CFDocs
CFDocs is a community maintained CFML reference tool available at cfdocs.org. It features:
- Hosting on Amazon CloudFront CDN for fast responses around the globe. Sponsored by Foundeo Inc..
- Easy to use urls like: cfdocs.org/hash just hit /tag-name or /function-name.
- Publicly maintained on GitHub
How reference data is structured
All of the tag and function documentation are defined in json files under data/en/functionname.json function example tag example.
This makes the documentation super easy to edit and allows developers to run a local version of the site "out of the box" since no database setup is required.
Running CFDocs locally for dev or pleasure
Running CFDocs Locally
The cfdocs.org site can run locally very easily thanks to CommandBox.
- Go download CommandBox if you do not have it already.
- Download this repository and extract it to a folder, or clone it from this repository. If you are going to be making changes to the docs I would suggest you fork it, see Adam Tuttle's guide: GitHub tip for your first pull request
- Run
box server start
from Command Prompt or Terminal in the root directory.
CommandBox will start an embedded CFML server on port 8411, and you can browse to http://localhost:8411/ to view the docs.
If you don't want to go the commandbox route you can simply download it and unzip it to a web root and try it out (requires CF10+ or Lucee 4.5+), but you will probably spend more time trying to get it working than the 1-2 minutes it will take to download and learn how to use commandbox.
How to contribute
If you are interested in helping you can just copy a tag or function and write up some documentation. The documentation doesn't need to be super wordy and should not be a copy of Adobe's documentation word for word.
CFDocs.org is meant to be a quick reference so keep it short and sweet. E.g. attribute names / function arguments and one two sentence descriptions.
The easy way to edit the docs
- Browse the data/en/ folder of this repository on github and find the tag or function you want to edit.
- Click the edit button (pencil)
- Commit / Send a pull request.
The better way to edit the docs
- fork the project to your GitHub account need help? read this: GitHub tip for your first pull request
- clone it locally
- make your changes
- test it locally using commandbox (see above)
- once you are done you can send a pull request, and I'll merge it into the main repository.
Not sure what you can contribute?
We need help expanding existing tag and function documentation. Look through the reference pages till you find one needing more definitions or examples. Also see:
JSON File Documentation
{
"name":"NameOfTagOrFunction",
"type":"function|tag",
"syntax":"Tag(arg)|<cftag attr=1>",
"member":"item.memberFunction([args])",
"script":"cftag(attr=1);",
"returns":"void",
"related":[
"tag",
"function"
],
"description":"A short description that describes what the tag or function does.",
"discouraged":"Only add this key if this tag/function is discouraged by the community.",
"params":[
{"name":"funcArgNameOrTagAttributeName", "description":"What it does", "required":true, "default":"false", "type":"boolean", "values":[]}
],
"engines":{
"coldfusion":{"minimum_version":"10", "notes":"CF Specific Info Here", "docs":"http://learn.adobe.com/wiki/display/coldfusionen/function"},
"railo":{"minimum_version":"4.1", "notes":"Railo Specific Here", "docs":"http://railodocs.org/index.cfm/function/sessionrotate"},
"lucee":{"minimum_version":"4.5", "notes":"Lucee Specific Info Here", "docs":"https://docs.lucee.org/reference/functions/name.html"}
},
"links":[
{
"title":"Title of a blog entry that has good info about this.",
"description":"Description of the link",
"url":"http://www.example.com/a/b.cfm"
}
],
"examples":[
{
"title":"Name of the code example",
"description":"Description of the code example",
"code":"<cf_examplecodehere>",
"result":"The expected output of the code example",
"runnable":true
}
]
}
name
The name of the tag or function, use lowercase.
type
Either function
or tag
or listing
a listing is how categories are made, they simply contain a name
, description
, and a list of related
syntax
The basic syntax of the tag or function
script
For tags, shows how the tag would be invoked from cfscript.
member
For functions, shows the available member function syntax.
returns
The returntype of a function.
related
An array of tag or function names that are related to this item.
description
A short description of the item.
discouraged
If this key exists and has content a warning is displayed stating that the tag or function is discouraged by the CFML community.
params
Array of structures containing information about the attributes of a tag, or arguments of a function.
engines
CFML engine implementation specific info goes here, for example if it was added in CF10 and Railo 4.1 you can add that in minimum_version
if something was changed in CF11, you can add notes about what changed. The docs
key should point to a url for vendor documentation.
links
Use this to link to blog entries or other useful related content.
examples
Show example code. It is very helpful to readers to use the result
to show the expected result of the code sample when applicable. This has to be JSON, so you can to do \n
for newline, double quotes must be escaped \"
. The runnable
is a boolean that determines if the Run Code button shows up next to the example.
We have an example JSON utility that can be used to create the JSON by filling out a form.
Please see the cfdocs contributor guide for frequently asked questions.
IDE Integration
There are several CFML code editors that utilize the cfdocs repository to provide documentation within the editor.
Sublime Text
Install the CFML Package for Sublime Text 3: https://packagecontrol.io/packages/CFML the plugin will provide inline documentation when hovering the mouse over a tag or function, or when or typing code.
Visual Studio Code
Install the CFML Plugin from KamasamaK: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=KamasamaK.vscode-cfml
VIM
Requires the vim-shell plugin:
function! CFDocsSearch()
let wordUnderCursor = expand("<cword>")
execute 'Open https://cfdocs.org/' . wordUnderCursor
endfunction
command! -nargs=0 CFdocs :call CFDocsSearch()
CFEclipse
Hit F1
when the cursor is on a tag or function to be taken to the cfdocs.org doc. http://cfeclipse.org/