Socialpoints

I have been using fusebox for a few years now and really like it. I have a way of doing things which has become familiar and seems to do the job, but I wonder what other patterns there are. Here is mine.
I have a layout circuit which runs as a globalfuseaction, postprocess. This handles all the basic page stuff - HTML meta tags, linked css files, javascript files and including any constant elements of the page - title, footer, navigation etc. It will also pick up and render the main content generated by other circuits that have run for the current request. The circuit.xml file for this layout circuit will handle any logic to determine alternative layouts if required (such as popup windows or pages for print).
Business logic and database access is in cfcs.
All control of flow should be visible in the circuit files which means I will have some 'if' statements in the XML. Where possible I invoke cfc methods direct from the circuit.xml. I always use XFA's for all exit points from a fuseaction. One of my aims is that you should be able to open up the circuit.xml files only and understand the application at a reasonable level without the need to delve into actual code.

I would love to hear how other people commonly use fusebox.

There is some great documentation for fusebox 5 at fusebox.org however I have always felt that a quick reference guide was needed to remind you of valid elements and attributes within circuit.xml and fusebox.xml.

These files are generated from the DTD's provided with the fusebox5 download and I think they may prove useful as a reference if you are starting out with FB5.

We have several systems under development currently. Each one was using Fusebox 4.1 as its framework. Now as the technical lead on these projects I am always cautious about introducing risk. Upgrading the framework to fusebox 5 was potentially adding risk.

In the end I decided that it was better to make the change now (fairly early in development) rather than try and do it later.

In reality there were no problems AT ALL. We literally changed the include in index.cfm to point to the fusebox5 core files instead of the fusebox4.2 core files and the job was done. All existing code ran as normal.

Since that was achieved so easily we have subsequently been enjoying the improved syntax of FB5 XML such as the nested argument tags for invoke, and also the ability to have nested ifs in the circuit.xml files.

So a big thank you to all involved in getting FB5 completed.

First off I believe in using a framework to develop our ColdFusion based applications.

Our framework of choice is Fusebox4.1 because the majority of our developers have procedural backgrounds (including me) so we understand this best.

My feeling is however that the framework should only be used if it fulfils some particular development requirements:

Read more...