standalone server will be used to host the application. The installation directories for the email application on Windows and Linux are:

Windows:C:\CfusionMX\wwwroot\MailClient

Linux:/opt/coldfusionmx/wwwroot/MailClient

These install paths assume that the default installation directories are chosen. The application is set to run in the MailClient directory beneath the Web root. Since the MailClient directory is referenced as a relative path in the ActionScript code, no changes are necessary. Therefore, the code will be compatible on both Windows and Linux servers, as shown in the following:

 //gatewayurlisthesameforbothWindowsandLinux gwURL="http://127.0.0.1:8500/flashservices/gateway"; NetServices.setDefaultGatewayURL(gwURL); gw=NetServices.createGatewayConnection(); //relativepaththatiscrossplatformcompatible popService=gw.getService("MailClient.Pop",this); 

The call to the Pop CFC should work on any platform since the directory structure is in place and the path to the CFCs is relative. The gateway URL will be changed to Simpleton's host name or IP address so that the application will be accessible to the outside world. Once this is in place, the application files can be moved over to the production server and everything should run without error. ColdFusion truly provides for an environment that is cross-platform compatible. Therefore, CF code written on a Windows server can be ported to Linux without much hassle as long as the standard development practices are taken into consideration.

Now that everything is in place, FlashFusion will run some tests just to make sure that everything runs as expected. This will consist of using a live email account to log in to the application and test its different features.

After CFMX and the email application were installed on Simpleton's production server, a notification letter was sent to the Simpleton executives.

The Simpleton executives were extremely pleased to hear that the install went as planned. They went ahead and notified a few clients about the application, and asked them to beta test over the weekend before the initial launch.